Magazine #12 of the Federal Cultural Foundation / Kulturstiftung des Bundes

texts by verena auffermann stephanie barron mircea c

autumn 2008

german federal cultural foundation

das magazin der kulturstiftung des bundes

arescu rainer erlinger werner nekes georg m. oswald anke te heesen

ar t

No matter how small, every project we fund is important to us. The individual character and innovative ambition of each project makes it almost impossible to compare or rank them. All the projects accompany us for a short time and we them until we confirm the proof of expenditure and our (funding) relation ship comes to an end.

From the moment we select an application for funding, we ea gerly watch how the project develops and are often surprised by the outcome. And sometimes we are taken by spontaneous enthusiasm long before a project has come to a successful conclusion. This was the case with a project in the KUR Programme (see page 9 ) that aims to preserve the Pausa textile company in the Swabian town of Mössingen with its enormous storehouse of fabrics and extensive archive of patterns, in which one could easily spend days rummaging through. The photos in this issue and the article by Anke te Heesen provide a glimpse of the world of rich colours and forms contained in the Pausa patterns. The commemorative year 2009 marks the founding of the two Ger man states in 1949 and the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 which eventually re-established German unity. Several large commem orative projects are already taking shape at the Federal Cultural Foundation, one of which is a major history forum in Berlin as

described in our last issue (we will keep you updated!). The exhi bition German Art in the Cold War provides viewers with a retrospective of the parallel worlds of East and West Ger many which, as time progresses, become less and less distinguish able from one another. In an interview, the American curator Stephanie Barron explains why this chapter of art history contin ues to play an important role even beyond Germany’s borders. The Romanian writer Mircea C˘art˘arescu gives us a deeply per sonal account of how the events of 1989 influenced children’s re lationships with their parents’.

Other commemorative events of 2009 are at risk of being eclipsed by the tumultuous political events of history, for example, the founding of the Bauhaus in Weimar in 1919. Highly-regarded by the German media as an expert on ethics, Rainer Erlinger ex plores the fundamental relationship between design and ethics in view of the upcoming Bauhaus exhibition in Berlin in 2009

The story by Georg M. Oswald poses ethical questions, as well. Recently the Home Game Fund for Theatre Projects funded the play Illegal , based on the situation of illegal immigrants in Munich. Oswald’s story of the same name reveals the unethical behaviour of employers of illegal immigrants who believe they are doing a good deed or, if guilty of anything, then only a trivial offence.

What can we expect from literature exhibitions which contribute to promoting literature, yet fail to take the knowledgeable reader into account from the outset? This is a question our jury must ask itself every time it receives an application for a literature exhibi tion a genre that is evidently becoming more popular. An up coming workshop on the theory and practice of literature exhibitions in Frankfurt am Main provides Verena Auffermann a perfect opportunity to examine the fundamental problems and challenges facing this new genre.

In another interview, the filmmaker and collector Werner Ne kes offers a behind-the-scenes look at the exhibition project Pic ture Machines and tells of his passion for collecting optical devices which have shaped the cultural history of seeing.

Burkhard Müller’s column One-Word Phrases in the last issue received enthusiastic reviews from our readers. Once again Müller doesn’t mince words with terms of cultural jargon that refuse to die and continue to haunt project funding applications. We wish you much enjoyment!

themes

rainer erlinger the good form 6 anke te heesen the return of the patterns 9 interview with stephanie barron cold war art 18 mircea car t arescu the glass wall 22 verena auffermann reading safari 26 georg m. oswald illegal 0 interview with werner nekes toys for adults 

column burkhard müller one-word phrases ( II) 6 news + 40 committees 47

The photos in this issue were taken at the Pausa textile factory, a registered landmark, located in Mössingen near Tübingen. They document the work involved in a project currently financed by the KUR P ROGRAMM e t O P R ese R ve A nd Rest OR e M O BI le C U lt URA l Assets , funded by the Federal Cultural Foundation in cooperation with the Cultural Foundation of German States. The photos were taken by the Stuttgart photographer Uwe H. Sehl. We wish to thank the town of Mössingen and especially Dr. Herrmann Berner, the director of the Mössingen City Museum, for providing outstanding expertise and overseeing the photo series. We also extend our thanks to Dr. Dieter Büchner at the Baden-Württembergisches Land Bureau for the Conservation of His toric Monuments. The photos for this magazine were selected and arranged by Daniela Haufe and Detlef Fiedler together with Tina tin Eppmann. For more information about the collection and the items depicted in the photos, see the article by the Tübingen-based cultural scientist and museum expert Anke te Heesen on page 9. As the research efforts have just begun, we apologize for not being able to provide more details about each illustration.

Hortensia Völckers / Executive Board of the Alexander Farenholtz Federal Cultural Foundation

Design sketch by Leo Wollner, undated

Design sketch by Leo Wollner, undated

Design sketch, l infelden pattern by Leo Wollner, 1975

Design sketch by Leo Wollner, undated

Design sketch, undated

Design sketch, Mittelpunkt pattern by Leo Wollner, undated

Design sketch, Harlan pattern, undated

Design sketch, d ille pattern, undated

What do design and morals have in common? Design pervades all areas of daily life, therefore confronting us with its ethical dimension more frequently than other artistic fields. In addition to a number of important anniversaries in 2009, we will also commemorate the founding of the Bauhaus ninety years ago. The major commemorative exhibition, funded by the Federal Cultural Foundation, examines the moral legacy of the Bauhaus and its influence on the way we design our living environment today. Consequently, Rainer Erlinger’s discussion about morals and design touches on nothing less than the moral issue of the century.

the good form

by rainer erlinger

the designer is a kind of moralist. he judges. his work is comprised of judgments 1 This statement by the great Otl Aicher confronts us with a number of questions. What does a designer actually design and what judgments does he make? Between beautiful and ugly? Appropriate and inappro priate? Or perhaps good and bad ? This latter distinction i.e., between good and bad is a classic moral issue. Yet can a product ever be good or bad? Or does this only apply to those who design the product, as the Wuppertal design theorist Siegfried Maser asserts? 2 Otl Aicher is certainly not the only one who recognizes a link between design and morals. It appears that de sign is internally connected to morals and pos sibly even depends on morals in its ambition to be good. After all, ever since Aristotle, we know that humans are in constant pursuit of that which is good.

Max Bill, the Bauhaus student and co-founder of the College of Design in Ulm, established the term good form in his book of the same name in 1957 [d ie gute Form ]. In 1987 the Bauhaus Archive organized an exhibition about the Col lege of Design in Ulm called d ie Moral der Gegenstände [The Morality of Objects]. The Bauhaus itself wanted to improve human living conditions through design, and Bauhaus-friendly manufacturers, such as the Pausa textile com pany in Mössingen, worked at attaining a high degree of design quality which they regarded as a cultural mindset. In addition to high-quality craftsmanship, the British Arts and Crafts Move ment was a strong supporter of the respectful use of materials. The Deutscher Werkbund not only strived for morality in products i.e., good quality but also aimed to teach the public to become better people. In 1964 and 2000, graphic designers drew up a manifesto titled First t hings First a statement in which they agreed to concentrate on truly important mat ters and socially relevant issues. And even today we are witnessing a new wave of green design which takes responsibility for the environment in the age of global warming and diminishing natural resources all over the world.

If we try classifying these approaches, we dis cover that there are lines of design and moral thinking which intersect at various points. Teaching people to become better, ethical people through good form

The impact of an object’s function on one’s circumstances (in the sense of social ethics)

The impact of its use on the environment (in the sense of ecological ethics)

The impact of its production and disposal processes (also in terms of its ecological ethics)

The impact of the aesthetic expression of de sign on society

A potential obligation to make the world a more beautiful place

If we follow these lines further, we find that they converge on two basic principles which reflect the well-known motto of d ie n eue s ammlung in Munich: Design is art that makes itself useful. It ultimately comes down to the effects of the material in terms of its use and usefulness, as well as the immaterial effects, which, for simplic ity’s sake, we can call the artistic character an aspect that the design historian Beat Schneider in Bern has categorized even further into aes thetic and more importantly for our discus sion symbolic functions.3 Each of these basic principles has specific effects on human interac tion. And if we regard morals as the sum of the principles that determine our interaction with one another, neither of these aspects can be de tached from moral considerations.

