Die Zeit, 18.08.2005

"The worst reviewers are the ones at the New York Times," says writer Philip Roth – they all misunderstood his most recent novel. In an interview with Sacha Verna, Roth explains what the "The Plot against America" is really about: the experience of history. "History gallops into you in your living room like a crazy horse. You are completely helpless. The Roth family in my novel takes this helplessness to the point of desperation. This can happen to any one of us. In principle, one must be happy for every moment that history leaves us in peace."

The architects Meinhard von Gerkan and Volkwin Marg speak in an interview with Hanno Rauterberg about the horror of modern squares, the asynchronism of architecture and their plans for the Chinese city Lingang, which they are designing for 800,000 people. "We'll put a lake in the centre, which will never be filled up, put the cultural buildings on a few islands and put the top real estate on its shores. Everyone will have the same situation, everyone will look out at a collective middle."

Thomas Groß tries to gauge how dangerous the Berlin horror-rappers Bushido, Sido and Konsorten really are. His conclusion: "They grew up in an environment in which all conflicts were resolved among themselves. In cases of doubt, the one with the biggest mouth maintained the upper hand. Or the one with the tougher cousin. The threatening potential that develops among the majority of this culture from below has less to do with obscene language than the uncertainty of whether the values of the future are being generated here. One doesn't know what will come next in the times of Hartz IV and Alg II (the new and reduced unemployment insurance packages – ed).


Frankfurter Rundschau, 18.08.2005

Political author Norbert Seitz writes that the nomination of current Bundestag vice-president Norbert Lammert as Minister of State for Culture in CDU chancellor candidate Angela Merkel's shadow cabinet makes three things clear: "First, that Merkel is well advised to put cultural affairs in the hands of a consensus-oriented politician, rather than handing it over to FDP leader Guido Westerwelle, with all his neurotic hot air about his image. Secondly, that a preliminary decision has been taken to leave cultural affairs as they are, with a department of culture and a minister of state, and not create a ministry of culture. Thirdly, with Lammert, Merkel puts the accent on continuity of cultural policy, knowing full well that there is no majority for conservative crusades against the SDP-Green Party precedent – despite the current Ratzinger boom and Peter Hahne's bestsellers."


Berliner Zeitung, 18.08.2005

At the height of the Catholic World Youth Day in Cologne which, despite its name takes place all this week, philosopher of religion Thomas Brose attempts to explain the success of the Catholic Church today: "The Catholic Church has relied on its traditional strengths: not just soberly passing on faith like a dry account, but dramatising it and making it come alive. And that seems to be exactly what is called for at present, as Christoph Türcke says in his book 'Die erregte Gesellschaft' (the agitated society). Türcke sees a new imperative in these agitated times, in which individuals must make themselves sensorially perceptible to others. 'Not being perceived means being outside-the-pale, and being outside-the-pale means living death.' For that reason, people of all ages send text messages and e-mails, and film and photograph the world, to continually reassure themselves of their own existence."


die tageszeitung, 18.08.2005

Actor Daniel Brühl, son of a Spanish mother and a German father, is now shooting a film with director Manuel Huerga about the anti-Franco fighter Salvador Puig Antich (more here), who was executed in 1974. It was not difficult to find out about Antich, says Brühl in an interview. "During the shoot, people on the street would ask what we were doing. Many of them said: 'Yeah, I know who that is.' Suddenly everyone knew him, and of course they were all on his side – although when he was in prison, nobody got off their butt to do a thing. In Spain, the past is in the air. Everyone over 40 experienced it directly. My father knew about Salvador Puig Antich because my uncle was a journalist and had reported on the Burgos trial. It's a big advantage that nowadays you can ask anyone how things were back then."


Spiegel Online, 18.08.2005

Artist Gerhard Richter speaks about beauty as a remedy for decay, his artistic working through of his family history, and the inflated prices of his own paintings. "At first it's nice to hear of such high sums; at the same time it's horrifying. Most importantly, because it's the wrong motivation for work. When I'm in a bad mood, I even take this success as a sign that the times are rotten, that the buyers understand nothing about art, that I may have scammed them, and that they have paid way too much. And they are: as a rule, they're paying way too much for art. There is a complete lack of balance between the value and relevance of art and the absurd prices that are paid for it."


Kulturpolitik

Germany's cultural poobahs – politicians and lobbyists - gathered in Berlin's Akademie der Künste to discuss the state of the arts in Germany. The journalists present were not amused. "This is how one imagines an embarrassing parody on the much avowed dialogue between spirit and power," writes Peter Laudenbach in the Tageszeitung. "The culture lobbyists on the podium achieved a phraseology-output that even Antje Vollmer (from the Greens) couldn't beat. The longer one listened to them, the more one had the sense that the subsidy culture produces a mentality mix of self-justification, grumbling and money-greed couched in moral nonsense."

Thomas Medicus writing in the Frankfurter Rundschau was most appalled by the culture producers. While most of the politicians demonstrated some degree of competence, Art Academy director Adolf Muschg, theatre director Ivan Nagel and composer and conductor Udo Zimmermann "broke out in a heart-rending lament of gimme-more thinking. 'State, state, state' clamoured Muschg, more social democratic than social democracy itself. (...) This trio's endless wailing lead one to conclude that no social group is as completely convinced as these culture producers that their particular interests are generally agreed to represent a collective good."