Kultur Magazine 22: 2011 by Goethe-Institut Australia

kultur magazine of the Goethe-Institut in AustraliA edition 22 JUNE 2011

04: The Mad Square: Modernity in German Art 13: 10 Years: Festival of German Films 20: Bookmarks: Voices from Elsewhere 26: CityScapes 28: WILLKOMMEN UND ABSCHIED 31: CALENDAR OF EVENTS

Herzlich Willkommen This latest and new-look edition of our magazine will take you back in time: To Germany in the roaring 20s, where we learn more about the Mad Square, the links between Bauhaus and ‘our house’, the role of color in buildings and the challenges of living in a world heritage site. We will also gain insight into WWI camps in Australia — and finally query how relevant those turbulent times still are for our lives today. We also look back on 10 years of the Festival of German Films and encounter German writers with more than one perspective to life and their own literature. And finally: we connect cities, meet the winner of our Berlin competition and ask you ‘to tell us all about your German-Australian sites’. I hope you will enjoy this edition of kultur. Your feedback is always welcome. Herzliche Grüße — on behalf of everyone at the Goethe-Institut Australia.

Modernity in German Art 02 The Legacy of Weimar

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Hsu-Ming Teo

The mad square Jacqueline Strecker

BilderStreit

Carla Schulz-Hoffmann 08

Neues Bauen International Karin Kirsch

Bruno Taut — Berlin Architect Winfried Brenne

The Enemy at Home Nadine Helmi

10 YEARS: FESTIVAL OF GERMAN FILMS

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Rewind 10 Years Peter Krausz

A Decade of Revival? Hanns-Georg Rodek

Dreams in 3D Wim Wenders

Goethe and Baader — European Shooting Star

Alexander Fehling

BOOKMARKS: VOICES FROM ELSEWHERE

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Klaus Krischok Director

‘Going Local’, Old French Villa by To Van Nga (Saigon)

magazine of the Goethe-Institut in AustraliA edition 22 JUNE 2011

Judith Zander

Handwritten — Treasures from Berlin in Canberra

Dorpat

Dagmar Leupold

Which Myth Writes Me? Zafer Senocak

berlin dayz 2010 25

Berlin IN MELBOURNE

2010 German-Australian Arts Festival

CITYSCAPES

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Cityscapes — Tales from the invisible City

kultur

Yoko Tawada

Writer in Residence

City extends to million and million Yesterday Some neighbors gone Left deserted villa As a bad lover Left an awaken beauty waiting for the dead They wait for the land price to climb up again

Abenteuer der deutschen Grammatik

My Berlin Experience Natalie Mills

WILLKOMMEN und ABSCHIED

Klaus Krischok and Arpad Sölter

FAR AWAY SO CLOSE German life and history in Australia

Competition: Show us your German-Australian site!

CALENDAR OF EVENTS

acknowledgments publisher www.goethe.de/australia • Goethe-Institut Australia SYDNEY 90 Ocean Street, Woollahra NSW 2011 Ph 02 8356 8333 Fax 02 8356 8314 Melbourne Level 1, 448 St Kilda Road, Melbourne VIC 3004 Ph 03 9864 8999 Fax 03 9864 8988 editor Klaus Krischok, klaus.krischok@sydney.goethe.org coordinators Klaus Krischok, Michaela Bücheler, Claudia Kühn • Views expressed by the contributors are not necessarily endorsed by the Goethe-Institut. No responsibility is accepted by the publisher for the accuracy of information contained in the texts and advertisements. design and artwork Torkos Ploetz Design, Melbourne images The Goethe-Institut has taken every possible care to secure clear copyright permission for all images published here. Any enquiries to the editor. front cover Photo by Daniel Boud, courtesy Sydney Opera House, audience watching Pina on 17 April 2011.

02:

The Legacy of Weimar Hsu-Ming Teo

The Weimar Republic was one of the most thrilling and tragic European experiments in democracy in the 20th century. Birthed out of the chaos of war, defeat, and revolution, the Republic endured national humiliation, coup attempts, hyperinflation, and partial military occupation. Yet it managed to achieve a measure of stability and international acclaim for its cultural innovation, only to collapse into dictatorship after the economic crisis of the 1930s brought Adolf Hitler to power. Germany was in a state of collapse in late 1918. Allied forces were pushing the German army steadily eastwards across France to Germany’s own borders. Within Germany, poverty, inflation, food shortages and increasing discontent over the war resulted in a dangerously volatile situation. When the German Supreme Command attempted to resume a naval war with Britain in October, sailors and workers at the naval ports of Wilhelmshaven and Kiel rebelled. The spirit of revolution spread across the country and by November 1918, Germans believed that they were in the midst of a revolution paralleling the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia a year ago. A republic was declared on 9 November 1918, and Kaiser Wilhelm then abdicated.

After elections were held in January 1919 — the first in which women could vote — the national assembly of the new Deutsches Reich was convened in Weimar under the leadership of SPD president Friedrich Ebert. The majority of Germans in 1919 had shown some willingness to embrace democracy, voting mainly for the socialists and the Catholic Centre party. However, the republic was immediately plagued by political crises from Left and Right. The Spartacists (communists) led by Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg were determined to follow in the footsteps of Russia, organising strikes and demonstrations that easily escalated into mob violence as left-wing groups clashed with demobilised, right-wing paramilitary forces — the Freikorps. Alarmed at the spectre of communist revolution, President Ebert authorised the use of the Freikorps to quash the communists. No sooner had the republic faced off the threat from the Left than the Right attempted to mount a coup after the government was forced to sign the humiliating Treaty of Versailles. In March 1920, Wolfgang Kapp, in collaboration with General Ludendorff and General von Lüttwitz, led paramilitary forces to Berlin and captured the city. The putsch fizzled out when other Freikorps leaders and civil servants refused to recognise the legitimacy of the coup leaders, and when a general strike by the working-class paralysed the country.

Modernity in German Art The Legacy of Weimar

Political problems were compounded by economic crisis from 1921 onwards. The Weimar government inherited a weak economy and devalued currency from the imperial government. It was required, moreover, to make heavy reparations payments to the Allies. When Germany fell behind in these payments in 1921, the government printed more marks to sell on foreign currency exchanges. Inflation skyrocketed. French and Belgian troops occupied the industrial Ruhr region in January 1923 to ensure that reparations were paid in goods since the mark was virtually worthless. Ruhr workers went on strike in protest, and inflation was exacerbated when the government again printed more notes in ever-increasing denominations. In 1919, one US dollar was equivalent to nine marks. At the height of hyperinflation in November 1923, one US dollar was worth 4,200,000,000 marks. The effects of hyperinflation scarred an entire generation. Those with land or material property benefited because they were able to take out loans to invest in more land or industrial plants, and to repay these loans very quickly. The majority of Germans, however, faced high unemployment, poverty, suicide, illness from malnutrition, and the general deterioration of society. People began to lose confidence not only in the government, but in the republic itself. In the midst of this economic crisis, Adolf Hitler mounted the ‘Beer Hall Putsch’ — his first unsuccessful attempt to seize power during 8–9 November 1923. Hyperinflation only ended when measures were taken to stabilise the currency with the introduction of a new currency, the Rentenmark, in mid-November 1923. The period from 1924 to 1929 is generally viewed as the ‘golden years’ of the Weimar Republic. The economy recovered, living standards rose, and civil unrest declined. The foreign minister Gustav Stresemann achieved a number of significant goals including the diminution of the burden of reparations payments imposed by the Versailles Treaty; the evacuation of foreign troops from German soil; and the restoration of Germany’s status in international affairs when Germany joined the League of Nations in 1926 without having to renounce the trade and military alliance it had had with the Soviet Union since 1923. All too often the Weimar Republic is judged simply as the prelude to the Nazi regime that succeeded it. However, the Weimar Republic also ushered in one of the most remarkable periods of cultural innovation and ferment in European history. Three main cultural strands dominated: the conservative, backward looking, racially-based, rural völkisch culture that would nourish the grassroots of Nazism; modern mass-culture, often denounced by both Left and Right for its American influences; and the pluralist, cosmopolitan modernist culture which made Weimar and Berlin rival Paris as centres of art, literature and music in the 1920s. The art of Otto Dix, Paul Klee, and Wassily Kandinsky, the architecture of Walter Gropius and Mies van der Rohe, the literature of Thomas and Heinrich Mann and Hermann Hesse, and the music of Arnold Schönberg were all associated with Weimar, as was the internationally famed Bauhaus school of design which nurtured the democratic ideal that good design should serve the needs of the poor, not just the rich. Modernist culture was symbolic of the regime’s progressiveness, but the sustenance of culture for all the people was a democratic hallmark of the regime. As Gerald Feldman once remarked, it is astonishing that an impoverished post-war Germany continued to maintain so many theatres and opera houses.

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Some historians speculate that had the world not plunged into financial and economic crisis after the Wall Street Crash of October 1929, the Weimar Republic might have had a future as a democratic state. With the onset of the Great Depression and the renewal of extreme economic hardship, however, society and politics again became radicalised. The inability of successive chancellors — Brüning, Papen, and Schleicher — to form stable coalition governments that could deal effectively with Germany’s economic problems and growing social unrest, led to the bypassing of parliamentary rule in favour of presidential rule by emergency decree. The Weimar Republic had ceased to function as a democracy even before President Hindenburg fatefully appointed Adolf Hitler chancellor in January 1933. In less than two months, Hitler had forced the Reichstag to pass the Enabling Act on 21 March 1933, giving his government the power to rule by decree without reference to the Weimar Constitution. The 1919 constitution was never formally repealed, but the Republic whose democratic hopes it represented had already expired. The Weimar Republic has cast a long shadow over world history. Culturally, the republic is lauded for its experimentation with modernity in all areas of the arts. Politically, the post-war democracy of the Federal Republic of Germany — and, after 1990, reunified Germany — was always quick to insist that ‘Bonn is not Weimar’. But perhaps the economic legacy of Weimar has had the greatest impact internationally. After Nazi Germany’s defeat in World War II, the US — remembering the grievances caused by the punitive Treaty of Versailles, particularly the problems of reparations — introduced aid to Europe via the European Recovery Program (ie the Marshall Plan). During the turn of the 21st century, hyperinflation in Zimbabwe brought comparisons with Weimar. And most recently, the global financial and economic crisis of 2007–2008 conjured the spectre of Weimar for many media commentators and bloggers, prompting anxious speculations about the impact of the GFC on all sorts of political systems from nationstates to the future of the European Union, and in part contributing to the resurgence of Keynesian policies to stave off social and political instability. This is the final legacy of Weimar: the warning that in the midst of crises democracy can be fragile and freedom too easily surrendered for the illusion of security. George Grosz, Suicide 1916 Oil on canvas, 100 x 77.5cm Tate London, Purchased with assistance from The Art Fund 1976 Christian Schad, Self-portrait 1927 Oil on wood, 76 x 62cm Private collection, courtesy Tate London

Hsu-Ming Teo teaches European history, Weimar and Nazi Germany, and the history of travel and tourism in the Department of Modern History, Macquarie University.

kultur JUNE 2011

04:

The mad square: Modernity in German Art 1910–37 Jacqueline Strecker

This exhibition at the Art Gallery of New South Wales presents the key avant-garde movements that emerged in Germany during the early 20th century. It begins in Berlin in 1911 — exactly one hundred years ago — when the Expressionists moved to the metropolis to seek out new subject matter and audiences for their radically modern paintings, sculptures and prints. From this moment on and for the next two decades, Germany became an important centre for international avant-garde artists as they engaged fully with modernity and motifs derived from modern city life. Berlin was a potent stimulant for these artists providing a thriving, vibrant, cosmopolitan culture and generating a kind of nervous, creative energy that sustained artists during the pre-war years until the early 1930s. While Berlin remained the undisputed cultural capital of Germany between the wars — a powerful image which has endured until the present day — this exhibition explores the many different forms of avant-garde art that emerged in cities throughout Germany emphasising the interdisciplinary and diverse nature of German Modernism.

Drawing its inspiration from a painting in the exhibition entitled The mad square (1931), the exhibition title alludes to the double-meaning inherent in Felix Nussbaum’s ironic depiction of contemporary Berlin and the newest art forms as being both fabulous and crazy. Nussbaum portrays Berlin’s famous square — Pariser Platz immediately recognisable through the Brandenburg Gate — as a crazy place in which indignant young artists demonstrate against the exclusion of their work from the official art establishment. Painted during a period of intense political and intellectual polarisation,

The mad square can be seen as a satirisation of the collapse of society during the years of the Weimar Republic and as a forewarning of the cataclysm that ensued. In the context of the exhibition, the mad square is both a place — the city represented in so many of the works in this exhibition — and a modernist construct that saw artists moving away from figurative art towards increasingly abstract forms.