We can understand how differently these two basic principles work by examining the econom ically significant and thus highly diversified area of automobile design. Sport utility vehicles, or SUVs, are quite controversial today a class of automobile which features sedan-like driving comfort, but resembles all-terrain vehicles in ap pearance and technical capabilities. These high ly popular cars are so controversial, in fact, that some politicians have called for speed restric tions and even a ban on SUVs. In addition to the fact that SUVs pose a higher risk to other drivers, the main ethical focus of the discussion is envi ronmental. Can we justify driving a car that con sumes twenty or more litres of petrol per 100 km when there is no necessity for it, i.e., when the driver doesn’t live in a remote hut on a moun tainside? Both issues the higher risk for ot her drivers and the enormous petrol consumption and consequently higher CO 2 emissions repre sent the impact of the material the mass, form, material conversion, consumption of resources, etc.

There is also the question as to what the design wants to express to society, in particular, its sym bolic content, as described by Beat Schneider. This symbolic content is quite detached from the materially-linked effects. Many of the mod ern SUVs apply design language that clearly ex presses power, luxury and exclusivity. There is al so an underlying potential for intimidation not necessarily evoked by its size, but far more by its

martial form, colour, etc. From an ethical point of view, we have to ask what the consequences of such messages are in a relatively consensusbased society like Germany’s. At the moment the problem of exclusion is the subject of a heat ed debate in Germany, which is also reflected in the popularized term the forgotten precariat. Unsat isfied material needs represent only one aspect of a bigger problem. As some might say undiplo matically, it might be tough to live off Hartz IV, but at least no one has to freeze or starve. The main problem, however, is that people feel they have no chances in life and are excluded from society. This feeling is exacerbated by the con frontation with a design that emphasizes the power and luxury of those situated at the cen tre of society. Especially at a time of social inse curity, it is not so much the display of luxury, but rather the demonstration of power that can have a divisive effect on society, making the symbolic power of design all the more ethically question able. A phenomenon which other luxury sedans currently share with SUVs. In this segment, we no tice that the design of many luxury cars current ly emphasizes strength, power and assertiveness in place of elegance and speed. This is not a mat ter of what is beautiful and what is not, but rath er other functions and expressions of design.

The Bauhaus tried to come up with a simple solu tion which would overcome class differences in stead of deepening them. The distinction be tween aesthetic-symbolic and material applica tion-related effects only superficially contrasts with the goals of the Bauhaus which, of course, aimed to unify art and craftsmanship. Walter Gropius, the founder and director of the Bau haus at the time, wrote in the founding declara tion in 1919 : Architects, sculptors, painters, we all have to return to the craft! For there is no such thing as ›art as a profession‹. There is no essential difference between the artist and the craftsman. The artist is the superior craftsman. The synthesis of art and craftsmanship which Gropius propagated refers to the creative process, aims to improve quality, and in so doing, influences the product and its impact. Of course, it cannot alter the basic, fun damental possible effects which each design con cept and designed article possesses.

The Bauhaus also gained much of its reputation from another aspect of interaction between de sign and ethics the social reform approach. In 1925 Walter Gropius wrote a treatise on the principles of Bauhaus production 4 in which he developed what he called a new atti tude toward design :

Resolute affirmation of the living environment of machines and vehicles

The organic design of things based on their own present-day laws, without romantic gloss and wasteful frivolity

The limitation to characteristic, primary forms and colours, readily accessible to everyone

Simplicity in multiplicity, economical utilization of space, material, time, and money

The creation of standard types for all practical com modities of everyday use is a social necessity. On the whole, the necessities of life are the same for the major ity of people. The home and its furnishings are mass consumer goods and their design is more a matter of reason than a matter of passion. The machine capable of producing standardized products is an effective de vice, which, by means of mechanical aids steam and electricity can free the individual from work ing manually for the satisfaction of his daily needs and can provide him with mass-produced products that are cheaper and better than those manufactured by hand.

Gropius reflects on the efficient exploitation of resources in order to improve the welfare of the populace. The socially disadvantaged can afford products that are designed in such a way that ma terials and production costs are reduced. When combined with good form, life can be improved both in material and aesthetic terms.

The Frankfurt Kitchen designed by the Viennese architect Margarete Schütte-Lihot zky adheres to a similar approach. Developed for the Frankfurt Bureau of Construction and repro duced over ten thousand times, her kitchen mod el was one of the first functional fitted kitchens. With a focus on work efficiency, Schütte-Lihotz ky developed a kitchen for the flat-construction industry based on the American time manage ment system, enabling housewives to reduce the time they spent working in the kitchen. In 1927 she wrote: The problem of organizing homemaking more rationally is relevant to almost every class of the population to an equal degree. Both middleclass women, who often do the housework by them selves, and working-class women, who frequently have day jobs, are so overworked that their exhaus tion will certainly have repercussions for the well-be ing of the entire population in the long term. 5

As a communist and women’s rights activist, Schütte-Lihotzky’s intention was clearly to im prove the lives of women through the design of the kitchen. A cookery box was one of the impor tant details in the kitchen an insulated box which contained a hotplate. After bringing the contents to a quick boil, it could continue sim

mering the food (such as potatoes) with its re sidual heat for several hours. The architect’s idea was not borne out of a desire to save energy, but rather to allow women to prepare a warm meal for lunch despite having a job.6 Environmental issues did, in fact, play a smaller role back then, while women’s emancipation has made immense progress with its goal of equal opportunity. Is green design the logical and legitimate successor of the social reform models in this age of global climate change? It is quite possible that energy consump tion and CO2 emissions will gain the same degree of moral relevance as the social issues of the 1920s.

On the other hand, the social problems haven’t disappeared, and for this reason, conflicts in pro duct design can quickly arise. For instance, envi ronmentally-friendly design often results in high er costs, such as the use of more expensive, sustain able natural resources. Which aspect of environ mental thinking deserves priority? If environ mentally-friendly products were to become a new status symbol at some point, could this trend re sult in a renewed exclusion of financially disad vantaged segments of society an environmen tally-unfriendly precariat? This development may not be very far away; we can already observe this process taking place in the food industry.

Somewhere between the material and immateri al aspects of design, there is also a problem which stems from the concept of universalization. Gro pius set the standards of types in the principles of the Bauhaus production, the goal of which was to counter the social problems of the day both aesthetically and materially. L ater, social istic countries pursued this moralistic approach further, for example, raising pre-fabricated, con crete-slab high-rises as a principle of socialistic construction. However, besides the structural wea k nesses inherent in such buildings, the uni formity, such as a limited selection of wall paper even if it was a high-end design product re sulted in a feeling of discontent and monotony. Although Gropius predicted this may happen, he didn’t believe the risk was very high. A viola tion of the individual through standardization is as probable as complete uniformity of clothing through the dictates of fashion. Despite a typical similarity be tween each of the parts, there is always room for per sonal variation. For as a result of natural competition, the number of existing types for one particular thing is still so enormous, that the individual will certainly be able to choose the model that best suits his taste 7 Does the de-individualized mass design of socialism show us that the Bauhaus approach was well-meaning but flawed? It seems this is the case, yet the worldwide success of fashion trends and

brands suggests the contrary. Furthermore, the high regard for the Bauhaus design remains as strong as ever. It is questionable, however, wheth er the Wagenfeld table lamp would be as pop ular if it were available for a few euro at a dis count supermarket. Or at IKEA . Aren’t IKEA and H & M, with their inexpensive, mass-produced goods, the true protagonists of standardization according to the definition of the Bauhaus? Even though they may not fully meet the demands for respectful use of material and the combina tion of art and craftsmanship, they do comply with the principles of the Bauhaus. Couldn’t we say that these two symbols of capitalism have risen to effectual representatives of socialistic ideals at least in terms of their design princi ples? This is where we identify the peculiarity that successful product marketing aims to in crease consumption and profit without moral istic intention may achieve the ambitious goals of the Bauhaus more effectively even if it ca n not meet its aesthetic standards.

