Die Zeit 05.10.2006

"They are old before their time, they are overly mature, they're everything that you find in the dictionary under precocious. They are the latest discovery in American literature: American geeks," concludes Georg Diez, writing about the new generation of American writers, among them Jonathan Safran Foer, Marisha Pessl (more) and Benjamin Kunkel (more). "He sits in his New York apartment in Chelsea, behind him on the wall hangs a blue butterfly in a glass box, on the floor there are books, of course one by Nietzsche. 'My next book will be different,' he says. 'More serious.' 'Are they not serious enough already?' he laughs and his eyes narrow, as though he detects criticism. 'Nietzsche once said that Jesus, if he had aged, would have gotten funnier. Hesse refers to that as well, as a matter of interest. So there is a hope that I'll relax more, open up.'"


Neue Zürcher Zeitung 05.10.2006

The Lenbachhaus in Munich had its rooms re-designed for the Blauen Reiter exhibition showing works by Franz Ackermann, Thomas Demand, Olafur Eliasson and Katharina Große. Birgit Sonna enthuses: "The most elementary is Olafur Eliasson's engagement with the discourse of the White Cube. Instead of the standard titan white, he uses what used to be the most common whitewash for walls, in a greyish chamois. There was no titan white before World War Two; it only became standard due to the economic dictates of the American paint maker Dupont Chemicals, which made it number null on the colour scale. For that reason, among others, exhibition rooms the world over look the same. But the trick of Eliasson's purist space is the control point on a milk glass ceiling which, via the Internet, generates light from specific geographic locations at different times of day. Thus Eliasson responds to Kandinsky's demand that the artist should view the pictures in his studio at different times of the day and at twilight."

Writer Alena Wagnerova (more) honours the seventieth birthday of Vaclav Havel. "In his life, Vaclav Havel, a man of the theatre, was constantly confronted with new roles. The child of an upper-class Prague family, he was at various times and sometimes synchronously: son, brother, chemical lab assistant, friend, soldier, illuminator, director's assistant, dramatist, student, poet, critic, lover, husband, essayist, playwright, high-flyer, dissident, helper, speaker for Charter 77, prisoner, moral authority, citizen and president. But above all, he remained a decent person."


Die Tageszeitung 05.10.2006

Dirk Knipphals considers something that has rarely been subject to consideration: the "official opening event of the Frankfurt Book Fair." He was struck by the speech made by foreign minister Frank Walter Steinmeier. "Having praised the country of focus, India, as the largest democracy of the world – as the situation demanded – the foreign minister took up the theme of the importance of culture. And while one has the impression from the previous red-green government that everything that can be labelled culture is great, Steinmeier mentions that culture in Germany can also be used as a means of exclusion. A simple, historically irrefutable thought. And yet, much is changed once articulated. For example, it is then no longer possible to bandy about the terms cultural nation and cultural identity, as was the case under the former cultural minister of state Christina Weiss... The speech can be understood thus: there is no readily identifiable 'German' culture."


Süddeutsche Zeitung 05.10.2006

Are we at it again? Reinhard J. Brembeck describes the decision by a Spanish village to forgo their drastic celebrations to mark the 500th or so anniversary of the Catholic Reconquista. "At village festivals in the Mediterranean province of Valencia they enjoy re-enacting fierce battles between the Christians and the Moors. Take Beneixama, for example, where they usually celebrate the victory by setting off fireworks in the head of a Muhammed dummy. In Bocairent they go so far as to hurl the Muhammed dummy from a tower and then, again, the Prophet's skull is blown up to frenetic cheers from the crowd." The fact that we'll be seeing less and less of these sorts of events in the future isn't so much to do with Islamists, according to Brembeck, or even about betraying tradition. "For a few years now the country has evidently begun bidding farewell to many of its archaic and gruesome festivals."


Der Tagesspiegel 05.10.2006

Feridun Zaimoglu is upbeat in a discussion with Caroline Fetscher and says that "the three tribes", the east Germans, west Germans and foreigners are getting along quite well. Naturally there is cause for concern. "Homegrown white trash is eating away at contemporary society – just think about Clemens Meyer's novel 'Als wir träumten' (whilst we were dreaming) – and so is the ethnoproletariat in the suburbs. For years I've watched how swathes of German-born Turks have drifted into these groups. The face of the social enemy is changing, the 'Muslim' is now ethnicised, he's the violent little surburban criminal. This is an area which I keep an eye on, because I'm interested in places which are severed from society. This phenomenon is all about poverty and I want to slap that on the Christian and Social Democratic politicians' foreheads. There's enough of them who mean well but whip up hysteria about ethnicity, talking heads who think they know about the world but have no idea what they're on about."