Modernity in German Art The mad square: Modernity in German Art 1910–37

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Artists embraced the changes and were excited by the artistic possibilities offered by the birth of modernity and the dawn of a modern, technological age but they were also fearful of modernity with its pressures, inherent contradictions and uncertainties. The sheer forcefulness and directness of many of the works in the exhibition stems from the tension that is created by representing a view of modernity that was hopeful, dynamic and vibrant on the one hand but dysfunctional and vulnerable on the other. The great creative spirit of the time is characterised by risk-taking, experimentation and a sense of rebelliousness as artists grappled with finding new ways to portray the modern world in painting, sculpture, photography, printmaking, drawing, film, the decorative arts and new media such as photomontage. Germany’s leading generation of modernist artists is included in the exhibition — Max Beckmann, Otto Dix, George Grosz, Christian Schad, Kurt Schwitters and August Sander — as are artists from other countries who contributed to German modernism, such as László Moholy-Nagy, El Lissitzky and Marcel Breuer. Lesser-known but equally remarkable artists, such as Karl Hubbuch, Rudolf Schlichter and Hannah Höch, are also represented through major works. The tendency to work across genres and media also provides an opportunity to consider the cross-cultural nature of artistic expression as the visual arts converged with other art forms, including theatre, music, performance art, film, architecture and design.

Felix Nussbaum, The mad square 1931 Oil on canvas, 97 x 195.5cm Berlinische Galerie, Landesmuseum für Moderne Kunst, Fotografie und Architektur

Between 1910 and 1937 the avant-garde developed as a conglomeration of complex interrelated, fluctuating movements and groups that formed in a number of different locations including Berlin, Dresden, Weimar, Dessau, Munich, Frankfurt, Hannover and Cologne. The avant-garde movements included in this exhibition — Expressionism, Dada, Bauhaus, Constructivism and New Objectivity — were all linked by a shared interest in radical artistic experimentation and innovation, intellectualism, cosmopolitanism and elite audiences. Their engagement with city motifs and urban themes was a direct response to their encounter with modern city life as they began to fully experience the often traumatic effects of modernity. The tensions and uncertainties involved in the transformation from the old world to the new were intensified in Germany where the devastating and cataclysmic effects of the war were experienced together with sweeping changes that affected every aspect of life. The breakdown of traditional structures gave artists the freedom to reject the stifling principles of academic art and to critique bourgeois society.

was conceived during the early planning stages of the exhibition to further highlight the sense of creativity and innovation that defined the Weimar era. These programs have been collaboratively developed to reveal stylistic similarities across a range of art forms and are closely related to many of the themes in the exhibition. For example, the seedy underbelly of life in the metropolis represented in works by Schad, Schlichter and Grosz is brilliantly and satirically portrayed in The Threepenny Opera by Bertolt Brecht. The utopian ideals of the Bauhaus artists in designing a new and more egalitarian world can be seen in venues around Sydney through objects, art, buildings and housing estates. The great era of Weimar cinema is brought to life through the screening of classics such as Berlin: Symphony of a Great City and Metropolis with original musical scores. The important yet untold story of German internees in Australia is explored in The Enemy at Home exhibition. By presenting the exhibition in association with this fascinating series of events, an insightful and engaging context will be created in which we can enhance our understanding of this extraordinary moment in European modernism.

Jacqueline Strecker is Curator of Special Exhibitions at Art Gallery of New South Wales. With the support of the Goethe-Institut, Dr Strecker travelled to Germany to research the exhibition and secure loans.

Berlin Sydney is supported and presented in cooperation with the Goethe-Institut. For program details see Calendar of Events.

kultur JUNE 2011

06:

Bilderstreit Carla Schulz-Hoffmann is Deputy Director General of Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen (Bavarian State Painting Collections), the largest collection of paintings worldwide! Carla Schulz-Hoffmann is also chief curator of the Pinakothek der Moderne and the Museum Brandhorst. She has published widely on Max Beckmann, Georg Baselitz, Cy Twombly to name just a few. For years she moderated the television show Bilderstreit on 3Sat. Carla will be in Sydney as a guest of the Goethe-Institut and the Art Gallery of New South Wales in August 2011. She will take part in the extensive program Berlin Sydney and speak about art of the Weimar Republic and related issues facing the contemporary museum world. Kultur wanted to know more:

kultur: The mad square: Modernity in German Art 1910–37 is one of the largest art exhibitions from Germany ever to reach Australian shores. It has been curated over a period of many years in cooperation with innumerous partners. How do you assess the result? CSH: The result could hardly be more convincing. It is extremely difficult to get hold of all the really important works for such an ambitious exhibition, but I feel, in this case all the institutions and collectors involved tried to be as helpful as possible. This pays tribute to the importance of the project as a cultural exchange in a globalised world. The title The mad square implies what it is all about: This is not only an exhibition showing great German art of a highly significant period, on a very broad scale and for the first time, but more so it is a project putting a finger onto the issues, leading ideas, hopes, disillusions and disastrous developments during a crucial historical period.

kultur: How would you describe the relevance of the period for today’s arts scene? CSH: For decades, the role of modern German art was not as major as its French counterpart and of course American Art after 1945. When I curated the big Beckmann retrospective in 1983/84, we were not able to secure a venue in New York. LA and St Louis (as a center for Max Beckmann works) were the only interested

partners. In Paris, it was not before the year 2000, that the Musée de la Ville de Paris installed a survey on European expressionism, which at the time still was only a mediocre success. German art has always had this ‘negative overtone’ of being too dense, like ‘a punch in the stomach’ — a still valid media quote on Max Beckmann and his 1931 exhibition in Paris. Even though this has changed dramatically at least until the Beckmann successes in the Pompidou, the Tate and the MOMA in 2002/03 and the hype about young German art, especially the Leipzig school with Neo Rauch, there is still a tremendous gap regarding art market values of French and American modern art versus German art. Regardless of this, the idea of what art can be in between the extremes of pure beauty, hedonistic indulgence and the reflection on existential questions as well as discussions of the issues of the period, the awareness for modern German art has increased visibly.

kultur: The exhibition explores the theme of ‘degenerate art’. How do museums in Germany deal with this phenomenon in art history? CSH: The question has two angles: Firstly, how did art history approach the question of ‘degenerate art’ and its fate in the context of Nazi propaganda? And then, how do we deal with the question of the restitution of ‘degenerate art’, confiscated directly or indirectly by the Nazis — as one ‘section’ of all the art works confiscated by the Nazis. After a far too long period of ‘Verdrängung’ — the English term suppression almost catches the notion of the word — there has been a dramatic turnaround as a consequence of the Holocaust Area Asset Conference in Washington in 1998. Since the Washington conference, not only special research stipends and fellowships were installed in art history departments, but numerous German Museums dedicated curatorial positions to provenance research. For instance, here in Munich we employ one full time art historian and — for various projects — two to three part time assistants. All in all at least a hundred scholars work on provenance issues in the German speaking countries alone.

kultur: Max Beckmann was one of Germany’s most prominent artists of the period, forced into exile by the Nazis. How do you assess Beckmann and his experience in Amsterdam and the United States? CSH: The visionary power, magnificent colouring and mysterious symbolism of his paintings have made Beckmann one of the outstanding figures of modern art. His ten years in exile in the

Modernity in German Art Interview with Carla Schulz-Hoffmann

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Max Beckmann, The trapeze 1923 Oil on canvas, 196.5 x 84cm Lent by the Toledo Museum of Art Purchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey

Netherlands were one of his most creative periods, in which he produced around a third of his entire work. With intensity comparable only to Picasso, Beckmann’s works fascinate and move us through their magical appeal and invite us to enter into a strong dialogue. Beckmann expressed the mystery of life in all its ambivalence. His demanding and versatile themes correspond to a broad spectrum of techniques and formats. Beckmann decided to leave Germany, immediately after the broadcast of Hitler’s speech marking the opening of Munich’s Haus der deutschen Kunst. On 19 July 1937, at the beginning of the exhibition on Degenerate Art in the Arcades of Munich’s Hofgarten, the artist emigrated to Amsterdam — and was never to return to Germany. Known abroad as the ‘most German’ of all German artists, his horror over the injustices of the NS regime, which was manifested in his escape from his homeland, assumes special significance.

The Amsterdam time, in my opinion was the strongest period of his life, because of what he fought against: His fear that Germany and everything it stood for — prior to the Nazi period — would be lost forever! In contrast to this, his time in the USA from 1947 until his death in 1950 was accentuated on by total freedom, a completely new life with many official honours and a big potential to do whatever he liked. On the other hand he was a stranger amongst strangers without a foothold in the vital European tradition, which he needed like the air to breathe. All this lead to his late work still being strong, but less complex and maybe easier to approach: if I had to choose, I would always opt for the Amsterdam period.

kultur: The issue of ‘immunity from seizure’ has emerged in Australia through international exhibitions where loans have been declined because of questions around provenance. ‘Immunity from seizure’ has become law in the United States and the United Kingdom but not yet in Australia. Where does Germany stand in relation to this? CSH: Normally we, the Bavarian State Collections, grant immunity from seizure. But if a provenance is not clear or has gaps, then we prefer to research the missing links before lending.

kultur: Wir danken herzlich für das Gespräch!

kultur JUNE 2011

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Neues Bauen International Only those who appreciate the beauty of simplicity will understand true modernity. As Mies van der Rohe exclaimed: â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Less is moreâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, Karin KiRsch, curator.

Architekton Alpha, 1920 by Kasimir Malevic. Model by students of Prof W Knoll, University of Stuttgart.

Modernity in German Art Interview with Karin Kirsch

Karin Kirsch is the curator of Neues Bauen International, on show in Sydney from 4 August. Prof Kirsch has worked as an interior architect, furniture designer and an architectural historian. KULTUR wanted to know more:

kultur: You seem to challenge the idea that modern architecture as we know it started in Germany in the 1910s and 1920s? KK: In many ways, contemporary architecture has its roots in the 19th century. It is true that in our exhibition, Neues Bauen International, the oldest example on show, Fagusweg in the town of Alfeld, by Walter Gropius, was built in Germany from 1911. All of the other projects, whether planned or implemented, were developed during the following years up until 1927. This limitation was not consciously set by me as the exhibition’s curator. Rather, it is the result of the selection made by most of the early contemporary key architects themselves, namely Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Ludwig Hilberseimer, Walter Gropius, Le Corbusier, and others who were involved with the construction of Weißenhofsiedlung in Stuttgart. In 1927, they were determined to prove that the settlement at Weißenhof in Stuttgart, used as an example of contemporary architecture, was not the product of some crazed utopians but rather part of a worldwide movement. The Weißenhofsiedlungrelated exhibition Internationale Plan- und Modellausstellung Neuer Baukunst was reconstructed in great detail in our showroom. The heroes of 20th century architecture recommended that their work be seen in context so that it could be adequately appraised and evaluated.

kultur: You draw conclusive lines towards traditional Japanese design. Can you explain?

KK: Adolf Loos, an outspoken, free-thinking architect who lived and worked in Vienna, once stated: “We who are working under the influence of Japanese design arrange our rooms in a centrifugal way”. He added that this was the reason why the centre of the room was left empty. These statements led me to research the origins of the new language of modernity, which was considered shocking against the backdrop of historicism and eclecticism in the 19th century. I followed these traces back to Japan. The Shinto principle of ‘simplifying things to the point of unobtrusiveness’ is similar to some principles of the modern era. Following the age of overloaded buildings and apartments in the late 19th century, a desire for clarity and purity of material and form appeared in architecture and art. The Japanese influence and the ideas of the West have merged, leaving the original spark unrecognisable for most viewers. In 1888, Samuel Bing wrote in Le Japon Artistique : “There is a permanent link between their art and our art. It is as if a drop of blood has been added to our blood: It cannot be removed anymore, not by any power in this world.” Only those who appreciate the beauty of simplicity will understand true modernity. As Mies van der Rohe proclaimed: “Less is more”.

kultur: Which other German movements apart from Bauhaus were at the centre of the 1920s architectural revolution? KK: In the 1920s, Bauhaus was a relatively small school and not very well-known. Traditional architects and interior designers didn’t become interested until the end of the 1920s. When

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I researched Bauhaus I scanned through all of the editions of the vintage magazine Innen-Dekoration, from 1919 up until the closure of Bauhaus in 1933. I found the first article on Bauhaus in an edition issued in the late 1920s. By the way, I happened upon a picture of a Japanese house in an edition issued in the early 1920s! I would like to mention Werkbund as one of the important trends in Germany from 1907 onwards. Werkbund consisted of a group of artists and architects, industrialists and ambitious craftsmen. They joined forces with the goal of creating a movement that was to compete with England’s ‘Arts and Crafts’, and aimed to increase the quality of German arts and crafts in order to fend off competition from England. Several Bauhaus teachers were involved in Werkbund. The organisation’s most important exhibition was Werkbundausstellung DIE WOHNUNG Stuttgart 1927, with Weißenhofsiedlung as its main focus, and parallel exhibitions including Internationale Plan- und Modellausstellung Neuer Baukunst. The latter exhibition is the one on which our own show is based.

kultur: How did the ‘Bauhaus & Beyond’ movement become international? KK: Many students from international backgrounds studied at Bauhaus. This is certainly one factor. However the sinister activities of the National Socialists were the main contributing factor to the spread of Bauhaus ideas. ‘Modern thinkers’ were exposed to terrible persecutions; they were unemployed and frowned upon. For many, emigration was the only way to escape the terror regime. Thus, they spread their convictions into the wider world and Mies van der Rohe, Hilberseimer, Gropius and others worked as teachers in the US. Here, the true significance of Bauhaus becomes apparent.

kultur: Your exhibition aims to determine what stood the test of time. Can you explain in a few words? KK: The catalogue for Internationale Plan- und Modell-Ausstellung Neuer Baukunst presents not only the icons of modernity; it also displays examples that may seem secondary from a contemporary point of view. Small railroad control centres and laboratories do not appear to be very exciting anymore. At the time, they were meant to represent a simple and functional type of formal design. This is one aspect. The other aspect is the difficulty of retrieving project documents from the archives of the world. Many documents were lost during WWII, or were destroyed due to plain ignorance. Naturally, we can only show those items that survived and were made available to us.

kultur: Australia over the last 20 years has adopted a very modern approach both to public and private buildings. What is known of Australian architecture in the land of Bauhaus? KK: I cannot judge what Australian architecture is known for in ‘the land of Bauhaus’. In fact, I would like to see a number of works by contemporary Australian architects. Sydney Opera House, Harry Seidler, Glenn Murcutt, …as much as possible during the short time of my stay. Glenorie’s Ball-Eastaway House, perhaps? It seems to me that apart from Mies, it contains a fair bit of Japan.

kultur: Vielen Dank für das Gespräch! kultur JUNE 2011

10:

Bruno Taut Berlin Architect Winfried Brenne

Bruno Taut (1880â&#x20AC;&#x201C;1938) was a groundbreaking architect, an urban planner, a designer, a humanist, an idealist, perhaps even a utopian and most definitively a social reformer.