In view of the highly moralistic relevance of de sign, how much ethical responsibility does a de signer have? One aspect of this concern was ad dressed by graphic designers in the field of adver tising in two well-regarded conferences in 1964 and 2000. The designers called on one another to consider the repercussions of their work and shift their focus away from consumption to what they felt were more important goals First t hings First . In the Manifesto 2000 , they wrote: Unprecedented environmental, social and cultural crises demand our attention. Many cultur al interventions, social marketing campaigns, books, magazines, exhibitions, educational tools, television programmes, films, charitable causes and other infor mation design projects urgently require our expertise and help. We propose a reversal of priorities in favour of more useful, lasting and democratic forms of com munication a mind-shift away from product mar keting and toward the exploration and production of a new kind of meaning 8

The ensuing debate focused primarily on the extent to which designers were authorized to ed ucate society. The graphic designer Alex Cam eron countered, for example, that the real prob lem with ›ethical design‹ is the way we are choosing ourselves as representatives. This is not only about the methods and goals designers and graphic artists wish to pursue. If designers exchange their mediating role to that of priests of goodness, it will incapacitate the public. In light of this danger, it is always preferable to let people make their own decisions regardless of whether designers believe they are wrong 9

The debate puts its finger on a sore spot. This ed ucative approach the same approach advocat ed by the Werkbund and the Bauhaus conflicts with basic democratic principles. Who should determine what is beautiful? Wouldn’t a selec tion of goals ultimately lead to a design regime, a monopoly regulating goodness, beauty and functional authenticity? Isn’t one of our basic rights the right to bad taste? On the other hand, design is not ethically neutral either. Like every one else, designers cannot plead that they were only doing their duty and the consequences of their work are of no concern to them. Of course, the scope of their responsibility is a matter of de bate. But one thing is certain whoever designs a part of the world especially professionally cannot disregard the variety of repercussions their design has on the world.

Rainer Erlinger, born in 1965, is a doctor, jurist and journalist who became well-known for his weekly col umn Gewissensfrage [Matter of Conscience] in the s üddeutsche Zeitung magazine. Erlinger also writes non-fiction books and is frequently invited to radio and television shows to give his position on ethical issues. His book Wenn s ie mich fragen [If You Ask Me] was pub lished by the Kunstmann Verlag in 2007. Rainer Erlinger is currently an Ernst Troeltsch guest professor at the Uni versity of Augsburg for the winter semester 2008 /2009

1 Aicher, Otl. die welt als entwurf. Berlin 1991 : 67

2 Maser, Siegfried. Von der Moral der Gegenstände zur In szenierung der Moral? Geste & Gewissen im Design. Her mann Sturm, ed., Cologne 1998

3 Schneider, Beat. Design eine Einführung. Basel 2005

4 Vivos voco Zeitschrift für neues Denken, vol. 5, iss. 8 /9, Aug./Sept. 1926, reprinted from the Bauhausbuch No. 7

5 Das neue Frankfurt, issue 5 /1926 1927.

6 Margarethe Schütte-Lihotzky, personal note.

7 Vivos voco Zeitschrift für neues Denken. Vol. 5, iss. 8 /9, Aug./Sept. 1926, reprinted from the Bauhausbuch No. 7

8 form — Zeitschrift für Gestaltung. Iss. 172, Mar./Apr. 2000.

9 Novo Magazin No. 44, Jan./Feb. 2000.

the exhibition

model bauhaus For the first time since the fall of the Berlin Wall 20 years ago and in commemoration of the 90th anniversary of the founding of the State Bauhaus in Weimar in 1919, the three major Bauhaus institutions in Germany will collaborate on a joint exhibition of their col lections at the Martin-Gropius-Bau in Berlin in 2009. In the exhibition model bauhaus, the Bauhaus Archive/Mu seum of Design in Berlin, Bauhaus Foundation in Dessau and the Foundation of Weimar Classics will present the history of the Bauhaus based on works by its masters and students from 22 July to 4 October 2009. The exhi bition will also explore the significance of the Bauhaus for the development and globalisation of modern society and demonstrate the impact it has had on various coun tries, such as Japan, Turkey, Israel and Iraq. The cooper ative partner of the project is the Museum of Modern Art in New York, which will show the exhibition following its Berlin debut in commemoration of its own 80th anniver sary. Project directors: Hellmut Seemann, Omar Akbar, Annemarie Jaeggi. www.modell-bauhaus.de

Few are familiar with the Pausa textile factory featured in the photo series of this magazine. But those who visit the closed-down factory in the Swabian town of Mössingen are overwhelmed by the treasures that are preserved there. During her visit at Pausa , Anke te Heesen, a cultural studies scholar and museum expert from Tübingen, felt very much the same way. In the following she explains why the collection of numerous pattern books, thousands of fabric designs and film rolls, and its particular architecture and interior design make the site an outstanding example of 20th century textile history. The Federal Cultural Foundation’s KUR Programme to Restore and Preserve Mobile Cultural Assets is funding the cataloguing and preservation efforts now underway at the former Pausa textile factory.

the return of the patterns by anke te heesen

Do not all great conquests in the territory of forms come about as techni cal discoveries? Which forms are we only now vaguely aware of, forms that will ultimately play a significant role in our age and still lie hidden within the machines? 1 This observation in Walter Benjamin’s Pas sagen-Werk emphasizes the importance of industrial manu facturing processes and the new production and designing meth ods which they give rise to. If we take a look at textile printing, the history of textile production and the development of designs and patterns, we can identify several major turning points in the 19th century and especially at the beginning of the 20th century. Their impact is still visible at the now practically forgotten Pausa textile factory. Originally located in the small town of Pausa in the Vogtland, the company shifted its operations to Mössingen near Tübingen in 1919. Today the business is closed, but the fac tory still offers visitors a view of a century of textile production and form development.

The company expanded very quickly. Under the management of its original owners, the Löwenstein brothers, it became famous for its high-quality prints, produced with the hand model print ing method in the early twenties. In 1932 the company imple mented the hand film printing method which was quite innova tive at the time and ushered the company’s breakthrough onto the market. Because the Löwenstein family was Jewish, they were forced to relinquish their company to the Nazis in 1936, after which the company was sold to the Greiner-Burckhardt family. During the war Pausa primarily manufactured window-darken ing textiles but started producing patterned fabrics soon after the end of World War II . With the introduction of its silk-screen prints, the textiles made in Mössingen began attracting interna tional attention in the 1950s. The Pausa brand became known around the world for its innovative products in the textile indus try.2 It manufactured theatre curtains with large-format designs, fine-patterned fabrics and products with those abstract designs that now seem so typical of the 1950s. In terms of the quality of the material and modern patterns, the fabrics manufactured by Pausa were among the leading textile designs in the early years of the Federal Republic of Germany. At that time the management put tremendous value on consistent, high-quality design. Their in-house employees included some of the best textile designers in

Germany, such as Walter Mathysiak, Elsbeth Kupferroth, Leo Wollner and Adolf Felger. Furthermore, the company regularly commissioned well-known painters and graphic artists to design so-called artist fabrics. These special collections and the artists’ names helped promote Pausa’s reputation as a top-quality textile manufacturer. Some of the most famous artists included HAP Grieshaber, Willi Baumeister, Verner Panton and the well-known Stuttgart graphic artist Anton Stankowski the designer of the famous Pausa P which became the company’s trademark and helped create a strong sense of corporate identity ill pp.42+4. In addition to the textiles themselves, the factory grounds and the organization of production are worth mentioning. The buildings were designed by the Stuttgart-based architect Manfred Lehm bruck and reflect the company’s philosophy, which was based on that of the Bauhaus. The integration of the draft rooms into the production halls, the company art exhibitions and the manag ing director’s former apartment located in the administrative building create a spatially and architecturally unique ensemble.

