Thorsten Brinkmann is a passionate collector of everything that is bulky, ageing, and somewhat musty. A book now offers the first overview of the Hamburg artist?s work....
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Frankfurter Rundschau, 15.02.2006
The paper dedicates two articles to the poet Heinrich Heine, who died 150
years ago. Ina Hartwig describes him as the
"wittiest, most serious, and most undaunted
writer in the German
language." German Studies expert Manfred Schneider is highly sceptical
of the "reconciliation" between the Germans and their poet, who "ruffled many a post-Stalinist
feather" during
his
popularisation in the seventies. "Only since the Germans learned that it is an art
to talk as art demands, since they became familiar with
the
paradoxes of language and the world, since they found a foothold
in
the language of the modern, can they send their children to schools named after Heine."
Der Tagesspiegel, 15.02.2006
Der Tagesspiegel publishes a letter of solidarity signed by a long list
of German cartoonists for their colleague Klaus Stuttmann, who has been
receiving death threats since his drawing was published in this paper on
February 10. After the furore over the Muhammad cartoons, now it seems
even the Iranian football team is too holy for mockery. "It shows what
a dangerous path we're on, if we just sit back and watch while the taboo
zone for satire
and expression of opinion is steadily extended according
to political calculation and interests. As cartoonists, it is our duty
to comment on all problems and conflicts which affect the public of
which we ourselves are a part, whether they be political,
social or cultural. And in doing so, we use the tools which define the
very nature of caricature: criticism, polemic, exaggeration and
irony. Were the pressure from outside or precautionary self-censorship
to result in our feeling compelled to make ever more concessions in our
choice of topic or means of expression, we and the medium caricature
would soon disappear completely."
Die Welt, 15.02.2006
Sociologist Wolfgang Sofsky comments
on the cartoon conflict and the angry protests in the Islamic world:
"The actions may come at the right time for unloved dictatorships, but
the effect of a historical event must not to be confused with its
cause. The crowds are by no means after democratic freedom. In all the
excitement they've simply mistaken a Western embassy with their own
interior ministry. The impulse they are acting on goes back much
further than the current conflict. What the pious masses really
want is to get hold of their unbelieving sworn enemies. They want to
ritually butcher and burn them and they have the entire West in their
sights. The sole freedom they are after is the freedom to kill." He adds: "The pious are generally less taken by holy anger than the half-believers. Theorems, maxims, ceremonies and taboos are but the mausoleum of a religion."
Kai Lührs-Kaiser is taken with Alexander von Pfeil's staging of Richard Strauss' "Arabella", which premiered at Berlin's Deutsche Oper on Sunday, especially with the female cast: "When the stars cancel, it's the chance for the understudies to show what they can do. After years as a rather grey little mouse, Michaela Kaune is now strutting her stuff." The result is a cut above: "In Berlin the Deutsche Oper generally serves up a capital mix of faint-heartedness and megalomania. An overbearing artistic director has nothing to say – and says it publicly. One of Berlin's major theatres coquettes with the idea of doing away with the theatre. Thank goodness the women, and guest conductor Ulf Schirmer, have enough verve to save the day."
From the Berlinale...
At the Berlin International Film Festival, everyone's talking about British director Michael Winterbottom's "The Road to Guantanamo".
"The road to the Golden Bear leads through Guantanamo," proclaims Hanns-Georg Rodeck in Die Welt. "'The Road to Guantanamo' is the director's greatest masterpiece to date, the best of that specific Winterbottomesque way of filmmaking which, one could say, emotionalises with facts."
In the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung,
Andreas Platthaus is not happy with the blend of fiction and
documentary in the film. "A feature that pretends to be a documentary
is called a 'mockumentary', because it consciously misleads. But Winterbottom's film is something else. You could call it a 'fuckumentary', because it couldn't care less about the separation of the two genres."
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