Wohnstadt Carl Legien, is one of six housing estates throughout Berlin inducted onto the Unesco World Heritage List. This development, the one closest to the city centre, was built between 1928 and 1930.

Modernity in German Art Interview with Winfried Brenne

His high-quality architecture with its language of shapes and colours, stringent floor plans and urbanistic design became a role model for the entire 20th century.

kultur: Considering the show within the context of the ‘mad square’, how does it reflect modernity in German art of that time in general?

kultur talked to Winfried Brenne, show curator and architect, to learn more about Bruno Taut’s vision for architecture and its role in society. In 2008, six Berlin Modernist housing estates by Bruno Taut — built between 1913 and 1934 — were added to the UNESCO World Heritage List. Winfried Brenne was strongly involved in the preservation of the buildings and in the application process for the UNESCO Listing.

WB: The highly ambitious exhibition The mad square showcases the German art scene between 1910 and 1937, a very diverse era: expressionism, Dada, constructivism, Bauhaus and New Objectivity as well as many more. While it is possible to consider the architects Bruno Taut and Martin Wagner as members of the New Objectivity, we see them as part of ‘Neues Bauen’ (New Building). This ‘New Building’ should not be confused with ‘White Modernism’: Rather, New Building is Colourful Building, of which — apart from Bruno Taut — architects like Fritz Höger, Karl Schneider, Hans Scharoun, Hugo Häring, Rudolph Salvisberg, Bruno Ahrends and many others were members. Our exhibition Bruno Taut — a Master of Colour in Berlin is an important addition to the exhibition The mad square and perfectly complements the picture of German culture between 1910 and 1937.

kultur: Bruno Taut’s Berlin Modernist housing estates are now part of the UNESCO World Heritage List. What were UNESCO’s main reasons for this decision? WB: With its decision, UNESCO recognised the extraordinary qualities that Bruno Taut and Martin Wagner implemented in the Berlin Modernism housing estates which continue to influence 20th century housing construction globally. What is remarkable about Bruno Taut’s Berlin work is the fact that he implemented high design standards and social obligations within very tight economic parameters, despite the incredible workload of about 10,000 apartments in only 10 years. This clearly sets him apart — not just as an urban developer and an architect, but also as a sociologist, as a landscape architect and last but not least as an artist. However, his work was only possible because Martin Wagner had created the required administrative conditions, especially in construction financing.

kultur: Planning and construction of the housing estates marked a substantial structural change in housing, reflecting social conditions and humanistic ideas of the time. How did Taut develop these ideas in the context of a ‘social city’? WB: Bruno Taut reflected the ideas for a garden city, but independently developed them further to meet the requirements of urban housing, where it was important to make the new qualities of living available to large parts of the population at an affordable price. This required rationalising the construction process to a high degree as well as standardising construction elements and whole houses. Next to the optimal floor plan, the special composition of colour becomes prominent in Taut’s works.

kultur: Bruno Taut’s colour concepts became a distinctive feature of his architecture. Can you tell us more about the significance of colour in his work?

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WB: To Bruno Taut, colour was as important as the ornament used to be to other architects and styles. Taut demonstrates that the inhabitants’ necessary identification with and appreciation of their housing estates can succeed solely through the colour concept. At the same time, foregoing the ornament is a social act because it allows for the savings to be turned into an increased number of accommodation units.

kultur: Bruno Taut’s work has also been discussed as a ‘built utopia’. In what sense is his anthropological understanding of architecture still valid today in Germany and across the world? WB: For the most part, Bruno Taut wrote his architectural theoretical reflections ‘built utopia’ only after his practical work as an architect. In post-war modernism, they were simply forgotten as relating to their time. Both Bruno Taut’s theoretical works and his architecture were only rediscovered in the 1980s. This rediscovery was based on a scientifically sound survey and redevelopment as well as on a cautious restoration including a conservation and repair-focused modernisation of the existing housing estates. This concept, based on example and conviction, became known as the ‘Berlin Model’. In turn, the knowledge gained there contributed to an understanding of Bruno Taut’s writings. Of course it is up to each individual architect to what extent they take up ideas or suggestions. Our firm can now look back on over 40 years of experience in dealing with Bruno Taut’s built and theoretical works and we use that knowledge with great success.

kultur: The social city of the future? How would you describe the relevance of Bruno Taut’s work for today’s architecture and society? WB: The influence of Bruno Taut’s works on contemporary housing construction and society worldwide is still visible today, and even the basics of housing construction in the future will continue to rely on the knowledge gained through the works of Bruno Taut and the New Building movement. These include all aspects of the overall orientation of housing estates, of their structure, of topographical considerations; the interaction between built architecture and open areas, the landscape, the gardens; the organisation of the buildings, the location of the apartments, of the staircases, light and cross ventilation, common facilities; subdivisions, the orientation and interiors of the apartments themselves, their relation to open areas, the creation of units, the minimisation of hallway areas, balconies, loggias or conservatories. Ultimately, New Building concerns the optimisation of the construction process, typification and standardisation. Today, these aspects that seem like natural parts of the work of Bruno Taut and his colleagues are known as ‘sustainability’.

kultur: Vielen Dank für das Gespräch kultur JUNE 2011

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Modernity in German Art

The Enemy at Home An exhibition at the Museum of Sydney reveals the lost world of German internees in Australia through the recently discovered photography of internee Paul Dubotzki Nadine Helmi

Interned first at Torrens Island in 1915, then at Trial Bay and Holsworthy, the young Bavarian took hundreds of photographs, which capture, often in meticulous detail, the multifaceted society that evolved behind the barbed wire. The internees, who came from all walks of life, transformed their situation in detention through ingenuity and determination, creating intricate societies with cafes, clubs, newspapers, theatres, schools and an array of small businesses. Much of what Dubotzki documented was the lighter side of life in the camps, particularly at Trial Bay where the wealthier internees were held. At Holsworthy life was much tougher. Housed in overcrowded wooden sheds under primitive conditions, many men suffered from depression that arose from confinement.

Yet the life Dubotzki depicts is one of ingenuity and creativity. The photographs capture theatrical events with elaborate stage settings and costumes. We see tailors sitting at their benches, watchmakers and leather workers, looped sausages hanging from kitchen ceilings and makeshift cafes. The deportation of most of the internees in 1919 marked the end of the highly visible German-Australian community — the largest non-British ethnic community before the war. I came across Dubotzki’s story in 2004 while working at the Trial Bay Museum archives. Several stunning black-and-white photographs caught my eye and I decided to find out more about the artist, whose name was imprinted on some of the photos. A yellowed ‘address book’ from 1918 that gave Dubotzki’s post war address as ‘Dorfen’ near Munich eventually led me to unearth a collection of around 1,000 photos, glass plates and camera equipment — preserved in the homes of Dubotzki’s two elderly daughters. This long lost collection is now the centrepiece of The Enemy at Home exhibition and tells a fascinating story of artistry, ingenuity and resilience while revealing a little-known part of Australia’s wartime history. Nadine Helmi is Guest Curator at Historic Houses Trust (HHT), Museum of Sydney and together with Prof Gerhard Fischer has recently published a book on the subject, available from HHT shops, including the online shop.

A view from tower reveals the long rows of huts at Holsworthy internment camp, c1918 Orthopedic surgeon Max Herz rehearses the German classic Minna von Barnhelm at Trial Bay Theatre, c1917 Interned ‘butchers’ pose proudly with their authentic German sausages at Holsworthy, c1918

Paul Dubotzki (attrib) © Dubotzki collection, Germany

During World War I nearly 7,000 people of German and Austrian descent were interned as ‘enemy aliens’ in isolated camps in New South Wales. Most of them were previously well-respected citizens or residents of Australia who were imprisoned alongside the crews taken off German ships detained in Australian ports and German expats captured by the Allies in South East Asia. Holsworthy in Sydney’s south-west held up to 6,000 internees, while two smaller camps for privileged prisoners were established in the disused gaols of Trial Bay near Kempsey, and of Berrima in the Southern Highlands. One of the men interned was Paul Dubotzki, who ended up in Australia after accompanying an expedition to China as a photographer.

Festival of German Films

Rewind 10: Festival of German Films in Australia Peter Krausz

Having seen the Goethe-Institutâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s annual Festival of German Films grow significantly from its first event in 2002 as a small festival until its much larger program in 2011, indicates a number of things to me. There is a large audience interested in film festivals, as well as films from around the world. Also, it indicates to me a strong interest in German films, especially by non-Germans who crave rarely seen films which only film festivals can offer.

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There is also a strong community and educational atmosphere in the festival. The interactive approach offered by the Festival of German Films encourages dialogue, reflection, discussion and understanding. The festival also presents an array of issues, cultural observations and other stories that are distinctively German yet have universal themes and ideas that readily connect to Australian audiences. In these first ten years, the festival has succeeded in forging strong connections and insights into German film and culture. What always interests me as a film critic is presenting films with a diversity of approaches, styles and attitudes. In this annual festival of German films the Goethe-Institut prides itself on selecting films which portray the range of issues and ideas that German filmmakers are exploring, even though some of which may not appeal to everyone. It is always difficult to balance popular films with critically challenging and art house films, but looking at the program over the years, the Goethe-Institut certainly screened films that highlight the developments that are occurring in the contemporary German film industry. This is an industry that is now re-emerging as a major world cinematic force, with around 150 cinema and TV release films currently being produced. This festival, certainly with the 39 films screened this year, is able to show a very good representative sample of the films being produced. Also we have tried to present not just feature narrative films, but short films, documentaries, curated films around a guest, silent films, and other special film screenings and events. The interactive nature of this festival sets it apart from many other film festivals. Ensuring all sessions are introduced so that each film is placed in a context as well as other film related connections, educates the audience and establishes a dialogue. Holding a number of Q&As as well as panel discussions with visiting actors/ filmmakers/critics ensures an interactive approach that places the audience as a central feature of the festival. The audience prize for most popular film (love that Golden Gnome!) encourages audiences to see more than just one or two films, and ensures that more films receive exposure and comment. I have found that audiences appreciate both the films being screened and the opportunity to interact and discover more about German cinema and culture. Many have said to me that the Festival of German Films is one of their cultural highlights of the year.

further. The season of films on East German Cinema was quite a revelation to the audience and provided a major discussion point on the way filmmakers could deal with social and political issues and constraints in a filmic way. The recent films on the difficult historic events that Germans have had to contend with and the way contemporary filmmakers have tried to come to grips with that, has been instructive for the audience and offered much discussion. The rich range of documentaries and short films being produced in Germany has also delighted and enlightened audiences as to the direction of the German film industry. I have also been excited that the festival has screened films by prominent German filmmakers who deserve the same recognition as the ones always trumpeted by Hollywood. Filmmakers like Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Doris Dörrie, Volker Schlöndorff, Margarethe von Trotta, Marco Kreuzpaintner, Wim Wenders, Werner Herzog, Fritz Lang, Bernd Eichinger, Marc Rothemund, Christian Petzold, Andreas Dresen and many others, have made important and challenging films which this festival has been able to screen and highlight over the years. This again demonstrates how this festival provides rare opportunities to see films that are not always readily accessible or may not be seen outside the festival. Meeting the guests of the festival has always been a delight both for my myself and the audience. Jürgen Vogel was certainly the most popular guest, especially with his anecdotes about both starring in films as well producing and directing films. At the first festival, the acting team of Daniel Brühl and Jessica Schwarz were very much appreciated by the audience and indicated how they both would develop into the major stars they now are. Hannah Herzsprung and Anna Maria Mühe showed that female actors and filmmakers in the German film industry have a great deal of influence. This year Burghart Klaussner highlighted the role of character actors in German cinema who are given the opportunity to portray a wide variety of characters. Robert Stadlober was an intriguing guest, an actor who would say provocative things to encourage interaction with the audience. Directors like Martin Gypkens, Birgit Möller, Sönke Wortmann and — of course Wim Wenders have discussed the process of having films funded in Germany and then completed. Indeed, the guests of the festival over the years have been another major highlight. Having been part of this film festival for the ten years, and watching it grow and develop into a major arts/cultural event highlighting German culture, has been a very satisfying collaboration for me. I congratulate the Goethe-Institut and in particular Klaus Krischok for having the vision to ensure this major festival of diverse contemporary and historic German films is developed and shown across Australia. And now to the next ten years… Peter Krausz is a Melbourne based festival advisor to the Goethe-Institut and Chair of the Australian Film Critics Association.