After the company filed for bankruptcy in 2001 and was forced to stop production in 2004, the Tübingen State Administration ap proved a petition by the State Office for Monument Preservation to list the grounds and facility of the Pausa textile company as a his toric landmark in 2005 3

Walking across the extensive grounds, through the production halls and offices, one can feel the charm of unfinished work in complete design plans on the walls, scraps of fabric in a tracing room that is still furnished, old silk-screen patterns in the print ing building. The original furnishings in the managing director’s apartment, the specially designed textile presentation room, the atmosphere of the open fireplace where the contracts were signed, the textile library of patterns and ornamentation used by draft designers for inspiration everything is still there. Besides the charming details of its interior design, the total artwork of Pausa lies in the archive of design drafts and fabric samples with thou sands of patterns spanning more than a century of textile print ing. Patterns of every kind and origin, from abstract to figurative, the entire gamut of production methods and levels of quality, are all stored in the former cafeteria and office building. Over the

course of decades, the managing directors of Pausa had built up an extensive archive like no other. In the future, financial, politi cal and landmark preservation planners will not only have to work at preserving this ensemble which requires a great amount of effort at present but also to recognize its inherent potential for cultural, artistic and material-historic research.

The tremendous significance of the archive and the factory grounds are more evident in view of the history of textile design since 1945. The fabrics manufactured by Pausa play a unique role in this history. Pausa’s archive is not only a company archive, but an archive of the entire German textile design industry in the second half of the 20th century.4 Today we tend to associate the discussion of arts and crafts and good form with the Werkbund, founded in 1907. When we talk of New Building as the establish ment of functional architecture and the unification of all the arts, we generally think of the Bauhaus of 1919. However, Pausa is not only a link in the process of interconnecting free and applied art. What is especially unique about Pausa is that we can see how the forms that will ultimately play a significant role in our age, as Benja min noted, developed step by step on the factory grounds, in the archive and the remaining production halls.

From a cultural-scientific viewpoint, the archive and factory grounds reveal a long-neglected chapter in the history of mod ern patterns and ornamentation. The significance of the pattern as such is evident if we extend our company- and field-specific research in Pausa to the context of the history of perception and materials. Art historians and cultural scholars have been engaged

1 Walter Benjamin: Das Passagen-Werk (Gesammelte Schriften, V, 1, Rolf Tiede mann, ed.). Frankfurt a.M. 1991

2 For a more detailed history of PAUSA and its many facets, see the exhibition catalogue Das Bauhaus kam nach Mössingen. Geschichte, Architektur und De sign der einstigen Textilfirma Pausa (Hermann Berner and Werner Fifka, eds., Mössingen-Talheim, 2006 ). I thank Dieter Büchner and Annette Michels for their helpful consultation.

3 See also Dieter Büchner and Michael Ruhland: Kompromisslose Beständig keit in gutem Geschmack. Die Textilfirma Pausa in Mössingen (Kreis Tübingen) In: Denkmalpflege in Baden-Württemberg. Nachrichtenblatt der Landesdenk malpflege 3 ( 2005 ), pp. 142 150

4 See also the research project on textile design since 1945 by Jutta Beder at the University of Paderborn. Jutta Beder: Zwischen Blümchen und Picasso. Textil design der fünfziger Jahre in Westdeutschland. Münster 2002

15

in a discussion for several years regarding to what extent ac cording to one theory ornamentation served as the basis for the development of abstract art, or according to the other the use of ornamentation in architecture represented a connec tion between the historicism of the 19th century and modernity.5 Both theories contradict the frequently repeated assertion that modernity arrived with the rejection of ornamentation. If we re gard the new developments in textile printing technology as the means to achieve low-cost mass production, then we could claim that the pattern represents the democratization of ornamentation, which would make it a constitutive characteristic of modernity. It is interesting to point out that this development occurred at the same time abstract designs on textiles of the 1950s were becoming more commonplace and gaining popularity.

At present we are seeing a comparatively strong interest in orna mentation and patterns in architecture and the fine arts. The Wellcome Collection in London recently hosted the ex hibition From Atoms to Patterns for which designers collaborated with natural scientists in commemoration of the Festival of Britain (1951), which presented ultra-modern patterns for wallpaper, carpets and fabrics. The Swiss Museum of Architecture in Basel is currently examining new, decorativelyinfluenced architectural design. The momentary fascination with patterns lies in the relationship between reproduction and serial production, as well as the reception and awareness of patterns. Both aspects can be found in the early dictionary definition of pat tern, i.e., a duplicated, abstract or representational graphic element.

By the end of the 19th century, several concepts of the pattern had evolved. First of all, it was no longer considered an image in itself, but was used in terms of its application. Secondly, a relationship was recognized between the pattern as a superficial decoration

14 10

and its duplicability using a stencil. It appears that a shift in the meaning of the word occurred during the 19th century from the idea of representation to production. A pattern is not an actual thing, but rather how we see something. This corresponds to how seeing was being redefined at the start of the 19th century. Subjec tive seeing was the new postulate i.e., perception that did not reflect a supposed objective reality, but was understood subjec tively based on human sight and the individual conditions of per ception.

At the beginning of the 20th century, critics of ornamentation fo cused on its historically influenced excess in everyday life, spaces and objects, and thereby created an application-based connec tion. The advocates of ornamentation, however, proposed view ing its historic origins and re-embedding its serial application in the 20th century, i.e., as a pattern. Art historians, such as Alois Riegl and Wilhelm Worringer, regarded ornamentation as an in dependent and abstract achievement of early human expression, which one could also regard as artistic as a Renaissance painting. Worringer particularly argued for successive ornamentation, as it was able to provide a kind of orientation to people around 1900 whose potential attention span appeared so inconstant and over loaded. The individual design and the question as to whether the ornamentation was appropriate for the object were no longer of consequence. According to Worringer, the important thing was the successive pattern: These abstract, regular forms are the only and greatest forms in which one can find repose in the face of the monstrous confusion of our world.7 He refers to geometric ornamentation, or what he calls primitive art, and its function at the beginning of hu man history. From his choice of wording, it is evident that Wor ringer also regards the pattern as a symptom of a rationalized world in which potentially identical objects (goods) are manu factured in serial production. Although the serialization of the

material world around 1900 was the focus of much criticism by his contemporaries, Worringer’s words reflect the positive side in the sense of repetition and regularity. He regards the uniformity and symmetry, that is, the aesthetics of serial, superficial decora tion, as calming characteristics. Let us make the claim that a simple line and its further development into purely geometrical forms must cer tainly represent the greatest possibility of contentment for those who are distressed by lack of clarity and confusion in the world around them 8 Worringer’s argumentation was strongly opposed by Adolf Loos, whose frequently-cited treatise was published that same year. Loos decried ornamentation as a crime and positioned it at an early and degenerate stage of human civilization. By the time Worrin ger proposed his new definition in the 20th century, however, the return of the pattern no longer necessitated an elimination of or namentation!

With this background in mind, the history of Pausa is crucial for understanding the concept of patterns in modernity, as well as establishing a connection between the methods of production and human perception in the 20th century. The design and highquality production of patterns was not merely a subordinate field of arts and crafts. It was a field characterized by the search for new solutions and the belief that textile printing could play a decisive role in forming the modern man and woman. The series of themes which distinguished the company, such as the Computer d esign collection of 1971 ill 55 p. 8, demonstrated the

5 Markus Brüderlin: Ornament und Abstraktion. Kunst der Kulturen, Moderne und Gegenwart im Dialog. (catalogue by the Fondation Beyeler), Cologne 2001 and María Ocón Fernández: Ornament und Moderne. Theoriebildung und Ornamentdebatte im deutschen Architekturdiskurs ( 1850 1930 ). Berlin 2004

6 Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm: Deutsches Wörterbuch [vol. 6 ], Leipzig 1885, col. 2762

7 Wilhelm Worringer: Abstraktion und Einfühlung. Ein Beitrag zur Stilpsycholo gie [1908 ], Leipzig 1919., p. 25

16 17

Textile print, undated

Textile print, n anda pattern, designed by Anton Stankowski, undated

Textile print, designed by Wolf Bauer, 1967

Textile print, Planonia pattern, designed by Anton Stankowski, undated

artistic autonomy of textile printing. Pausa did not only define patterns as typical ornamental prints. It also created single, selfstanding motifs which accompanied the repeat over the entire length of the material. Abstract designs were also similarly ap plied, such as the Africana collection of 1965 ill 42 p. 28 or the designs by Verner Panton ill 6 p. 21 Pausa’s unique combination of materials and motifs was not only based on its technical craftsmanship, but also a high level of artis tic quality that resulted in an innovative connection between in dustrial production forms and individual design. As one of the leaders in the market, Pausa assimilated and reflected the cultural developments of the times. We can recognize this perhaps in the intertwining bands in the double helix motif of the 1950s, or the de signs by Willi Baumeister, who attempted to increase the popular ity of abstract art through textile printing after 1945 ill 11 1 p. 8

Since then our perception of patterns has sharpened, because se rial and, in some cases, also abstract design emerge from a com mon source either the humanities or the natural sciences and range from patterns of atomic structures to the aesthetics of evo lution. While modern image science and our understanding of images have radically expanded the classical canon of iconographic art history, patterns are by no means self-explanatory and require study in terms of their historic reception and laws governing the psychology of perception. Since the 1990s, there has also been

much discussion regarding the mutual penetration of art and sci ence. The initial opposition of art and applied art has now be come a matter of serialization, its potential for expression and its conditions.

