Die Tageszeitung 26.04.2007

On the 70th anniversary of the bombing of the Basque city Guernica by the fascists, writer Raul Zelik reminds us that the shadow of the past still hangs over the region and that terror reigns on both sides. "ETA has challenged the state frontally. District councils being shot at and the bombs placed in airports have nothing to do with the struggle for liberation. And yet the Spanish public has to understand that their state also bears responsibility for the polarisation of the violence in the Basque Country. Since the bombing of Guernica in 1937 – and long after Franco's death – the state has continued to fall back on these methods, which can equally be defined as terrorist. Today there is a historical opportunity to end the Basque conflict at last. It is easy to understand why Spanish politicians who have survived assassination attempts, are not prepared to trust ETA's avowed commitment to peace. But on the other side, it makes just as much sense that Basque left wingers, who have been the victims of torture or parapolice attacks, do not believe in Spain's democracy."


Die Zeit 26.04.2007

Peter Roos met artist Erwin Wurm, whose exhibition "The ludicrous life of a serious man" is showing at the Hamburg Deichtorhallen. "Ten years ago he lost his entire existence within a few months. Between the death of his father from cancer and the death of his mother from cancer, his wife left him, taking their two sons with her. Overnight. He was left standing in the void. Art froze on him. Confronted by so much pain, his friends fled, the therapists he sought were useless crutches. He had always vehemently denied the idea that suffering, insanity and art had something in common, branding it 19th century. But suddenly, after this black year, this impulse: out of this misery grew a One Minute Sculpture." See our feature on Erwin Wurm.


Frankfurter Rundschau 26.04.2007

Right-wing extremism researcher Volker Weiss has noticed signs of a German neo-Nazi openness towards Islamic discourse. "At demonstrations of militant Islamists, it is not uncommon to find NPD clientele between the Palestinian and Hisbollah flags. The NPD has understood that it can share a denominator with the Islamist regime in certain questions. Indeed, the open letter of the Iranian President Ahmadinejad to the German government with its comments on 'certain global powers and special groups' hit a familiar note with the neo-Nazis. Anti-Semitism and historical revisionism breed alliance."

Hans-Klaus Jungheinrich is not entirely happy with what he saw at the premiere of Christoph Schlingensief's production of Wagner's "Flying Dutchman" at the 11th annual Amazon Opera Festival the Brazilian city of Manaus. "There seems to be no end of chaotic moments in which opera cognescenti had to ask themselves where on earth the singers could be, and those less in the know could only sigh: who's that singing again? ... In Manaus it certainly seemed that the Germans at the premiere had appreciated Schlingensief's style more than the locals. Certainly Daland's appearance as a Catholic bishop under his dais offered local audiences some comfort. But where on earth are the sailors? In their place there is nothing but barbed wire, watchtowers and the swarming throng of extras, dwarves, disabled people, and children, the Felliniesque folk of Schlingensief's world."


Süddeutsche Zeitung 26.04.2007

"German theatre is a pigsty where the people spend their time puking, pissing and drooling. Or at least that's what last year's debate about 'blood and sperm' theatre would have had us believe," comments Christine Dössel, theatre critic and juror at this year's Theatertreffen in Berlin. "If you believe reports, our theatre is home to barbarous, berserk directors living out their perverse obsessions and bathing their actor-minions in blood, shit and sperm, and where defenceless critics have their notepads torn from their hands (more here). But even at the time this alarmism was nothing more than threadbare. And one look at the plays selected for this year's Theatertreffen, which starts on May 5, shows it's a thing of the past. What's all this talk of a 'theatre of disgust' (Ekeltheater)? 'Theatre of luxury' (Edeltheater) would be the better term for the unmistakable tendency to glamour, entertainment and elegance reflected in the ten most 'noteworthy' theatrical productions selected this year."


Neue Zürcher Zeitung 26.04.2007

Sonja Margolina looks back on the Russian presidency of Boris Yeltsin, and explains why she soon started to doubt Yeltsin's democratic intents: "On October 4, 1993, Yeltsin had tanks fire on the beseiged White House, and 140 people were killed. Most democrats were firmly on Yeltsin's side, they feared the return of totalitarianism and reprisals. The red-brown parliament was a pretty slimy group of thugs, but Yeltsin's coup was for me like a birth defect, that would weigh down the embryonic Russian democracy with a severe disability."