As the festival continues to grow over the next ten years, my hope would be to expand the exploration of the German cinema and film industry which is now over 100 years old. The early days of the festival when we screened some prominent silent films with musical accompaniment demonstrated to the audience the rich cinematic history in Germany which future festivals could explore

For updates on current films and archive visit goethe.de/filmguide

Festival of German Films Rewind 10: Festival of German Films in Australia

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kultur JUNE 2011

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Festival of German Films Interview with Hanns-Georg Rodek

A Decade of Revival? Hanns-Georg Rodek has worked as a local reporter and film freelancer and has been the editor for cinema at the Berlin based national daily Die Welt since 1995. 100 001 — The Showbusiness Encyclopedia of the 20th Century is one of his many publications. Hanns-Georg is a member of various juries, the HelmutKäutner-Preis, the Gerd-RugeStipendium, and German Academy Award Selection to name just a few. Hanns-Georg Rodek visited Australia as part of the 2011 Audi Festival of German Films. KULTUR wanted to know more:

kultur: The international reputation of German films at the beginning of the new millennium was more than critical. Do you share the view that this has changed in the past ten years? HGR: Yes, it has changed indeed in the past ten, fifteen years. I wouldn’t have dared to come to Australia with the German film crop of, say, 1996. Not everyone recognises the Oscars as a benchmark for quality, but they can serve as a rule of international recognition. And in the last decade three German films have won an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language film, with an additional four nominations.

kultur: What is it about German cinema and its stars: Unlike French or Italian cinema German films don’t seem to celebrate their stars in the same way? HGR: Now we’re into Germany’s subconscious. Germany had a culture of celebrating its stars, but that was in the 1920s and 1930s with the likes of Marlene Dietrich, Emil Jannings and Willy Fritsch. Then came Hitler — and with him, after the lost war, the deeply ingrained lesson, that star-worship is to be avoided or at least brought into question. Then came the New German Cinema of Fassbinder and Herzog, which ruled for 20 years, and was also hostile to star building. The last ten years have seen a certain resurgence of stardom in German cinema — and, rather frighteningly, in politics too.

kultur: Where do you see us heading into the future? And please don’t mention digital or 3D! HGR: Twenty years from now, I see us still getting up from our sofas and going to a place, where there is an audience and a screen and the lights go out and a film begins to play. We also will watch opera and football in the cinema, it will be more of an event than a habit, and films will mingle with performances and other arts. But we will still get our bottoms up.

kultur: Any thoughts on Australia? HGR: What would have become of it, had the Germans discovered it?

kultur: Herzlichen Dank für das Gespräch!

kultur: What are your personal German highlights of this decade?

kultur: …and most of these films have been shown at our Festival of German Films. Who are the new directors consistently delivering high quality art house — and thus on their way to becoming classics? HGR: Tom Tykwer, Fatih Akin, Christian Petzold, Andreas Dresen, Michael Haneke (if you consider him German, not Austrian). However, due to the general crisis of art house, I have my doubts that they will achieve worldwide status like Fassbinder and Herzog.

HGR: A difficult choice, luckily! But here you go: Die innere Sicherheit by Christian Petzold, Good Bye, Lenin by Wolfgang Becker, Wer früher stirbt ist länger tot by Marcus H Rosenmüller, Sommer vorm Balkon by Andreas Dresen, Das Leben der Anderen by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, Das weiße Band by Michael Haneke, Drei by Tom Tykwer.

Festival of German Films Interview with Wim Wenders

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Dreams in 3D The first time he went to see a piece by Pina Bausch, he had to be dragged into it. Now, Wim Wenders has memorialised the artist with his film Pina. At the invitation of the Goethe-Institut he presented the film to his Australian audience — at the Closing Night of the 2011 Audi Festival of German Films and at the iconic Sydney Opera House. Kultur wanted to know more:

kultur: Let’s be honest, Mr Wenders, for how long did you believe that 3D was merely a whimsical gimmick for Hollywood’s blockbuster directors?

WW: To be perfectly honest, never! I got a glimpse of the new 3D digital technology in 2007 with the concert film U2 in 3D, and I was excited from the very first moment. Not because the film knocked me out — technically it was still quite rudimentary and I knew the music well enough — but because I perceived that something was happening here! At that time no blockbusters had yet been shot in 3D; this new language was still purely an assertion, more a wish than a tangible promise. Here, at least, was the answer to my long-asked question of how to put the art of Pina Bausch in a fundamentally different way — a more suitable one — onto the screen. This big door that opened up the space on the screen… Yet, it’s true that the big studios usurped this technology — it’s firstly a question of money — and that they then couldn’t do more than produce ‘gimmicks’, or better, a new main attraction. As such, this new language was enough for them. They could earn lots of money with it alone, with the haunted house effects.

kultur: Does filming in 3D fundamentally alter the work of a director or do you not notice the new technology until you see the finished product — like the new sound possibilities with stereo or Dolby Surround? WW: If 3D does not fundamentally change something about the work, from the very beginning, then you haven’t really put your mind to it or are doing something altogether wrong. We don’t produce for the screen anymore! It doesn’t even exist anymore. Instead, you look through it to the horizon and things can even be located in front of the screen. The screen has really become a window. A human being no longer has a two-dimensional physical surface, but volume, an aura. You enter into the space in the truest sense of the word. To do that well, you need to do some, shall

we say, ‘space research’. And you need to understand something about the physiology of how two eyes see spatially and how two cameras can imitate this as well as possible. Otherwise, 3D can get on your nerves, or should I say on your eyes. We attempted to create a very natural feeling of space, not any razzle-dazzle.

kultur: Are you now ‘hooked’? WW: That’s one way of putting it! It is difficult, if not impossible, to turn back now. We’ve only just scratched the surface; we haven’t even begun to tell a story.

kultur: Where do you see the future of 3D film? WW: In those places in particular where it hasn’t yet been used; in documentary film and in independent filmmaking, in authors’ films (Autorenfilme). It is now a permanent fixture in animated films and blockbuster cinema. But in those areas 3D is not used for its true quality: to see the world a different way and take the viewers along into the lives or the working realities of other people.

kultur: You like to make portraits of artists. Before the Wuppertal dance theatre you filmed the Buena Vista Social Club, Wolfgang Niedecken, your blues heroes, Yohji Yamamoto. Where did you get this idiosyncrasy? WW: I think there is hardly anything more exciting than human creativity. Real adventures and surprises are still possible there.

kultur: Are they perhaps in a certain way also self-portraits — a look at kindred spirits? WW: Hm. The most exciting part is discovering someone else, not one’s self. When you shoot feature films and tell stories, you draw them from inside yourself, divulge something of yourself, you discover. In documentary film, I am interested in just the opposite: in finding something that is not myself.

kultur: Or is there a musician hiding inside you trying to escape? After all, it is usually about music. WW: I love music more than anything. Many kinds of music. Nothing has saved me or inspired me as often as music. Without blues and rock music, I would never have gained access to my own creativity, never have had the confidence to do anything. In my music films, I have often just wanted to memorialise my favourite musicians, or to give something back to them. And we must never forget, if you really like something, or love something more than anything else, you are able to talk about it in a very different way. You want it to be shown in the best light. That is a good attitude, I think, for making a documentary film: to do something the honour. Find the full interview with Wim Wenders on www.goethe.de/australia

kultur JUNE 2011

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Goethe and Baader European Shooting Star

Festival of German Films Interview with Alexander Fehling

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Alexander Fehling is best known to Australian audiences for a role in Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds. German Film aficionados have seen him in And Along Come Tourists (Robert Thalheim 2006) and Storm (Hans Christian Schmid, 2008), one the great successes of the 2010 Festival of German Films. Alexander has recently taken on two very diverse roles: He plays the young Johann Wolfgang Goethe in Philipp Stölzl’s Goethe! (2010) and former German terrorist Andreas Baader in If not us, who by Andreas Veiel (2011).

kultur: You have played a Nazi soldier, a German icon and an RAF terrorist in just a few years of your emerging career. Is there a pattern developing? AF: No, not at all: In the end that’s more or less a coincidence. I am just looking for interesting characters and filmmakers. The fact that I was recently playing in movies that dealt with German history, says more about a certain development in German films. More and more we are discovering our own stories beyond the Third Reich.

kultur: In an interview with ZDF you told your fans that the appeal of Goethe! is not just a fascination for the quintessential German poet but rather with the universal longing for life, love and passion. Why? AF: That is what I learned about him: Goethe is mainly recognised as some kind of monument, even when he was still alive. The movie shows a young man behind all the pictures that we have of him, a man who stands at the beginning of everything. He’s not wise or all knowing, he is insecure, vulnerable and searching for his place, like everybody. The film is all about becoming an artist, in a way.

kultur: Andreas Baader of the notorious Baader Meinhof Gang certainly also started out as an idealistic and passionate young man. Is this one of the reasons why you took on this role? AF: There were a lot of reasons. I found it very interesting to search for the point where passion or an ideal becomes a fanatic idea that could only be kept alive through radical measures. This character is a sort of border-crosser, not easy to rank as a person. To be honest I didn’t know how to do it. That is why I started trying.

kultur: Where does And Along Come Tourists fit in, where you played a young German Zivi (Community Service Volunteer) who travels to, and works at, the Auschwitz memorial site. AF: This was my very first movie: a very passive character, which turned out to be a great challenge for me. I remember that at a certain point the director, Robert Thalheim, and I realised that it is not only about how the protagonist feels or how he reacts, it is much more about the contradictions and misunderstandings that stand between him and this old man. I think it’s a movie about taking responsibility, even for something that you are just ‘born into’, and delineates a situation of an entire German generation.

kultur: You started your career at one of Germany’s leading drama schools, the Ernst Busch Hochschule. From there you went on to do theatre and played, amongst others, in Peter Stein’s Wallenstein — in many respects another rebel with a cause. Recently you have left the theatre for your screen work. Have you closed a chapter in your life? AF: No, it just developed like that. I don’t know what the future will bring. I really like to play in movies. And I am still discovering so much. But I can imagine working in theater again, too. Besides it is not really in my hands. It’s about a good combination of people.

kultur: Congratulations on being nominated as European Shooting Star 2011. What does this mean for your future plans? AF: Thank you. We’ll see. I don’t know. But it really is a huge honor to be one of this very exciting group of young actors. And of course it gave me the possibility to meet people and to receive recognition even outside of Germany. I am just grateful, and curious about what is happening next.

kultur: Any thoughts on Australia? AF: I regret not having been able to come to Australia this time, but when the occasion arises, I would like to hire a car and drive through Australia. But before that I have to work on my next project, a driver’s licence. Pathetic!

kultur: Herzlichen Dank für das Gespräch!

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Bookmarks: Voices From Elsewhere

Abenteuer der deutschen Grammatik Yoko Tawada

Groß aber leise „Mein Deutsch“ schreibe ich groß und spreche es leise aus. Die „deutsche“ Grammatik schreibt man klein mit Größenwahn.

Die zweite Person Ich Als ich dich noch siezte, sagte ich ich und meinte damit mich. Seit gestern duze ich dich, weiß aber noch nicht, wie ich mich umbenennen soll.

Der Zug fährt heute in der umgekehrten Reihenfolge ein: das übliche Spiel der Eisenbahngesellschaft. In einer Reise nach Jerusalem kann man keinen Sitz reservieren. Du hast neun Wörter zu sagen und es gibt keinen achtsamen Fahrgast. Ganz am Ende eines Schlangensatzes warte ich, das Verb, auf dich, das Subjekt. Inzwischen passierten schon zwei Unfälle im vierten Fall: Es gab einen Selbstmord und einen Personalschaden. Ein einziger Toter — zweimal gestorben. Ich bin gern ein Verb. Bitte benutzen Sie den Schienenersatzverkehr! Werden die Schienen ersetzt oder ist es ein er, der im Verkehr ausgesetzt wird? Ein Satz macht einen großen Satz über fremde Schatten und verkehrt mit dem Sinn des Sagbaren in der umgekehrten Reihenfolge.