The interdisciplinary research efforts at Pausa have to begin with art theorists, like Wilhelm Worringer, and their defence of orna mentation, examine the role of patterns in everyday life and how they were applied from a cultural-scientific point of view, and consider the aspect of serialization as crucial for understanding images of the 20th century. For this reason, we should regard Pau sa, its archive and its factory ensemble an example of a flour ishing industrial culture as a place of intellectual exchange that provides the impulse and material to write a new, phenome nological and theoretical chapter of history on patterns of the 20th century.

Anke te Heesen, born in 1965, received her doctoral degree in Cultural Pedagogy at the University of Oldenburg. Following numerous teaching and research assignments abroad, she was appointed chair of Empirical Cultural Science / Museum Science and Cultural-Historic Image and Object Research at the University of Tübingen in 2008. She worked as a curator for several exhi bitions, such as t he n ew Human Obsessions of the 20 th Century at the German Hygiene Museum in Dresden and v ocabulary t he Col lecting and Finding of Words in Tübingen in 2008. Her book auf/ zu d er s chrank in den Wissenschaften [open/closed. The Closet in the Sciences] was published by the Akademie Verlag in 2007. In 2008 she was awarded the Aby Warburg Foundation Prize in Hamburg.

kur — programme to preserve and restore mobile cultural assets

The Federal Cultural Foundation, in cooperation with the Cultural Foundation of German States, has allocat ed seven million euro over several years to fund a na tional programme to preserve and restore mobile art works and cultural objects. Many of these pieces and holdings are not very old, as we might suppose, but only date back to the last century. The extensive use of artificial materials in the 20th century has resulted in numerous restoration problems for museums, libraries and archives. In the following we present several KUR projects that are researching and developing solutions to solve these problems. For more information about the KUR Programme and an overview of all 26 projects re ceiving funding, please visit our website www.kulturstif tung-bund.de. We are aware, of course, that the KUR Programme cannot fully compensate for the financial and structural deficits in the museums, archives and li braries. However, by initiating this programme, we hope that the projects create a much-needed impulse for fur ther preservation efforts. The results of the projects will be presented to the public in order to generate aware ness of the richness of our cultural heritage and the dan gers it faces.

plastics The project Anti-Aging Treatment for Cultural Assets with Elastomer Components by the German Min ing Museum in Bochum is perhaps the most telling ex ample of the preservation problems facing art restorers today. This research project aims to develop new methods for preserving materials with elastomer com ponents, such as rubber and other synthetics. The Min ing Museum is collaborating with several institutions, including the Filmmuseum Potsdam, University of Ap plied Sciences in Berlin, Museum of Work in Hamburg and the Restoration Centre in Düsseldorf. Together, they are investigating how to slow down the deterioration of these materials.

A project by the Museum of Asian Art at the Berlin State Museums is investigating the effects of Aging of Syn thetic Bonding Agents on Central Asian Murals from the

2nd to the 6th century AD. The researchers will focus on selected restoration measures from the past decades. The extensive use of synthetic bonding agents in the 1970s and 1980s has meanwhile fallen into disrepute as they are aging far more rapidly than predicted several years ago. Museums around the world are looking for ward to the results of the research. The Berlin museum is cooperating with the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foun dation’s Rathgen Research Laboratory, the University of Beijing and Antiques Analytics GmbH, Eppstein. audio recordings Other projects are working to safeguard and restore analogue and digital music and image storage media. The Deutsches Museum in Mu nich has begun a project to preserve the musical re cordings by the (film) musician Oskar Sala. Most of Sala’s works only exist as audio recordings. However, the plastic coating on the magnetic tapes is in danger of disintegrating, which would render the tapes unusa ble. Many of the works by this famous musician, whose compositions include the film score to Hitchcock’s »The Birds«, would be irretrievably lost. Therefore, this project intends to copy these tapes onto digital media. The mu sic archive at the Ethnological Museum in Berlin is receiving funding for a project which also aims to preserve audio material. The goal of the project ILKAR In tegrated Solutions for Preserving, Archiving and Restor ing Endangered Magnetic Tapes and Cylinders is to pre vent the loss of the unique collection of traditional music from all corners of the world, archived at the Ethnologi cal Museum. The archive includes more than 30,000 wax cylinder recordings and approximately 9 000 original field recordings on various analogue and digital tape media (magnetic audio tape, DAT, VHS , etc.) In 1999 the museum’s wax cylinder collection was added to the »UNESCO Memory of the World list« for the outstanding importance of its historic audio material. media art Three leading German institutions have joined forces in the project Mediaartbase.de with the aim of advancing the archiving efforts of media art . In

the last three decades, there has been a surge of new works of high artistic value, of which many have yet to be included in existing archives. The preservation and res toration of these works present a major challenge to ar chivists, as video tapes, films, analogue recordings, and even CD s and DVD s have a limited lifespan. The focus of the project will be to develop a database, archive and presentation model which enables even smaller ar chives and institutions access to extensive data, thereby helping them archive their own collections. The co operative partners include the European Media Art Festival / Experimentalfilm Workshop e. V., the documenta Archive in Kassel, the Documentary Film and Video Fes tival in Kassel and the ZKM | Center for Art and Media Technology Karlsruhe. paper,

photographic reproductions, film material

Newspapers have been made from wood pulp since the mid 19th century. And although this type of paper is ideally suited for mass production, it is ex tremely unstable. The acids contained in the wood pulp cause the paper to yellow and grow brittle with time. Sev eral processes have been developed to restore aciddamaged books. However, there is still no cost-effective method to stabilize heavily damaged, large-format news paper pages. In order to preserve these pages for future generations using microfilm or digital media, it is neces sary to first stabilize them for scanning. The Berlin Staats bibliothek hopes that its project to stabilize brittle news paper pages will produce an innovative solution that can be used as a model to help libraries preserve their highly fragile newspaper collections.

The Academy of the Arts in Berlin owns approximately 12,000 plans in its extensive collection of architectural drawings on transparent paper and photographic repro ductions by the renowned architect Hans Scharoun, who designed the Berlin Philharmonic, for example. At present, researchers are not allowed to view these ex tremely fragile plans because of material-technical rea sons and their problematic storage in card-board tubes.

The KUR project will develop a working strategy to re store and preserve these plans which entails unrolling, preserving and storing them in an appropriate, spacesaving manner. These measures will enable researchers to gain access to the plans again.

