Die Welt 28.02.2009

The esteemed painter, sculptor and long-standing Rector of the Düsseldorf Art Academy, Marcus Lüpertz, recently came under criticism from Hilla Becher for neglecting photography. In conversation with Tilman Urbach he explains why: "Photography is becoming more about entertainment, cabaret, circus. It's moving towards – and I say this with all respect – meretriciousness. It's going to have to fulfil its vast entertainment potential, but these are all things which transport photography away from art. In contrast to painting, photography has no surface, it has only content. It has mood, it has tension, it has perplexity. These are honourable criteria, no question about it. Photography comes in vast formats. But this will be its ruin: it has devastating technical potential."


Neue Zürcher Zeitung 28.02.2009

The Emirates will have to downscale their cultural construction programme rather dramatically, reports Jan-Aslak Stannies, who met a man who should know: Michael Schindhelm, abandoned ship as director of the Opera Foundation in Berlin when the budget was slashed and now, as a culture functionary in Dubai, is having to face the poverty of the oil sheiks. "Around 50 buildings were due to be built by 2015 in the estuary area to create the cultural pearl of Dubai. There is now a giant question mark hanging over the entire project. 'All cultural infrastructure projects which have not reached an irreversible state of development have been put on ice, without exception,' was how Michael Schindhelm summed up the situation. The opera house, the Middle Eastern Art Museum, the Prophet Mohammed Museum, the cultural pavilion which was being developed together with Rem Koolhaas – everything is being delayed."


Neue Zürcher Zeitung 02.03.2009

Michael Gogos visited Küstendorf, a tiny mountain village in Serbia where Serbian film director Emir Kusturica plans to save cinema from the evils of Hollywood: "Küstendorf recently staged its second film festival featuring filmmakers from around the world. Last year Peter Handke was on the jury and this year he also returned for the festival. For Kusturica, the best films today come from Asia, particularly from small nations like Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, which have no real film tradition of their own. He has also opened a film school where he educates these young filmmakers in the old style of European auteur films. Which explains Jim Jarmusch's recent visit. It would seem that this Serbian backwater, what Handke called 'Europe's corner of shame', is out to become a breeding ground for anti-globalization avant-garde art. Here in this 'reconstructed home', as Kusturica calls it, 'Hollywood's pure poison' cannot infiltrate."


Süddeutsche Zeitung 05.03.2009

In Tuesday's spectacular urban planning debacle, construction work in Cologne caused the city's historical archive to collapse into a metro tunnel (news story). In an interview, the Medieval historian Johannes Fried explains the historical sources that were housed in the archive and what their loss means: "The Cologne City Archive is – was?- one of the largest in Central Europe. In Germany there are two remaining archives of a comparable size in major international trade cities, namely Lübeck and Nuremberg. The archives in Frankfurt and Hamburg were destroyed, one in WWII, the other in the great fire of Hamburg in 1842." In a second article Stefan Koldehoff lists the most important recent additions to the archive – namely the literary remains of Heinrich Böll, Vilem Flusser und Rolf Dieter Brinkmann.


Die Zeit 05.03.2009

Even after the fatal car accident of its beloved governor, Jörg Haider, Carinthia is still a "political blot on the landscape" that is "broken by its own stupidity," writes Eva Menasse. "From a distance it might look some form of bizarre regional slapstick, the death cult that is somehow touching and the embarrassing jokes, which are too intellectually inferior to merit the term 'racist'. But in fact Carinthia is an experiment in cancelling European democracy, and it's almost completed. Yes, Carinthia, with its exquisitely mountains and lakes, its cordial people and its delicious dumplings, so adored by the Germans as a holiday destination, is an ethical, moral and political catastrophe."

In an interview with Gerhard Haase-Hindenberg, Egyptian jurist and preacher Suad Saleh describes a special form of Islamic feminism. As one of the first women to study at Cairo's Al Azhar University, she obtained the right to issue fatwas – for example, the death sentence against Mohammed Hegazi and his wife for their conversion to Christianity: "If someone converts to Christianity - or vice versa – without causing a disturbance in the society, that's his right. The death sentence stems from the social unrest he caused. Mohammed Hegazi used the media to declare his conversion to Christianity publicly, and in doing so, he attacked Islam."


Achgut.de 06.03.2009

The broadcaster ZDF has co-financed the 60th birthday celebrations for the Minister President of Rheinland-Palatinate, Kurt Beck, who was also the chairman of ZDF's board of directors for many years. The blog Achse des Guten (axis of good) quotes a letter from ZDF to a viewer who had asked for more information: "Originally, ZDF had considered honouring the longstanding chair of its board of directors with a special event that would give the executive management, the members of the ZDF supervisory board, as well as the staff the opportunity to show their reverence for Kurt Beck. The minister president made it clear that personal gifts were not desired and that the expenditure for the reception should be kept within acceptable proportions. For that reason, the government of Rheinland-Palatinate and ZDF agreed to host an event together. Indeed ZDF is essentially funneling its limited contribution to this event into technical-organisational support as well as a cash contribution." (And what form did their reverence take? Did they kiss his ring?)