Vor einem hellen Vokal Gleich werde ich meinen Bauch zeigen und tanzen an einem Teich wo eine deutsche Eiche steht. Ein gottloses Buch werde ich euch schreiben und steige hoch auf den Galgen. Ich bin ein fliegender Teppich mit einem Kopftuch. So ein Pech! Kann ich fliehen? Kennst du das Land CH? Die Lesart der heiligen Schriftzeichen c und h bleibt weiter offen

Yoko Tawada was born in Tokyo in 1960 and has lived in Germany since 1982 where she published her first novel Wo Europa anfängt (Where Europe Begins) in 1989. As a writer well-known for her mastery of multiple genres such as poetry, novel or essay Yoko Tawada has received many prestigious awards: the Japanese Akutagawa Award, the German Adelbert von Chamisso Prize and the Goethe-Medaille. Yoko Tawada’s work and writing stand for a narration that travels between the real and the surreal, between the borders of interior and exterior languages and crosses into diverse literary genres. Yoko Tawada will be travelling to Australia in August and September 2011 as a guest of the GoetheInstitut and the Melbourne Writers’ Festival and Brisbane Writers’ Festival. From Yoko Tawada: Abenteuer der deutschen Grammatik. Konkursbuchverlag, Tübingen. November 2010. Reprinted with kind permission of the publisher.

Schienenersatzverkehr

Bookmarks: Voices From Elsewhere

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Writer in Residence Judith Zander

Pihlajamäki

pihlajamaeki

wachhaltung dämmerung hinter doppel fenstern der hügel und ich gespensterspiegel legierungen weiß in weiß ein hautschnee und lust lose schnitte die ebereschen im linoleum des himmels wie träume schmal bei fallendem deckenlicht ich wünsche nichts als die zukunft der steppdecke deckenlichtdicht komme sie auf mich zu ich warte hier und was nicht noch alles ältlicher husten der an die schlafwand klopft ein ausguss und kiefern tröpfe, arme ich sage anteeksi und stoße rauch vom schwarzen balkon ein stein sucht nicht rascher den grund

keep wake dusk behind double windows the hill and I ghost mirror alloyed wit in wit snowskin and list less cuts the sorbs in the linoleum of the heavens narrow like dreams in the falling ceiling light I wish nothing but the future of the quilt, light-tight to the hanging light may she come close to me I am waiting here and whatever more oldish cough knocking on the sleep wall a sink and pines saps, poor I say anteeksi and push smoke from the black balcony a stone seeks not more swiftly the ground.

westwärts & außer form

westward & out of form

Auf einmal, da war ich, an dieser Stelle hört jener auf zu sprechen und ich springe schon mit den zeilen westwärts flache bälle sind schwer zu spielen unerhörter dinge

Suddenly, there was I, in these halls the other stops talking and I springs with the lines to the west already flat balls are hard to answer unheard of things

Beobachtung: ich schaute auf das Flugfeld und schmecke dieses süße nichts das wort das unterholz der brinkmannschen versuchswelt die trampelpfade um den kalten ort

Observation: i stared at the air field and tasted sweet nothing the phrase the shrubs of Brinkmann’s experiments yield well trodden paths around the cold place

den man im halbschlaf nur in oden misst die leberwurst als antwort auf askese Sogar die Schatten brennen! & was ist

that is measured half sleeping only in odes to answer ascetics sausage and mead And even the shadows burn! What ho?

mit fortsetzungen die ich niemals lese erinnern bis man alles ganz vergisst Der Mond ist nichts als eine Hypothese.

sequels that I will never read remember it all only to forgo The moon is hypothetic — a lead.

Reprinted with kind permission of the author.

Judith Zander is a German poet and prose author. She graduated from Literaturinstitut Leipzig and was the winner of the open mike competition in 2007. Her prose-debut: Dinge, die wir heute sagten (Things we said today) won the 3-Sat Award at the Ingeborg-Bachmann-Competition 2010. The book was also on the shortlist for the prestigious German Book Prize. Judith Zander will be in Sydney in August 2011 as a writer-in-residence at the University of Technology Sydney and the University of Western Sydney. The residency is part of a literature exchange program organised by the Goethe-Institut, UTS/UWS and Literaturwerkstatt Berlin. Judith will also be a guest author at the Melbourne Writers’ Festival and Brisbane Writers’ Festival.

kultur JUNE 2011

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Handwritten Ten Centuries of Manuscript Treasures from Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin The exhibition Handwritten: Ten Centuries of Manuscript Treasures from Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin will see two great institutions collaborate to bring 100 unique and rare manuscripts spanning 1,000 years of human endeavour to the Australian people. The Staatsbibliothek were generous lenders to the National Library’s enormously successful exhibition, Treasures from the World’s Great Libraries, in 2001 and this relationship has flourished in developing Handwritten. The exhibition is an unprecedented opportunity to view manuscript treasures reflecting the richness of German and European culture and history from the medieval world to the late 20th century. The Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin is Germany’s preeminent library and celebrates its 350th anniversary this year. It is particularly well known for its extraordinary collections of medieval manuscripts, Darmstaedter collection of scientific manuscripts, unrivalled German music manuscript holdings and very fine maps and rare books collections. To be shown exclusively at the National Library in Canberra from 26 November 2011 to 18 March 2012, Handwritten will be unique in the history of Australian exhibitions and a wonderful celebration of the Staatsbibliothek’s significant birthday.

Handwritten has been curated to appeal to Australians of all ages and interests. The exhibition will also be a unique opportunity to encounter original manuscripts marking significant moments in Western thought, creativity and history. Those featured form a who’s who of European history: Benz, Beuys, Böll, Bismarck, Braille, Curie, Darwin, Dickens, Diesel, Einstein, Galileo, Hegel, Hesse, Kafka, Kepler, Machiavelli, Mann, Marx, Michelangelo, Napoleon, Newton, Nietzsche, Nightingale, Pasteur and Schliemann to name just a few. Two manuscripts are in Goethe’s own hand: one, a poem (1827) for the painter Samuel Roesel and the other, a collaboration (1813–1814) with the composer Carl Friedrich Zelter. The exhibition will no doubt foster a greater understanding of German and European cultural heritage and their influence on our Australian culture. background: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Album leaf for the painter Samuel Roesel (1768-1843), detail, 1827

Courtesy of the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Preussischer Kulturbesitz

From exquisite medieval illuminated manuscripts to the letters and treatises of some of the world’s greatest writers, scientists and philosophers, the Handwritten exhibition will explore the primacy of the handwritten word and its power to convey ideas and emotions. The inclusion of priceless music manuscripts by Handel, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Haydn, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Brahms and others will further convey the power of writing to uplift and transform lives through creativity. Works such as Bach’s St John Passion, Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 in C minor will excite, inspire and move those fortunate enough to see these rare treasures.

Bookmarks: Voices From Elsewhere

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Dorpat Dagmar Leupold

Letzten Winter sah ich in einem Second-Hand-Laden im tief verschneiten Wasserburg am Inn ein Paar Stiefeletten: Kupferfarbenes Wildleder, mit Ledersenkel geschnürt, um den Knöchel herum fellbesetzt, in eine zierliche Spitze mündend. Eigentlich sind dies für deutsche Winter völlig ungeeignete Schuhe, ab Anfang Dezember liegt in München Schnee, und an den wenigen wärmeren Tagen schmilzt er zu Matsch, der erst recht in die Schuhe dringt. Auch zu meiner Garderobe passen sie, so exzentrisch gefärbt, nur bedingt — gleichwohl, ich kaufte sie für neunzehn Euro. Erst in der folgenden Nacht, im Traum, erfuhr ich den Grund für meine unsinnige Entscheidung. Da hatten diese Schuhe nämlich Kufen unter den Sohlen und trugen mich, ihre Besitzerin, in eleganten Schwüngen über die spiegelglatte Eisfläche eines zugefrorenes Gewässers in der baltischen Stadt Dorpat, im Kaiserreich deutsch, heute Tarnut, zu Estland gehörend. Ich trug außerdem einen stark taillierten, pelzverbrämten Wollmantel, Pelzmütze und Pelzmuff, kurz — ich war ein Geschöpf der vor-vorigen Jahrhundertwende. Ein Geschöpf, das auf dem Eis mehreren Kavalieren, die wohlerzogen ihre Hüte lüfteten, wendig entkam, sich nach dem abendlichen Eisvergnügen am Kaminfeuer wärmen würde, der handarbeitenden Mutter gegenüber sitzend, ein Buch im Schoß. Versonnener Blick in die Flammen: Andere Orakel gab es nicht, die eine gute Zukunft verheißen konnten. Der Traum stützte sich — beim Aufwachen wusste ich es sofort — auf ein Büchlein, das zu den wenigen Gegenständen gehörte, die meine Mutter, aus dem früheren Königsberg in Ostpreußen stammend, auf der Flucht mit dem großen Treck im Januar 45 hatte retten können. Den Titel habe ich vergessen, aber auf dem Einband sah man, im Licht milder Gaslaternen, die beschriebene Szene.

Die Eisläuferin im Buch war im heiratsfähigen Alter, unglücklich, oder doch zumindest ungewiß verliebt in einen Mann ihresgleichen, also deutsch-baltischer Adel. Eine Liebe mit all den Verwicklungen, die solch hochkarätige Verbindungen nicht nur bei den Betroffenen, sondern auch bei deren Eltern auslösen. Das abendliche Schlittschuhlaufen war der kathartische Moment; in der Bewegung, der Kälte, der Schnee-Erstarrung der mittelalterlichen Altstadtkulisse um den Teich herum lösten sich alle Probleme aufs Schönste und mündeten in die dem Leser von Seite eins an versprochene Eheschließung. Die Handlung fesselte mich Halbwüchsige sicherlich auch, vor allen Dingen aber fesselte mich der Ort: Dieses ferne, fremde Dorpat, das über die Sprache, meine Muttersprache deutsch, so vertraut war, enthielt für die Zehnjährige ein ungeheures Versprechen: Dass auch ihr Leben gelingen würde, so glatt oder so brüchig das Eis auch mitunter sein möge. Nur Schwung müsste man nehmen. Mit zehn gehen alle Rechnungen auf, mit zehn sind alle Brüche gerade.

Vier Jahrzehnte später unternahm ich die fällige Reise und flog ins Baltikum. Längst hatte ich erfahren, dass das Eis unter unseren Füßen mal mehr, mal weniger, aber als Metapher zuverlässig trägt, insofern waren Neugier und Desillusion friedlich ineinander übergegangen. Ich besuchte Riga, Vilnius, Talinn und die kurische Nehrung; ich verstand kein Wort der drei rätselhaften Sprachen und fühlte mich dennoch eingeweiht. Nein, ich war nicht in Tarnut, jedenfalls nicht im geographischen Sinn. Aber ich war in Landschaften und Städten unterwegs, die aus der Kindheitslektüre der Eisläuferin in Dorpat nur noch hochgerechnet werden mussten; ich erkannte wieder, was ich vorher nicht wusste. All dies erfuhr ich, müßig zu erwähnen, im heißen Sommer des Jahres 2010 in Fellstiefelchen auf Kufen.

Dagmar Leupold studied German literature, philosophy, and classical philology in Marburg and Tübingen. In 2010 she held the Liliencron Chair for Poetics at the University of Kiel. She has written numerous volumes of poetry as well as novels. Die Helligkeit der Nacht is her latest novel where she creates the unlikely and very poetic encounter of German playwright Heinrich von Kleist (1777–1811) and the former terrorist Ulrike Meinhof. Dagmar Leupold recently visited Australia and joined other international writers at the Wheeler Centre for Books Writing and Ideas in Melbourne in their event Voices from Elsewhere.

kultur JUNE 2011

24:

Bookmarks: Voices From Elsewhere

Which Myth Writes Me? Zafer Senocak

Whoever writes fiction is subjected to questions about the sources for his writing. The place where literature comes into being is not the writing workshop, where literature is merely articulated in language and given shape. Fictions cannot be traced to words, but to forewords. These fore-words come out of the author’s personal background, from his writing myth. This myth usually derives from a childhood experience, a pivotal experience. People often interpret literature through the author’s biography. In the case of authors who live outside their native linguistic geography, questions about belonging threaten to obscure other biographical details. The mythic foundations of their work disappear completely from view. Peter Weiss called his form of writing an ‘autobiographical fiction’. My literature, too, arises in a field of tension between personal experience and linguistic imagination. The way in which the world of experience intersects with the imaginative powers of language yields the style and form of my literary production. On the basis of my heritage I am a member of an ethnic minority in Germany. This group is the largest minority living in Germany today — the Turks. Am I therefore a Turkish author? I write my texts primarily in German, a language that I learned when I was eight. Am I therefore a German-speaking author? Perhaps a German-speaking author of Turkish descent? Am I something that cannot, must not, be? I did not ask myself any of these questions when I began to write. Writing is something that takes you by surprise. It is an unexpected, startling act. Preparatory and practice steps in the dance take place in secret. No one can tell by looking at you that you are an author. But presumably one could always tell by looking at me that I was a Turk. That writing literature and being Turkish are directly related is a lesson that I would have to learn. Would you have written if you had not come to Germany? I never suspected discrimination behind this hypothetical question, which I always answered in the affirmative. Until one day someone asked me if there was a noteworthy literature in Turkey. So people ask all kinds of questions. Is one asked such questions as an author or as a Turk in Germany? If one publishes a book in German as a Turk, is one then read as a German-speaking author or as a writing Turk? When the Turks in Germany began to write and did so in German, the Germans were quite surprised. After all, the formal agreements regulating the recruitment of foreign laborers had not said anything about literature. For this reason Germans are still surprised today when they encounter the phenomenon of a Turk writing in German. As we all know, surprise can impede perception. It forces us to bridge moments of paralysis, of speechlessness, of the inability to think and act, with conventional questions. Where did you learn German? How long

have you been in Germany? Do you also write in Turkish? Do you intend to return? One does not read an author’s texts, but rather, the biography written onto his body. Genealogy substitutes for biography. The body of the text — with its own patterns, its own concealed fore-words — disappears behind the image of the author. What motivates this type of reading? Fear of wonder? Fear of understanding or not understanding, a sense of strangeness, real or imagined? Doesn’t a sense of wonder precede every aesthetic pleasure? Many people who come to hear my texts ask me about biographical details. But it hardly ever happens that someone asks me about the mythic foundation of my work. Scholarly commentaries often link me with authors with whom I share only the biographical detail of not being German in Germany. Yet fiction is not reproducible. It is a unique, personal expression of linguistic consciousness. An experiential foundation in the deep structure of human consciousness. Fiction corresponds to the mythic foundation that first makes the writer into what he is, namely, an unmistakable interpreter of his world and time.