The German Photographic Library at the Saxon State and University Library in Dresden (SLUB ) is one of the most important photo archives of art and cultural his tory. The KUR project Preserving a Chapter of German Photographic History aims to preserve and publish 68 000 film negatives which document the historic situation of Berlin, Dresden and Leipzig between 1945 and 1960 and portray the political, cultural and urban devel opment during this dynamic period of change and re structuring of German life. They depict the political, cul tural and scientific figures who were influential during this decisive period of German division. The original film negatives will be digitalized and then transferred to longlasting polyester film, preserving the collection for years to come. Nonetheless, many of the negatives have al ready begun to deteriorate, and in some cases, the origi nals are no longer salvageable. As the collection is pre served, all the photos will be made available to the public through a free image databank at www.deutschefoto thek.de.

cold war art

The Cold War came to an end in 1989 when the Berlin Wall fell. Twenty years later, a key element of the 2009 commemorations will undoubtedly be a comparison of the art of East and West Germany, both of which are rich sources of material. Even the dates chosen for the exhibition in Germany are significant: Art of the two Germanys / Cold War Cultures will open at the Germanisches Nationalmuseum Nuremberg on 23 May 2009. This will be the sixtieth anniversary of the proclamation of the Basic Law, which served as West Germany’s post-war constitution and now applies to the re unified country. The exhibition will be shown later in the year at the Deutsches Histor isches Museum in Berlin, opening on the significant date of 3 October a public holiday celebrating German reunification. The world premiere of the show will be in the United States, on 25 January 2009, in Los Angeles, a city with an exceptionally high interest in German art. This is due partly to the large numbers of émigrés from Nazi Germany who settled there, partly to the particular preferences of collectors and patrons of the arts such as Robert Gore Rifkind, and last but not least thanks to Stephanie Barron. Over the past thirty years she has curated a number of important exhibitions on twentiethcentury German art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art ( LACMA ). Together with Eckhart Gillen in Berlin, she is currently preparing her major new exhibition a review of German art spanning the entire period of the division of Germany between the Federal Republic of Germany in the West and the German Democratic Republic in the East. The exhibition is funded by the German Federal Cultural Foundation. In this interview, Stephanie Barron talks about her ideas for the show and explains why an American has chosen to focus so intensively on German art.

b: Stephanie Barron

p: Sebastian Preuss

p: Ms Barron, the way you have doggedly or ganized exhibitions on German twentieth-cen tury art is unique for the United States. What do you find so fascinating about German art?

b: Each of the exhibitions that I have organ ized since the early 1980s has somehow led me to the next one. It’s like a vortex, because twen tieth century German art forces you to deal in tensively with the historical and political con text. This relationship between art and the larger cultural context has always fascinated me, and German art has an enormously rich story to tell. There is an audience in the States that is very hungry to find out more. I find German art ex tremely powerful, yet perhaps less studied and less available in the United States than it de serves as a curator I find that very stimulat ing.

p: What does an American audience know about twentieth-century German art?

b: German art is held in high esteem in Los Angeles, but unfortunately it generally isn’t giv en the appreciation it deserves across the coun try as a whole. In general, I think an American audience knows the very big names, artists like Beckmann or Kirchner. In the postwar period American interest only really began again with the major artists who became well-known in the 1980s Anselm Kiefer, Georg Baselitz, Gerhard Richter, and, of course, Joseph Beuys. Things went quiet after that for a while until the popu larity of the young Leipzig school revived inter est in German artists. There are simply a lot of gaps in Americans’ knowledge of German art.

American universities were not really helpful here until very recently, because art historians were much more focused on French art. When I was in university there were only two places where you could study German art in depth. I think this is partly due to a language barrier. In most schools students learned French and Ital ian or Spanish rather than German. Yet for a long time many important primary texts were not translated, so you really needed to be fluent in German to do serious research on art history. That didn’t make it easy to specialize in German art.

p: But at some point there was a shift in the art market. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner’s painting Ber liner s trassenszene was sold for a record 38 million dollars in November 2006 by Chris tie’s, just to give one example. German contem porary art is more sought-after now than ever before.

b: The contemporary art market is out of con trol. It’s very hard to make sense of the prices be ing paid. There is an unending supply of works, and there seems to be an unending supply of ex tremely rich people who want to buy art. Look at the Russian market or the emerging Chinese market; they are now the big, strong buyers. I think the balance of the entire art market is not what it was twenty, or even ten years ago. Yet su perb masterpieces like Kirchner’s s trassen szene will always fetch exceptional prices.

p: You are very familiar with the contempora ry art scene in Germany. Do you have any idea

where the fascination lies for international col lectors at the moment?

b: Could it possibly be due to a romantic tradi tion that lives on in this art? Artists are interna tional these days. When I go to galleries or stu dios in Berlin I meet artists from Taiwan, from London, from Rome, from Paris, or from Los Angeles. German artists are just as successful on an international playing field. The Leipzig school of painting may be a very specific phe nomenon with its own logic, but I do see works of very high quality being produced in Germa ny. There is certainly a return to figuration and to painting, but that’s the same in London, Los Angeles and New York.

p: Your exhibition Art of the t wo Ger manys/Cold War Cultures will open in Los Angeles in January before moving on to Nuremberg and Berlin. The German Federal Cultural Foundation is funding the exhibition as part of the commemorative events in 2009, marking the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the sixtieth anniversary of the founding of both German states. What do you find so appealing about this subject?

b: I’ve actually been interested in art from both parts of Germany for many years. In the mid- 1980 s I curated an exhibition about the second generation of German Expressionism. We had many loans from East Germany, which meant that I spent a fair amount of time trav elling around there. That was fascinating, and also quite strange. Of course I was primarily do ing research on early twentieth-century work,

but I also visited the museums and talked to people about contemporary East German art. I was quite familiar with West German art from the 1960s onwards, but I didn’t know much about German art in the 1950s. It was something I only knew from books, because it wasn’t col lected in the United States. And I star ted look ing at what East German artists had been doing since the 1960s. I was very curious about how two completely different situations developed simultaneously.

In the 1990s I felt that people were rather hasty to suppress the past, wanting to move forward and not look backward. East German art in East German museums was removed to the store rooms in the basements, and hardly anyone in the West wanted to collect it. I found that some what surprising. When I talked to Germans in the art world, they often had very strong opin ions about what was worth looking at and what wasn’t. I thought that it might be possible to get a more impartial view of this situation from the outside, without any personal baggage. Maybe my geographical and cultural distance — and the twenty-year time gap — led me to feel as an art historian and as a museum person that it was possibly to focus on this period. I thought that if we didn’t do this show now, possibly fif ty years from now the American public will no longer know anything about the work from the East.

p: The exhibition starts with the collapse of the Third Reich in 1945. What do you think about this myth of the Stunde Null, suggesting a total break with the past?

b: We try to avoid any kind of black-and-white interpretation. The idea that the past was swept away is just too undifferentiated, as recent re search has shown. The same is true of the idea that abstraction and figuration were completely divorced from each other in the postwar pe riod. We really wanted to begin the exhibition with the immediate destruction of the war, and with Berlin and Dresden in ruins, because I don’t think that this represents the common view point in the United States about Germany and World War II . In LA , the exhibition will actually begin with film footage of the bombing of Dres den and Berlin which will foreground. Hermann Rudolph’s poignant drawings of the ruins and Richard Peter’s photos of a lifeless Dresden tak en immediately after the large air-raid in Febru ary 1945. Even then people were interested in art. In the eight months after the end of the war doz ens of exhibitions took place in Berlin! I think that says something about the importance of art and people’s need for artistic expression.

p: What role did art play during the Cold War?

b: There is no question that art was very impor tant in East Germany. It is common knowledge that artists were commissioned by the state, pro ducing works that were made available for a wid er social purpose. On the other side of the Iron Curtain the documenta exhibitions served both artistic and political agendas. Art has al ways been very closely intertwined with politics and history in the twentieth century in Germa ny. This was the case in both the East and the West, although admittedly they took different directions. It was also true in Germany before World War II and continued afterwards in the reunited Germany.

p: Is being political therefore an intrinsic ele ment of German art? Would that be a specific difference to American art, for instance?

b: I think art has been political in the United States at various times but not nearly as consist ently as in Germany. Art was commissioned by the state in the US in the 1930s and 1940s as part of the WPA [Works Progress Administration] work creation schemes, and later there was pro test art at the time of the Vietnam War and Civil Rights unrest. Nevertheless, I don’t think that politics has formed a consistent thread in Ameri can art.

p: If you would permit a rather banal question, what’s the difference between East and West German art?

