Süddeutsche Zeitung, 27.09.2005

On the literature page, Dutch author Cees Nooteboom pays tribute to Don Quichote, whose author Cervantes is an obligatory reference for every author, he writes. "And my own Don? I looked for him in Madrid, at Cervantes' grave which no longer exists, and at his so-called statue across from the Cortes, where the person who must have written the book stands, someone extinguished by his own creation like Shakespeare with 'Hamlet' and 'King Lear'. And I looked for him in that cellar in Argamasilla where Cervantes thought up – or didn't think up – the woman who never existed but whose house really stands in El Toboso. I'm sure on this point, because I was there, I saw her bed and kitchen, the real bed of an invented woman. And finally I looked for him by the windmills, which were of course giants."

Looking at Jean Nouvel's extension of the Museo Nacional Reinsa Sofia in Madrid (3D model), Holger Liebs is reminded of James Bond and Stealthbombers. "Standing in the new museum courtyard where Roy Lichtenstein's sculpture 'Brush Stroke' (something like this) stands – a five metre high, completely plastic signature of the artist – one sees primarily Nouvel's light effects. Cut into the flying roof are many quadratic angled shafts, which create alleys of light that fall on the shaded square, almost patronising – like the utopian dungeon pictures of Piranesi (example), the 'Carceri d'Invenzione' (1745), with its huge underground labyrinths, in which a ray of light is always worked into the top as a symbol of desire."


Die Tageszeitung, 27.09.2005

Reviewing the reader "Porno-Pop", Robert Defcon fails to understand all the fuss people are making about the 'pornoisation' of pop: "The hypothesis of an escalating trend of 'more and more turn-ons, harder and harder', to which the book 'Porno-Pop' owes its existence, sounds at times somewhat Protestant and tendentious. The simple fact is the business of lust has changed, the kicks and fetishes have shifted ground. Forty years ago at rock concerts you would see some people fainting, screaming and crying. Today at pop, rap and electronic events you see – among other things – the turn-ons."

Ronald Berg visited the exhibition "Metabolism and Symbiosis", featuring the Japanese architect and philosopher Kisho Kurokawa in the Deutsche Architektur Zentrum (DAZ) in Berlin. In the 1960s, Kurokawa was one of the founders of the metabolism movement in architecture, and remained faithful to its principles long after it fell out of favour following the World Expo in Osaka in 1970, convinced that "the planet will not endure the western model of horrendous energy use and garbage-making consumption". The Berlin exhibition is a rich sample of the 100 works that Kurokawa has completed around the world in the last forty years. "For Kurokawa there is no either-or. This has its roots in Japanese Buddhism. In Kurosawa's architecture, the spaces between serve to moderate the opposition between in and out, between the public and the private. In the 'Huge Cube' of the International Convention Centre in Osaka (2000), for example, the public passageway in the building is planted with trees. Another very Japanese aspect of Kurosawa's buildings: the middle is empty. There is no centre and no hierarchy in its parts."


Die Welt, 27.09.2005

Protestant bishop Johannes Friedrich explains why it will be impossible for his church to take part in a new inter-confessional translation of the Bible: "In 2001 a Vatican briefing appeared bearing the title 'Liturgiam authenticam', setting strict guidelines on Catholic Bible translations into the German vernacular. The translation should not be done from the Greek or Hebrew language of origin, but from the Latin Neo-Vulgata. It must reflect the sound Catholic doctrine. And it may not make use of language which is reminiscent of non-Catholic Christian usage. Thirty years ago these guidelines didn't exist."


Frankfurter Rundschau, 27.09.2005

Elke Buhr is dissatisfied with the new arrangement of the Flick collection "Fast nichts" (almost nothing) in Berlin's Hamburger Bahnhof. Friedrich Christian Flick's collection of contemporary art has been on display at the Hamburger Bahnhof for a year and caused much controversy, the owner's grandfather having been one of the main suppliers of armaments to the Nazis. "One can't do consistent thematic exhibitions and be a showcase for private collections at the same time; one should seek out the appropriate works from their respective donors, as is done in serious museum exhibitions. That would avoid the embarrassment of having to defend a show on minimalism - for example – without a single work by Donald Judd."


Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 27.09.2005

Is a civil war looming in Lebanon? Following the attack on the Christian journalist May Chidiac, Souad Mekhennet visits the country and depicts the unsettling conditions of his research. "'You should be careful' is the advice of the Lebanese colleagues. 'The greatest crime here is to be searching for the truth.' The sentence sinks in. Our driver waits in the car, even if the meeting lasts for hours. He'd rather not go because he doesn't know what might happen. One should avoid the obvious way to the hotel, as a rule, one should cover one's traces. It doesn't seem any less dangerous here than in Iraq these days."