Zafer Senocak is a leading voice on issues of multiculturalism and cultural identity, and a mediator between Turkish and German culture. Born in Ankara, he moved to Munich with his parents in 1970 where he studied political science, philosophy, and literature. The widely published poet, essayist, journalist and editor has received many literary awards and was visiting Sydney as a guest author for the Sydney Writers’ Festival 2011 — sharing his view on being a German author with a migration background. In his work Zafer focuses on the question of culture and identity: What forms the identity of a person — language, genes, the country in which one lives in or the country in which one was born? Discover Zafer Senocak’s thoughts of what it is to be a Turkish-German author. Atlas of a Tropical Germany, Essays on Culture and Politics, 1900–1998, University of Nebraska Press, 2000, p 77f. Reprinted with kind permission of the publisher.

Berlin Dayz

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Berlin Dayz 2010 Berlin in Melbourne To many Australians, Berlin is a three dimensional history book of the 20th century. In contrast to this notion BERLIN DAYZ, the 2010 German-Australian Arts Festival, featured the enormous cultural and creative potential of the new German capital in the 21st century. And we combined it with the creativity of Australian artists and organisations! From high classic culture to pop and rock, from the stalls and balconies of concert halls to hazy bars — this festival offered many delights and opportunities to sample the best of what the Berlin and Australian arts scenes have to offer. While the festival focused on venues in and around Melbourne, other Australian capitals also saw a selection of what we had to offer. Berlin is more than a city; it is a concept of multiculturalism, avant-garde art and creativity which expands well beyond its city limits into Germany, Europe and now also Australia!

Somewhat Different — Contemporary Design and the Power of Convention, RMIT Gallery, Melbourne Mouse on Mars, The Corner Hotel, Richmond Fashion Accessories Show and Finissage, Australian Academy of Design Hijacked 2 — Recent German and Australian Photography, Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill Hijacked on the Big Screen, Federation Square, Melbourne A Drink with Heiner Müller, Merlyn Theatre at the Cub Malthouse, Southbank Germany, the Eurozone and beyond at ABC Studios

kultur JUNE 2011

26: 22:

Cityscapes

Cityscapes Tales from the Invisible City Jochen Gutsch

Auckland, Bangkok, Berlin, Hanoi, Istanbul, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, Manila, Prague, Saigon, Singapore, and Sydney — while these cities may be geographically and culturally diverse, their inhabitants are also confronted with a number of common issues and challenges. 12 cities — 12 themes — 12 months — 36 artists: These are the parameters for the Goethe-Institut’s online platform, presenting a growing collection of diverse, fascinating, vibrant tales. Responding to a monthly impulse, selected young artists and writers use various modern media to express their thoughts and feelings in relation to their respective cities. The results are extraordinary: The photos radiate a beauty and honesty rarely seen in commercial photography. Here is urban life as seen through young, watchful eyes. The bloggers’ texts are as entertaining as they are edgy. Playful statements lead to debates in the comment threads. Video and audio entries are descriptive and observing, yet fun to watch or listen. As users immerse themselves into the world of sound and vision, they get the opportunity to dive deep into the underbelly of the featured cities. As the blog grows into a kaleidoscope of impressions, opinions, and ideas, so too does its surrounding network grow. Several weeks into the project it is amazing to see articles, links and features on social media platforms, other blogs, and online media. Radio stations invite bloggers to discuss issues in greater detail, and the Asia-Europe Foundation’s (ASEF ) portal Culture360 features the project as a connection point between Asia and Europe. But it is not only online media who are intrigued. Thanks to an invitation by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UN ESCAP ), the project is part of the Asia-Pacific Urban Forum (APUF ) in Bangkok. The event presents the opportunity for the Goethe-Institut to transform the online content into a physical multi-media exhibition. This goes to show that the blog has far wider implications than serving as yet another toy for the online community. The Goethe-Institut invites you to a journey around the CityScapes Blog. We promise it will leave you entertained, inspired, amused, fascinated, surprised… and some of the entries may simply put a smile on your face. www.blog.goethe.de/cityscapes

Blue bin: paper, cardboard, newspapers, magazines Yellow bin: plastic, metal Grey bin: household waste Brown bin: organic waste Glass: return bottles with a deposit to the supermarket — other glass goes in the white, green, or brown bins Batteries: special box at the supermarket Electrical equipment: return to an appliance store Furniture: street pick-ups Donation bin: clothes, shoes

‘Bin It’, Germany: Recycling World Champions! Ben Fajzullin (Berlin)

CityScapes

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MY BERLIN Experience Natalie Mills

October 2000: Zoo Station imposes itself upon me in steel, dust and neon concrete roar; this slipstream city chaotic with import and motion. Cranes glowering: gigantic metal vampires bent over architectural prey — in/flux and constructs. Maps are mere suggestions. This city will not be where I found it yesterday.

I walk. Blistered hours are choked quicksilent inside library wings desired; Bach’s hand-inked concertos emanate genius waves from their glasshouse far away/ so close. Outside, shift: dusk in sepia softgravelgrowl another train; I’m where? again another crane and in cafe caverns I see this magnus opium dance through a shutterspeed strobelit framebyframe reflection of progress :erratic:erotic:elastic:exotic: and the sun sets like mirrors of the gallery on the Wall — red read and dusty. Checkpoint at sundown Take some shards of graffiti-scarred history home: it’s wrapped in plastic. Little plastic bags of Wall. It’s all for sale.

Walk. Breathing Unter den Linden in darkness, seductive streetlamp eyes spotlight pathways to the past; I’m passed into futures again; the Reichstag illuminescent, iridescent in glass ceiling concentricities born/e overside its father edifice, distended with histories. It watches, whispers through subsussurant trees (“i have seen more than and more than…”) and directs me to a famous neighbour, wrapped in plastic. The Reichstag breathes in stone: it is a proud beast. (“Christo wrapped me, when I was wrapped. It was Very Important.”) I know nothing. The Brandenburg Gate is wrapped in plastic: in/flux and constructs. There is a picture, fictitious life-sized and superimposed, of the Brandenburg Gate on the Brandenburg Gate as plastic. My photograph wraps it in plastic again and the cranes bow their heads in satisfaction. This is their creation; this surrogate reality, this slipstream city with its heaviness of history, always and never, never: forever. In this endless everyaged place, I’ve been lost for daze. I have been taken but have not truly taken Berlin.

Natalie Mills’ poem was one of about 200 entries in the Goethe-Institut’s MY BERLIN competition. The poem won her a trip to Germany and a language course at the Goethe-Institut Berlin.

kultur JUNE 2011

28:

Willkommen und Abschied After close to six years at the helm of the Goethe-Institut Australia, Klaus Krischok will move to new shores… the Mediterranean, Tel Aviv and Israel!

kultur: Klaus, in a few words, can you sum up your Australian experience? KK: Lots of work, great support and hopefully some reasonable results. I loved it… enough said!

kultur: What were your biggest hits and misses? What went well and why? KK: I may have fully adopted the Australian spirit of seeing the glass half full when it really is half empty, but I look back at six altogether successful years with a great team. In a competitive cultural environment it pays to follow a few principles to be successful: Stay on a topic, repeat the message and don’t stray off the garden path. Our film festival has more than doubled its audience in my time; our customer base has more than tripled, the language courses are fuller than ever. We have managed to dig deep in cultural festivals like GerMANY FACES Australia in 2007 and BERLIN DAYZ in 2010. We have forged strategic and sustainable partnerships with some of Australia’s preeminent arts institutions and media, and together explored topics and genres of mutual interest like ‘Urban Future’ or ‘Arts and Migration’. We work bilaterally and increasingly multilaterally with Asia and Europe. And we have had some seriously cool guests and parties here in recent years.

kultur: Knowing everything about Australia you know today — which advice would you give a newcomer for his first weeks? KK: Australians are very proud of their country and criticism here works very differently than in Europe: Listen before you speak! Australia is not Canada, Melbourne is not Sydney and Adelaide is not Brisbane — respect the differences! Move out of the established arts scenes and explore the multiethnic underground. And never underestimate the great German community here: They are your friends and I am forever grateful for the support I have received from them. And: Always put on factor 30+!

kultur: How would you describe the image of Germans and Germany in Australia? KK: Similar to my successor I have a strong ‘anglo’ background having lived in the US, the UK and Canada before moving to Australia. Similar to those countries, Australia remembers the dark sides of the 20th century for which Germany was largely responsible. However, being a young country, Australia has eagerly embraced the notion of Germany as a peaceful and successful European democracy and economy — and is now beginning to understand that the ‘new Germany’ is a powerhouse of creativity, lateral thinking if you like, and a place that stimulates innovation and experimentation more than before — in the arts and beyond the arts. We are still seen as reliable and maybe a bit too serious in our approach. I hope I managed to do something about this last stereotype.

His successor, Dr Arpad Andreas Sölter currently heads the department Strategy & Evaluation at the Goethe-Institut’s head office in Munich. He will arrive in Sydney on 1 September. Kultur wanted to know more:

Willkommen und Abschied Klaus Krischok welcomes Dr Arpad Sölter to Australia

kultur: Is Australia overdue its own GoetheInstitut — a co-ordinated body to spruik its culture internationally? KK: Stereotypes of Australia work well and in the country’s favour. However I realise that many Australians with whom I have worked are somewhat over the idea of being seen as direct successors of Crocodile Dundee. If cultural diplomacy is to be used as a soft power to change the image of a country abroad, then I believe Australia could do more than dishing out footballs to foreign presidents or letting visitors cuddle koalas. However, Australia has a multitude of organisations in place looking after bilateral and multilateral relationships. The focus here has naturally shifted from Europe to Asia — and I am somewhat reluctant to notice that ‘Australia beyond the stereotypes’ is largely absent in most of Europe. So — yes, in order to keep the balance, I believe Australia has to offer more and should do it.

kultur: Arpad, are you looking forward to Australia? AS: I am thrilled to be living in Australia soon! To come to Sydney has been on my wish list for quite some time. I am surely not going to miss the next grey German winter. I’d rather send lots of nice postcards from sunny Sydney to friends and family back home. They told me they all want to visit — and I hope they won’t show up all at once.

kultur: Where do you see the Goethe-Institut heading in the next five years? AS: Good cultural programming aims to bring together thinkers, artists, writers and activists from Europe and our host countries to discuss common concerns and to link our traditions of political thought as well as looking towards the future together. Australia, Europe and America can’t afford to grow apart in the 21st century — and they cannot afford to grow apart from the rest of the world.

left:

Klaus Krischok with Wladimir Kaminer, Wheeler Centre Klaus Krischok with Burghart Klaussner, Chauvel Above: Dr Arpad Andreas Sölter Right:

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kultur: In this context, what are the biggest challenges for cultural diplomacy? AS: The culture industry is part of the dominant entertainment complex. The event machinery, people-oriented entertainment and a growing festival landscape shape a context no one can ignore. Content- and topic-driven programming is a very different ballgame and increasingly hard to push through. Cutting-edge stuff is hard to sell. The conclusion is to go for signature events, big whoppers — and surprises: The media will then follow. Media coverage focuses mainly on mainstream topics, celebrities, box office hits and the economy of creativity. The competition for visibility, attention, audiences and sponsors is sometimes brutal. The Goethe-Institut mainly operates not as a sponsor or a funding agency. Rather we are partners, co-presenters and programmers, trend-spotters and -setters. Our working method is one that necessitates a co-curation, a critical view to our thematic commitments to what the relevant contemporary discourses are, and a solid partnership with local organisations. At the GoetheInstitut, we program around current themes, key issues and discourses shaping an ongoing dialogue between Germany/Europe and Australia. Three clearly defined thematic commitments are relevant for the next couple of years: Cultures in motion: perspectives of migration, integration, inclusion and exclusion, in short, perspectives of multiculturalism. The digital transformation of the public sphere: E-Democracy, Online-Journalism, Cyber-Citizenship, Facebook and Twitter revolutions etc. The environment: the arts and climate change, green architecture and new sustainable energies.

kultur: You have a strong ‘anglophile’ background, having worked in the UK and in Canada. What did you learn to appreciate there and how do you expect Australia to differ from these countries? AS: I still remember meeting Klaus back in 1993 near Bloomsbury in London when he was heading the Goethe-Institut York and we initiated some programs together. I then spent five happy years in the UK and six in Canada. I had the opportunity to study in England and later became a research scholar at University College London. I love British humour, Canadian diversity and tolerance. The successful integration of newcomers is a challenge for any multicultural society — and I am very much looking forward to living in Australia in this respect. And I am more than glad to see the Queen on some dollar notes, still.