b: I think that is too big a question for an easy answer. It’s like trying to find what’s German in German art, or what’s American in American art. We’re not providing simple answers in this exhibition, even though a lot of people would like to be able to confirm their old patterns of thought — this is West German art and this is East German art. Yes, there are differences, but they can’t be reduced to neat and tidy answers.

p: One of the main artistic themes in the postwar period is the way that the Nazi regime brought modernist art to an abrupt end. Why was there so much hesitancy in picking up on this tradition? Why was Dada only revived in the 1960s?

b: I think pressure had slowly been building up regarding the question of how the Germans came to grips with the twelve years of Nazi rule; it had a profound effect on the situation in the 1960s. One of the most interesting aspects of this exhibition for me is the abrupt shift between the late-1950s and the mid-1960s in both East and West Germany. It’s fascinating to see how artists were suddenly grappling with history, and engag ing with the past and with the memory of the Nazi years. I don’t think that most people in the United States are at all aware how significant the Auschwitz trials were for the Germans in facing up to their past and their guilt; neither were they aware of the way the artists approached it.

p: American art — Pop Art, Conceptual Art, and Minimalism — first started exercising an overpowering influence in West Germany at the same time as World War II and the Nazi era be came a provocative issue in German art. A good example is Gerhard Richter.

b: Yes, the first exhibitions showing American art were opening all over Western Europe pre cisely at that point in the 1960s. German collec tors such as Peter Ludwig or Karl Ströher bought up Pop Art on a grand scale. Works from the flourishing international art scene primarily from London and New York suddenly ap peared in Cologne, Düsseldorf, and Munich. Of course that made a great impression on the artists. This international momentum cooincid ed with the process of working through the Ger man past. It was very exciting. Gerhard Richter in particular succeeded in creating a synthesis of both influences, and that also makes his work very appealing internationally.

p: Wasn’t the American influence felt more intensively in Germany than anywhere else in Europe?

b: That’s probably true. The well-developed gallery scene played an important role in that re spect, as did the committed collectors — espe cially in the Rhineland — who put American art on public view. Then there’s documenta , which has always shown a lot of American art. While Pop Art spread rapidly throughout Eu rope, the Conceptual artists were particularly well received in Holland and West Germany. In deed, many of these artists were more successful here in Germany than in America. This was due to enthusiastic curators who put large works on show regardless of the fact that there was little or no market for them.

p: Hermann Glöckner, the Constructivist lon er from Dresden, seems to be a secret hero of the exhibition. You are showing thirty of his works! b: Yes, but they’re mostly small works. Glöck ner was a real revelation for me. I think these maquettes, these simple works on paper, are a kind of hidden treasure, and they sure will be a surprise for many visitors in Los Angeles. Prob ably for visitors in Germany, as well.

p: You are co-curating this exhibition with Eck hart Gillen from Berlin. How did your Ameri can view of German postwar art differ from his?

b: It’s been great working with him. Eckhart Gillen knows a tremendous amount about this

material, particularly about East German artists. He always kept an open mind and was very in terested to see what might be interesting for a US audience from the abundance of material he had to offer. We complemented each other. For instance, Glöckner plays such a prominent role in the exhibition because I was so enthusiastic about him. But it was Eckhart’s idea to include a reconstruction of Gerhard Richter’s 24-hour exhibition volker Bradke , originally shown in the Galerie Schmela in 1966. That’s definitely going to be another surprise in the show. Our co-curating influenced the very nature of the exhibition — it would have turned out differ ently if either of us had curated it alone. Cooperating meant that we both examined — and occasionally revised — our views on German art and how it is presented.

p: There has frequently been trouble in the past when artists from West and East have been exhibited next to each other. Georg Baselitz and his entourage, for example, always vehemently resisted comparisons to Bernhard Heisig, al though they clearly share stylistic roots. b: An American audience is not going to come to the exhibition with the same awareness of the dramatic separation and reunification of Germa ny. Even more than in stylistic similarities I’m in terested in how the artists approached the same themes at the same time but in different ways, in other words, how they dealt with the depth of German history. That also applies to Heisig and Baselitz.

p: There seems to be a general consensus that Joseph Beuys and Gerhard Richter are the dom inant figures in West German art. Who were the defining artists in East Germany? The with drawn loners such as Hermann Glöckner, Ger hard Altenbourg, and Carlfriedrich Claus? Or rather the state sponsored painters such as Bern hard Heisig and Werner Tübke? b: Both Tübke and Heisig are represented in dif ferent sections of the exhibition with various works. Sitte doesn’t occur so much; that was more a deliberate decision. We do include some of the hard-line socialist realists, because I think it would have been a mistake to leave them out. Yet museum space is at a premium and we had to draw the line somewhere. So we have fewer examples of propaganda art and more Tübke, Heisig, Altenbourg, Claus, and Glöckner, but none of these can be labeled the most preemi nent artist of the period. We also found the Au toperforationists from Dresden more important than the socialist state-sponsored artists, some thing which I think again is going to be a real sur prise for people in America. We show photo doc umentation of their performances, videos, and the actual relics left over from the actions. We cer tainly do want to generate awareness for some of these more maverick, less well-known artists, who did not take the official route in East Ger many. I think Vostell is currently very underrated in the West, and so we have included a number of his works. On the other hand we are not showing many works by Kiefer, because he is so well known already in the States.

p: Yet don’t you also need to conform to cer tain expectations and show popular artists in or

der to cater to your audience? After all Anselm Kiefer represents the Germanness in contempo rary German art more than any other artist. b: I think the topic of Germany in itself is suf ficient to engage people. Many aspects of Ger man art between 1945 and 1989 are not specifi cally German, for instance Conceptual Art or Performance Art. Our exhibition will show how these tended to be embedded within an interna tional context. Nevertheless the revived interest in history and in coming to terms with the past that took place during the 1960s is a very specific phenomenon to Germany. This politically and historically charged art of the 1960s and 1970s forms the core of the exhibition. In my opinion the works produced during this period are par ticularly fascinating. In international terms, it was then that West German art began to make a significant contribution to the return of figura tive painting. Of course, there was less awareness of art in East Germany, although it formed a sig nificant proportion of the output.

p: Next year we will be celebrating the twenti eth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. What does 1989 signify for Americans? b: There’s not the same awareness of it, and I think that’s one of the reasons that we wanted to do the show. Everybody’s seen the footage of the Berlin Wall coming down, but I don’t think people really understood what the Wall actually signified. The Cold War is a distant concept for today’s twenty-year-olds. Yet with twenty years’ distance it’s a good time to reflect on it. That’s why I thought it was important to focus atten tion on this before everything gets forgotten and swept under the rug.

Interview conducted by Sebastian Preuss.

Stephanie Barron is an American art historian. Before coming to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art ( LACMA ) in 1976, she studied at Columbia University and held positions at the Guggenheim Museum, the Toledo Museum of Art and the Jewish Museum in New York City. She has been head of the Contemporary Art collection in Los Angeles since 1995. Several of the numerous exhibitions she has curated have become legendary, such as t he Rus sian Avantgarde (1980 ) or German e xpression ist s culpture (1982 ). Her special interest is in twentiethcentury German art. In 1988 she followed her show of Ex pressionist sculpture with an exhibition on German e x pressionism t he s econd Generation 1915 1925 Her 1991 e ntartete Kunst / d egenerate Art ex hibition on Hitler’s infamous attempts to denigrate mod ernist art was sensational, and was succeeded by a 1997 show on artists in exile from Nazi Germany. Barron has also or ganized exhibitions on David Hockney and Georg Baselitz, and in 2006 she traced René Magritte’s influence on con temporary art. All the exhibitions curated by Stephanie Barron on twentieth-century German art and its historical context have also been shown in Germany. She was award ed the Cross of the Order of Merit and the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany for her work as an art historian in building bridges between cul tures. Switzerland awarded her the Kirchner Prize. Art of t wo Germanys/Cold War Cultures will open in Los Angeles in January 2009, before traveling to Nurem berg, and then concluding in Berlin. The exhibition was re alized in close cooperation with Eckhart Gillen.

