Die Welt 24.04.2007

The paper prints the acceptance speech by Emel Abidin-Algan for the Lutheran prize "Das unerschrockenen Wort" (the undaunted word - info in German). The prize, which is awarded biennially, honours "groundbreaking, forward-looking reflexion" in matters of faith. Abidin-Algan shot to fame when she stopped wearing a headscarf, a move which had particular significance as her father was founder of the German branch of Milli Görüs, 'The National Vision', considered a radical Islamic group. In her speech she tells how she learned to understand the Koran in its historical context: "Today we would describe the prophets as God's PR men, people who did a fine job, bearing in mind the time they did it. They managed to tackle and do away with social grievances, making use of the very best in communicative competences. They were honest and authentic, and had their messages first hand, straight from the boss. Without the people's trust they would have had no success whatsoever. The Islam of the Prophet Muhammad was practical, suitable for daily use. That is, it was oriented to the here and now, without getting all to caught up with religious symbolism." See our feature "Kicking the headscarf habit" by Emel Abidin-Algan.


Süddeutsche Zeitung 24.04.2007

Jörg Königsdorf praises Barrie Kosky for his staging of Christoph Willibald Gluck's "Iphigenia in Tauris" at the Komische Oper in Berlin, which premiered on Sunday. The play was generally expected to be a scandal as it features a chorus of naked pensioners. "Right at the beginning Barrie Kosky slips in a reference to the torture cells of Abu Ghraib. It's the production's very tightness that prevents this from being at all cheap or hackneyed. The bruised and beaten man's body that swings from the ceiling during the graceful 3/8 time at the beginning of the opera not only turns the short idyll into a haunting scene, it also embodies the last 15 years of Iphigenie's services at the slaughter alter, as well as the topicality of the impending opera."

Gallerist Dagrun Hintze reports on her unexpectedly underwhelming experience in the empty New Contemporary section at the Art Cologne. "Nobody comes here any more, they're all in Dusseldorf, which seems to have been the fair to be at this year. One hears rumours of prominence, champagne and hot dogs by the metre, a cool stand-design of a trapezium grid surrounded by a wall of mirrors. The guests, they say, are far more elegant than in Cologne, but they all look the same. And so I drowned my sorrows in prosecco together with the charming people from the next-door stand from Warsaw, and we got so hysterical and silly that we ended up fencing with baguettes."


Frankfurter Rundschau 24.04.2007

In the Fondazione Prada in Milan, Sandra Danike was suitably impressed by "On Otto", a film project by German artist Thomas Rehberger, for which he managed to win over the likes of Kim Basinger, Willem Dafoe and Danny DeVito to sit for an hour and a half in an empty cinema acting as silent spectators. "'On Otto' is a film made backwards. The production steps were taken in reverse order: once Rehberger had designed his film title and poster, a number of hand-picked experts came up with the fitting title sequences and credits. Then followed sound, music, editing, camera, actors, costume design, set, storyboard, script. The sole specification for all involved was to react to the extant material."