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FAR AWAY SO CLOSE German life and history in Australia Show us your German-Australian site! Herbig Family Tree

City Sign Sculpture Garden

Win a trip to Germany with Lufthansa and a German course at the Goethe-Institut German life and history on Australian soil is rich and varied: Everyone knows Hahndorf, SA, or has at least heard of German missionaries in Hermansburg, NT. You may have already stepped into a Bavarian beer café or even visited a Goethe-Institut…

ADELAIDE O-BAHN

BERLIN WALL

We want to know: l Where are the hidden treasures of German life and history in Australia? l Where are the monuments and sites of which we have not yet heard? l Which stories have not yet been told?

This is how it works: You send us an image of your German-Australian site — and tell us all about it in 150 words or less. Entries should be sent to faraway@sydney.goethe.org between 1 June and 30 September 2011. The Goethe-Institut will publish your image and story on its website www.goethe.de/faraway A jury will nominate a winner before 30 October 2011. The winner will receive: a free flight to/from Germany in 2012 PLUS a four week language course at a Goethe-Institut in Germany including 4 weeks’ accommodation and breakfast. Conditions apply.

This is what we are after: The unexpected, the funny, the quirky and the downright interesting!

Terms and Conditions German and English entries accepted. The Goethe-Institut reserves the right not to publish images or text should they not be in compliance with competition. The competition is restricted to persons 18 years and older and living in Australia. Only one online-entry per person is accepted. Double entries will be excluded from the competition. The value of the prize is not exchangeable or redeemable for cash or any other goods or services. By sending us an image and a story the participants give permission to the Goethe-Institut to publish their story and photo on the website www.goethe.de for public access. Participants further grant permission to the Goethe-Institut to edit the story and translate it, and to make these versions accessible to the public. Participants also have to declare that their story and the photo is an original creation and that it does not infringe on any copyright. The Goethe-Institut will treat all personal information confidentially. Please check our website for the full terms and conditions: www.goethe.de/australia

GERMAN BUTCHER

Goethe-Institut of Australia Calendar of Events July to December 2011 Highlights

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CALENDAR OF EVENTS Käthe Kollwitz Selbstbildnis Im Profil 1927, courtesy Rex Irwin

JULY to DECEMBER 2011

German Language Courses

Exhibition

Music/Performances

Exhibition

Melbourne Term 3 29 August – 26 November Sydney Term 3 18 July – 24 September Term 4 10 October – 17 December

The enemy at home: German internees in WWI Australia

Liquid Architecture 12

German Expressionist Prints

German Language classes at all levels, taught by experienced, fully qualified teachers. We offer an interactive and communicative approach to teaching, incorporating the latest information on cultural and social life in Germany, in well-equipped classrooms with up-to-date equipment. Participants also enjoy small class sizes and a variety of support programs. goethe.de/australia

7 May – 11 September Museum of Sydney Cnr Bridge & Phillip Streets, Sydney During WWI German internees from all Australian states and overseas territories were held in three camps in NSW. This exhibition tells the story of the process and experience of their internment. It presents a strong photographic record of this disturbing time in Australia’s history and of the remarkable ingenuity and resilience of those interned. Supported by the Goethe-Institut

July Sydney/Melbourne/Brisbane/Perth German sound and visual artist Marc Behrens will be the Goethe-Institut’s guest at the 12th edition of this national festival of sound art. Presented in cooperation with the Goethe-Institut liquidarchitecture.org.au Film

GERMAN FILM WEEK From 1 July National Film and Sound Archive, Canberra

hht.net.au/museums/mos

Full program available on the website. Presented in cooperation with the Goethe-Institut

Exhibition

Film

FAR AWAY SO CLOSE — German Life and history in australia

Information correct at time of printing.

rexirwin.com

RAINER WERNER FASSBINDER: ENFANT TERRIBLE? 11 – 21 July Adelaide Cinémathèque

Matthias Koch’s portrayal of visible traces of German history and contemporary life in Australia continues the thread of Far Away So Close, an exhibition project developed by the Goethe-Institut, and observes what kind of German stories these traces tell.

A selection of films by one of the most prolific and energetic directors of the New German Cinema, Rainer Werner Fassbinder: Fear Eats The Soul, Fox And His Friends, The Marriage of Maria Brown and Veronika Voss. Presented in cooperation with the Goethe-Institut mercurycinema.org.au

For program updates please visit goethe.de/australia

From Kollwitz to Dix, artists associated with German Expressionism in the early decades of the 20th century took up printmaking with collective fervour, revolutionising the mediums of etching and lithography to stark effect. This show will feature 30 outstanding prints from Germany by Max Beckmann, Karl SchmidtRotluff, George Grosz, Erich Heckel, Käthe Kollwitz and Otto Dix.

nfsa.gov.au

1 June – 31 August Goethe-Institut, Melbourne

goethe.de/australia

26 July – 27 August Rex Irwin Art Dealer 38 Queen Street, Woollahra, Sydney

German Day Out 28 July Federation Square, Melbourne This year’s German Day Out for students of German is devoted to German roX, and includes the finals of the Goethe-Institut song writing competition. Over 1,500 students will congregate in Melbourne Town Hall to learn about global opportunities for personal and professional development and careers open to people with German language skills. They will then move to Federation Square with German food and entertainment, including an SBS Radio competition and the song competition finals. goethe.de/australia

kultur JUNE 2011

7 and 11 September

Der Blaue Engel

Nosferatu — Eine Symphonie des Grauens

Film

Weimar and Hollywood 10 August – 6 November Domain Theatre, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney Free This film series demonstrates the worldwide influence of German film-makers of the inter-war years — particularly in Hollywood. Screening classic cinema from the 1920s to the 1950s, the series will trace the transatlantic relationship of Weimar cinema and American movies resulting from the rich interchange between Germany and the United States.

artgallery.nsw.gov.au 17 and 21 August

Dir: FW Murnau, 1922 (Germany) 63 mins (at 18fps), 16mm, B&W Max Schreck, Alexander Granach English intertitles 14 and 18 September

Last Laugh Der letzte Mann Dir: FW Murnau, 1924 (Germany) 72 mins (at 24fps), 35mm, B&W Emil Jannings, Mady Delschaft 21 and 25 September

Sunrise Dir: FW Murnau, 1927 (US) 96 mins, 35mm, B&W George O’Brien, Janet Gaynor 28 September and 2 October

Tabu Dir: FW Murnau 1931 (US) 90 mins, 35mm, B&W Anna Chevalier, Matahi 5 and 9 October

Metropolis Dir: Fritz Lang 1926 (Germany) 119 mins, 35mm, B&W Alfred Abel, Gustav Fröhlich English intertitles

24 and 28 August

Pandora’s box Die Büchse der Pandora Dir: GW Pabst, 1929 (Germany) 110 mins, 35mm, B&W English intertitles 31 August and 4 September

The Blue Angel Der Blaue Engel Dir: Josef Von Sternberg 1930 (Germany) 108 mins, 35mm, B&W Marlene Dietrich, Emil Jannings German with English subtitles

The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari Das Kabinett des Doktor Caligari Dir: Robert Wiene, 1919 (Germany) 72 mins (at 18fps), 35mm, Tinted version Werner Krauss, Conrad Veidt German intertitles with English subtitles

12 and 16 October

M Dir: Fritz Lang, 1931 (Germany) 118 mins, 35mm, B&W Peter Lorre, Otto Wernicke German with English subtitles

32:

Exhibition

Neues Bauen International 1927/2002

The mad square: Modernity in German Art 1910–37

4 – 31 August Sydney College of the Arts Balmain Road, Rozelle

6 August – 6 November Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

Bauhaus and Beyond: The move towards architectural modernism started in the 1920s in Germany: It was a protest against the imitation of historical styles that had predominated until the end of World War I. The new architectural forms were to represent the break from tradition and the past, using a new formal language, new building types and spatial concepts. Architects believed that the shape of a building should express its structure — and external form should follow internal function. At the same time, architects were responding to the complete change in social structures brought about by the war. Curator Karin Kirsch selected buildings and architects whose approach still stands up in architectural history today: This exhibition presents an astonishing overview of the icons of early modern architecture. Accompanied by talks and workshops by Prof Karin Kirsch, curator An exhibition by ifa, Institute of Foreign Relations; presented by Sydney College of the Arts in cooperation with the Goethe-Institut

This major international exhibition presents three decades of German modernism, leading up to and following the turbulent Weimar Republic. From the 1910s until late 1930s Berlin, the metropolis was a centre for creativity, from which avant-garde movements blossomed: Expressionism, Dada, Constructivism, Bauhaus and New Objectivity. All were linked by a shared interest in radical artistic experimentation. The mad square: Modernity in German art explores the aesthetic innovations made during this period in painting, sculpture, graphic art, photography, film and the decorative arts. Over 200 works by artists including George Grosz, Otto Dix, Max Beckmann, Käthe Kollwitz and their contemporaries reveal the fascinating and complex ways in which artists responded to the forces of modernity. The exhibition tours to National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne: 25 November 2011 to 4 March 2012.

artgallery.nsw.gov.au

19 and 23 October

Scarlet Street

sydney.edu.au/sca

Dir: Fritz Lang, 1945 (US) 103 mins, 35mm, B&W Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennet 26 and 30 October

The Big Heat Dir: Fritz Lang, 1953 (US) 90 mins, 35mm, B&W Glenn Ford, Gloria Grahame 2 and 6 November

The Blue Gardenia Dir: Fritz Lang, 1953 (US) 90 mins, 35mm, B&W Anne Baxter, Richard Conte

Otto Dix, Portrait of the dancer Tamara Danischewski 1933 Oil, tempera on wood, 80.3 x 64.1cm Kunstmuseum, Stuttgart

Courtesy Dominik Mersch Gallery

Goethe-Institut of Australia Calendar of Events July to December 2011 Highlights

Exhibition

Josef Albers: Albers and Seidler 9 – 20 August Dominik Mersch Gallery 2 Danks Street, Waterloo, Sydney Josef Albers (1888–1976) was a German-born American artist, whose work, both in Europe and the US, formed the basis of some of the most influential and far-reaching art education programs of the 20th century. His influence fell heavily on American artists of the late 1950s and the 1960s. Albers connection to Sydney is via Harry Seidler, who was a student of Albers. The gallery will show works from the Seidler collection as well as footage of Seidler’s and Albers’ relationship.

dominikmerschgallery.com

Panel

Exhibition

Theatre

The mad square: Exhibition forum and brunch

Living in a world heritage — Berlin housing estates 1913–1934

Sweet Bird andsoforth

7 August 9:00am – 11:30am Centenary Auditorium, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney This panel discusses the challenges facing museums today with a particular focus on the situation of museums in Germany, the complexities involved in mounting international loan exhibitions as well as the topical issue of immunity against seizure. Exhibition curator Jacqueline Strecker in conversation with Sean Rainbird, Director, Staatsgalerie Stuttgart; Prof Carla Schulz-Hoffmann, Deputy Director General, Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen and Chief Curator, Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich and Charlotte Davy, Senior Exhibitions Registrar, Art Gallery of New South Wales. Presented in cooperation with the Goethe-Institut

Six housing estates of Berlin Modernism (1913–1934) are to be listed on the UNESCO World Heritage List. These housing estates stand out for their importance and their good state of preservation. Architects of the style known as Classical Modernism responded to the lack of housing after the First World War creating modern, affordable flats with kitchens, bathrooms and balconies that provided light, air and sun instead of houses with backyards or side wings. The high-quality architecture, the language of the shapes, floor plans of the flats and urban design of the estates became a role model for the entire 20th century. An exhibition by Winfried Brenne Architects, presented by the Goethe-Institut

goethe.de/australia Courtesy Winfired Brenne Archtitects

The mad square: Symposium

International and local speakers present a fascinating array of perspectives on curatorial, artistic and political questions. Keynote speakers: Sean Rainbird, Director, Staatsgalerie Stuttgart; Prof Carla Schulz-Hoffmann, Deputy Director General, Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen; Prof Uwe Fleckner, Professor of Art History, University of Hamburg and Director of the Warburg-Haus and Dr Jill Lloyd, London-based writer, curator and lecturer specialising in German Modernism. Presented in cooperation with the Goethe-Institut

8 August – 28 October Goethe-Institut, Sydney

artgallery.nsw.gov.au

Symposium

6 August 9:00am – 5:00pm Domain Theatre, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

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Exhibition

Bruno Taut: master architect in colourful Berlin

Panel

Weimar — The social and political experiment 11 August 6:30pm – 8:00pm Goethe-Institut, Sydney

8 August – 28 October Goethe-Institut, Sydney

A public panel, moderated by: Prof Peter Morgan, University of Sydney with Reinhard Rösch, former German Ambassador and Dr Marco Duranti, University of Sydney.

Bruno Taut is one of the most eminent architects of German Modernism. On the occasion of his 125th birthday the Berlin Werkbund dedicated this exhibition of his projects to him. Bruno Taut’s residential settlements in Berlin set architectural and urban design standards. Here, Taut reformed the notion of housing by utilising meticulous details and incorporating exterior spaces into the housing. An exhibition by Winfried Brenne Architects, presented by the Goethe-Institut

The demise of the Second Reich at the end of World War I allowed for one of the most progressive and liberal constitutions and legislations Europe had ever seen. Fresh winds blew not just through Germany’s parliaments but also through courtrooms and theatres, through council chambers and schools. But of course, the experiment faced strong resistance — and in the end, it went from decadence to disaster. Presented by the Goethe-Institut with the German Academic Exchange Service, DAAD

goethe.de/australia

17 August – 10 September ATYP under the Wharf, Hickson Road, Sydney

Sweet Bird andsoforth heralds a new voice in international playwriting. Laura Naumann’s theatrical play combines a Chekhovian landscape with the shifting dreams, memories and fantasies of six young people caught between adolescence and adulthood. Surprisingly humorous, irreverent and occasionally anarchic Sweet Bird andsoforth is an exhilarating descent into the vagaries of youth. Presented in cooperation with the Goethe-Institut

Concert

Sydney Youth Orchestra Ensemble 25 August 7:00pm Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney The Sydney Youth Orchestra is one of Australia’s leading training orchestras for the professional musicians of tomorrow. To celebrate the Gallery’s The mad square exhibition, an ensemble of players from the SYO will perform a program of music from the tumultuous period of the Weimar Republic that includes works by Schulhoff, Schreker and Kurt Weill’s iconic music for Bertolt Brecht’s Threepenny Opera.

artgallery.nsw.gov.au

kultur JUNE 2011

Courtesy ZKM Museum of Contemporary Art, Karlsruhe

34:

Literature

Exhibition and Symposium

Judith Zander

EXHIBITION: Mischa Kuball — Plato’s Mirror

27 August – 5 September Melbourne Writers Festival 7 – 11 September Brisbane Writers Festival German author, Judith Zander won the 3Sat-Award at the IngeborgBachmann-Competition 2010 with her prose-debut: Dinge, die wir heute sagten (Things we said today) Judith Zander visits Australia as part of a literature exchange program between UTS/UWS and Literaturwerkstatt Berlin. She will read and engage in discussions at the Melbourne Writers Festival and the Brisbane Writers Festival. Presented in cooperation with the Goethe-Institut mwf.com.au brisbanewritersfestival.com.au

Literature

31 August – 1 October

Symposium: Plato in Contemporary Art 2 September Artspace, 43–51 Cowper Wharf Road, Woolloomooloo, Sydney Plato’s allegory of the cave in the seventh book of The Republic is one of the most influential texts of European literature. As an artist Mischa Kuball engages with the phenomenon of light and Plato’s allegory is a major theme in his work. Kuball creates spaces that can be considered analogous to the situation in Plato’s text about the cave. In photographs and videos Kuball translates the complex relationships between light source, reflection, silhouettes and representation into seemingly endless transformations of reality into the reality of its reflection and vice versa. Presented in cooperation with the Goethe-Institut artspace.org.au

Yoko Tawada

Film

27 August – 5 September Melbourne Writers Festival

Berlin: Symphony of a Great City

7 – 11 September Brisbane Writers Festival

1 and 2 September 7:00pm – 9:00pm Domain Theatre, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

Yoko Tawada has been living in Germany since 1982. Her awards include the Gunzo Prize for new writers in 1991; the prestigious Akutagawa Prize in 1996, and the Adelbert von Chamisso Prize (1996). In 2005, she was honoured with the Goethe Medal. Yoko Tawada has published intensively in German and Japanese, her work embraces both, the European as well as the Asian culture. Yoko Tawada will read and engage in discussions at the Melbourne Writers Festival and the Brisbane Writers Festival. Presented in cooperation with the Goethe-Institut mwf.com. aubrisbanewritersfestival.com.au

Walter Ruttmann’s cinematic masterpiece of 1927 will be screened with live jazz music composed and performed by award winning musician Stu Hunter. In association with the Goethe-Institut

artgallery.nsw.gov.au

Dance

Music

Spring Dance PINA BAUSCH: A Celebration

Merlyn Quaife Gallery Cabaret

2 and 3 September Sydney Opera House Full program details available from August. Presented in cooperation with the Goethe-Institut sydneyoperahouse.com Theatre

The Threepenny Opera 1 – 24 September Sydney Theatre Company, Sydney Theatre Sydney Theatre Company presents a Malthouse Melbourne and Victorian Opera production

Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill’s The Threepenny Opera. Michael Kantor’s new production shoves aside the pretentions of modern world civility to revel in all that is corrupt and squirming beneath. Musical director Richard Gill conducts an ensemble drawn from the firmaments of opera, music theatre, cabaret and every dive in between. Dare to imagine, if you will, a Brechtian Underbelly with songs…

18 September 7:00pm Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney With Andrea Katz on piano, renowned soprano Merlyn Quaife will summon up all the decadence, satire and tragedy of the Weimar Republic and its cabaret tradition. Resonate will move into the entrance court where audiences will be seated cabaret style and be served wine and light refreshments while Merlyn and Andrea bring you a program of songs that includes the classics Lili Marlene, Mack the Knife, Surabaya Johnny and Wilkommen from the musical Cabaret.

artgallery.nsw.gov.au

Panel

Lou Salomé: Femme Fatale

sydneytheatre.com.au

6 October Goethe-Institut, Sydney

Panel

One of the most fascinating and almost forgotten characters of the Weimar period, Lou AndreasSalomé (1861–1937) was a true world citizen, a writer and psychoanalyst, and a muse and confidant to Friedrich Nietzsche, Rainer Maria Rilke and Sigmund Freud. Lou was misrepresented by a spurned lover as the original ‘Lulu’, a sexually provocative femme fatale, in the play of that title by Frank Wedekind (1895, 1902), which outraged public decency and was banned, but the second part of which, Pandora’s Box, was turned into a cinematic masterpiece by GW Pabst in 1929. Philosopher Matthew Del Nevo will introduce Lou Salomé’s book Die Erotik (1910) and discuss the relation of the erotic to art, religion, and society. Presented by Matthew Del Nevo in cooperation with the Goethe-Institut.

Roaring 20s? Europe in Upheaval 8 September 6:30pm – 8:00pm Goethe-Institut, Sydney The call to ‘Come to the Cabaret’ resounded in the 1920s; while traditional values were at stake and the arts flourished, the economies all over Europe went into free fall. Just what was it that made the 1920s so exciting and dangerous at the same time? A public panel, moderated by: Prof Peter Morgan, University of Sydney, with Dr Michelle Langford, UNSW and others. Presented by the Goethe-Institut with the German Academic Exchange Service, DAAD

goethe.de/australia goethe.de/australia

Goethe-Institut of Australia Calendar of Events July to December 2011 Highlights

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Film

Panels

Film

Exhibition

Antenna Documentary Festival

Sydney Architecture Festival Panels

HANS-JÜRGEN SYBERBERG: Karl May

6 – 9 October Chauvel Cinema, Sydney

20 October Affordable Housing — the Way to the Future! 27 October Preserving the Heritage — Enabling a Modern Lifestyle Goethe-Institut, Sydney

Melbourne Cinémathèque

Bruno Taut: master architect in colourful Berlin

Australia’s first documentary film festival will kick off with an international line-up and guests from Germany. Full program details available from September. Presented in cooperation with the Goethe-Institut antennafestival.org Exhibition

Power to the people: Contemporary conceptualism and the object in art 7 October – 27 November Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne Through the presentation of works from over 15 Australian and international artists, this exhibition focuses on contemporary practices that demonstrate a move away from the art ‘object’ into more performative, documentative, research and participatory modes of art making. The exhibition considers these practices in light of the strategies employed by the pioneers of Conceptual Art in the 1960s and 1970s, and contemplates the contemporary adaptation, expansion and legitimacy of these trajectories in the 21st century. German artists Olaf Nicolai and Kirsten Pieroth are included. Presented in cooperation with the Goethe-Institut melbournefestival.com.au

As part of the Sydney Architecture Festival, the Goethe-Institut presents two panels on past and the future principles of architecture in Australia. How does the preservation of history and architecture enable a modern lifestyle? Working with future generations for social sustainability and affordable housing? The panels will be presented in conjunction with the exhibition on Bruno Taut at the Goethe-Institut Australien. Presented in cooperation with the Goethe-Institut goethe.de/australia or sydneyarchitecturefestival.org

Film-Concert

Sydney Symphony Orchestra: Metropolis

23 November 7:00pm ACMI, Melbourne The second in Syberberg’s trilogy of epic works detailing the psychological, aesthetic and mythic origins of the Third Reich focuses on Karl May. May was an outlandishly kitsch, prolific, popular and selfmythologising German author of globetrotting adventure-fiction. Presented in cooperation with the Goethe-Institut melbournecinematheque.org Theatre

Marius von Mayenburg: The Ugly One 23 November – 17 December Griffin Theatre, Sydney Marius Von Mayenburg brings you a black comedy of scalpel-sharp social satire about identity and contemporary narcissism. A modern day allegory that asks the question — how far would you go to fit in? An Arts Radar and Griffin Independent Sydney Premiere Production. Presented in cooperation with the Goethe-Institut griffintheatre.com.au

sydneysymphony.com

An exhibition by Winfried Brenne Architects, presented by the Goethe-Institut

German Summer School

Kulturinsel Tasmanien 9 – 16 January 2012 Hobart After the opening of the spectacular Museum of Old and New Art MONA, and with the cultural Hobart Festival FOMA in January, our annual intensive Goethe-Institut language course, the popular German Summer School, will include both MONA and its adjacent Moorilla Winery in the program. With formal language tuition in the mornings and special interest groups on cultural and other topics, we promise an exciting and interesting week. Residential (apartment accommodation) and non-residential packages will be available. Mark this unique opportunity in your diary! All learners of German welcome, but basic language skills essential as there are no beginners’ classes. goethe.de/australia

28 and 29 October 8:00pm Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House Fritz Lang’s Metropolis was the most ambitious and expensive silent film ever made. An icon of 1920s cinema, it is set in a futuristic urban dystopia, where a world of luxury and opulence is supported by a class of underground slave-workers. This newly restored version of the film includes 30 minutes of footage, lost until 2008, and is now being shown for the first time in Australia. Conductor Frank Strobel will conduct the Sydney Symphony, to marry Gottfried Huppertz’s lush original film score with Fritz Lang’s incredible imagery in a live performance and screening. Presented in cooperation with the Goethe-Institut

25 November 2011 – 4 March 2012 Goethe-Institut, Melbourne

Exhibition

Handwritten: Ten Centuries of Manuscript Treasures 25 November 2011 – 18 March 2012 National Library of Australia, Canberra This showcase of treasures from the collection of the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin will be exhibited in Australia for the first time. Over 100 unique manuscripts explore and reflect human achievement over a period of more than 1,000 years through original letters and documents. The great names from history are represented with significant German figures including Luther, Goethe, Nietzsche, Marx, Diesel and Benz.

A series of programs across Sydney’s leading arts venues including Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney Theatre Company, Sydney Opera House, Museum of Sydney, Sydney College of the Arts and more. Presenting theatre, music, cabaret, exhibitions and events, in association with The mad square: Modernity in German Art 1910–37 at the Art Gallery of New South Wales 6 August to 6 November 2011.

nla.gov.au

kultur JUNE 2011

www.germany.travel

�� years of the automobile

BMW Welt

Mercedes-Benz Museum

Autostadt

On the road in Germany 2011...

Porsche Museum

… what a year to visit Autostadt Wolfsburg, the Porsche and Mercedes-Benz museums in Stuttgart and BMW Welt in Munich. The automobile was invented �� years ago in the Baden-Wuerttemberg region, which is celebrating this major anniversary with the Automobile Summer ��. And the whole of Germany will be celebrating with them. Up and down the country – at our car museums, automotive discovery parks and racing circuits – we are sharing our expertise with the whole world. Join us for an experience to remember. www.germany.travel/specialoffers

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Melbourne 448 St Kilda Road, Melbourne P: 03 9864 8917 E: learngerman@melbourne.goethe.org Sydney 90 Ocean Street, Woollahra P: 02 8356 8366 E: learngerman@sydney.goethe.org www.goethe.de/australia