Textile print, Outlook pattern, designed by Walter Matysiak, ca. 1950

Textile print, Kugeln pattern, designed by Verner Panton, Pausa print for Mira X-Design, 1978

the glass wall

by mircea c

ar t

arescu

The Romanian revolution of 1989 tore down the totalitarian system and bur ied it beneath a layer of rubble. Even today, it continues to separate children from their parents. Although, for many, a day of reckoning never came and crimes of patricide were averted, the generations still live in different worlds. While young Romanians set their sights on the future, the members of the older generation indulge in nostalgic memories or are struck by a kind of paralysis. The writer Mircea Ca˘rta˘rescu discovered this nostalgia and paralysis in his own family. The following piece by the Romanian writer continues the series Fathers & s ons in Central and Eastern Europe which began in our last issue with a story by Jáchym Topol.

My generation can no longer act naturally in front of its parents. There’s not that childlike love one might expect, not even civili ty or respect. There is falseness in the air, a painful glass wall be tween us, even though we pretend it’s not there, visiting each other on Sundays and holidays, smiling and embracing each other. Most of us fulfil our obligation toward those who gave us life. We help them and protect them in these hard times, but it has little to do with love. In my country parents and their children live like married couples who only stay together because they wish to be respected by society the most painful of all possible relationships. And the reason for this isn’t the eternal conflict between the generations and problems understanding one an other. Although there are plenty of those, too.

My parents weren’t able to speak openly to one another about sexual problems, and I imagine they always felt guilty when they slept together, as if physical joy were filthy or even a sin. They al ways spoke in whispers in our flat so that the neighbours couldn’t overhear us through the admittedly wafer-thin walls and have rea son to talk badly about us. When I was a teenager though I was neither especially eccentric nor rebellious they sent me off to have my hair cut once a week. As if the strands that were longer than their fingers which they dragged through my hair were the fuses of bombs at the foundation of society. All the accusations Kafka expressed in his letter could have applied to our fathers, as well. But that’s another story.

It wasn’t their embarrassing small-mindedness, not their stingi ness which made the smallest expense a major drama, and it wasn’t the idealistic, far-fetched clichés in their language which ultimately separated the sons from their fathers following the revolution in Romania in 1989. It was much more the oppressive feeling that they were accomplices who cynically robbed their own children of a childhood. As if they had voluntarily and even enthusiastically initiated their self-destruction, after which they pulled the next innocent generation down with them. That they had built a prison world for themselves, in which they were si multaneously the hostages, victims and executioners. That they, blinded by total ideological indoctrination, tried to bring up their children in blindness. That they snuffed out their children’s instinct for freedom, the courage to speak freely, the ability to think critically and, last but not least, the belief in God. I don’t

know how children of Nazis in Germany and Austria were able to live with their parents after the war, and I don’t know how chil dren of unscrupulous profiteers, children of Mafiosi and villains of every kind can continue living with their parents. But in the case of my generation, which spent more than half its life living in a state that attempted to destroy it, a state from which it was impossible to escape, it is extremely difficult to live with one’s parents. It is one of the greatest burdens our souls have to bear.

Our parents comprise the majority of retirees, who are among the worst off in Romania today. Without their children’s help, they wouldn’t be able to survive. At the same time, however, they form the majority of those who loyally vote for reactionary political parties which idealize the past and most of whose representa tives were members of the former communist leadership and se cret police, the dreaded Securitate. It’s like the Stockholm Syn drome the former victims, those inmates of the concentration camps, continue to be fascinated by the guards who had impris oned them. When thousands of miners repeatedly rampaged through Bucharest, setting fire to state institutions and savagely attacking innocent people on the street, our parents applauded and cheered them on as if they were heroes. Our parents nor mally gentle, decent people are the same who deliver disquiet ing tirades on everyone who is different and does not share their political views. And this puts everyone in a state of agonizing schizophrenia. Parents are dependent on their sons for the neces sities of life, although they despise their access to the free world and liberal thinking; their sons visit them in their flats every week where their parents vegetate in solitude, alienated from the rest of the world. But during their resentful ranting, they don’t mention a word about what they see on television the only thing that gives them something to live for, yet at the same time, disconnects them from the reality of life even more. Most fami lies have come to a grotesque compromise and developed rules of conduct in order to salvage what is worth saving. Politics is no longer a topic of discussion, everyone steers clear of every possi ble or real subject that could cause discord, and when reminisc ing, they can only talk about memories that are ideologically harmless. Certain words are taboo, as if they contained a lethal solvent that could disintegrate the closest personal relationship. When you drink schnapps with your father, you still toast but you don’t look him in the eye anymore. When you leave, you still

give your mother a hug, but you don’t feel close to her anymore, as if you both had shared one body and then had a second birth that resulted in a new, excruciating, intolerable separation.

You know you shouldn’t do it, that it’s useless and destructive, but sometimes it’s unavoidable, and you look deep into the roots of this mutual distrust, this falseness between you and them, es pecially you and Him, who made a warm place for you in the world. It’s unavoidable, you can’t help getting upset when you remember how they stole your holidays, Easter and Christmas, how they transformed Santa Claus into a revoltingly ridiculous caricature. How they told you hundreds of times that there was no God and priests were parasites. And how they waved the Fun ny Bible for kids under your nose it was mindless blasphemy and the only bible I ever got to see in my childhood. You can’t for get the morbid fear of the Securitate which they planted in your mind when you were young. Never say anything that could cause of fense, never state your opinion regarding the politics of the Party, keep your mouth shut when someone starts talking politics... It still makes you sad to think that, even though they had it tough, paid off their furniture in instalments every month, meticulously calcu lated and noted their daily expenses with an indelible pencil every night, never travelled anywhere in their lives and never took vacation or days off, they still praised the communist world. A world in which they had opened their eyes, sons of farmers, sheets of blank paper, upon which well-meaning activists were able to write whatever they wanted. In the terrible years of Roma nian communism, they spent their lives waiting in queues, en dured the Siberian cold in unheated apartments, but blamed it all on Ceauses¸cu’s madness and ignored the ideological bank ruptcy that had laid the country to waste. No, communism re mains a holy institution to them even today. The golden future of humanity. What did it matter if they and us, their sons, had a future of filth to look forward to.

Following the revolution I became a stranger to my father, yes, even an enemy. The fact that I was able to travel abroad at the age of 34 for the first time in my life convinced him that I was an agent of the corrupt West. When he discovered a ticket to the Paris metro in my pocket, his suspicions were confirmed I was a traitor to my own country. And more importantly, it was the fact that I voted for the Liberals and not the National Salvation

central and eastern europe special funding programme:

Following the German-Polish programme büro ko pernikus (2004 2006) and the German-Hungarian programme bipolar (2005 2007), the Federal Cultural Foundation launched a new bilateral programme with another country in central Europe last May. Until 2009 zipp german-czech cultural projects will address specific issues and problems that are important to both countries such as the legacy of the de mocracy movement, dealing with historic traumas, the experiences of the economic processes of transforma tion after 1989 and the future of our cities. From the plan ning stage to completion, all the projects funded through Zipp are based on the principle of cooperation between German and Czech partners. The programme focuses on four main thematic areas: »1968/1989«, »Utopia of Mo dernity: Zlín«, »Real Life« and »Kafka«. All the Zipp projects are scientific, artistic or cultural in nature and combine a wide range of disciplines and artistic areas. In this way, a variety of German-Czech theatre projects, theme-based events, scientific conferences, exhibitions and documen tary films can be developed.

A Kafka conference, theatre performances in Prague, Hamburg and Berlin, and two events based on 68/89 are highlights of the Zipp programme in autumn 2008 kafka and power is the theme of an international conference to be held at the Liblice Castle near Prague on 24 25 October. A similar conference was held at the

Front the name the former communist party now calles itself. Following this series of conflicts, we broke off contact for months. I’m certain that he suffered from our separation as much as I did. My father, a man with the gentlest eyes a person could have, one whose introverted character I possibly take after, one who never did anyone harm (fortunately, he was only a journalist for a smalltown farming magazine, which clears him from the most serious accusations of guilt), he was severed from life, from the world, re ality and ultimately the good within himself by the cold blade of a criminal ideology. The same blade cut his own living flesh and severed him from his son. What a terrible fate cast upon his gen eration a generation that lived through a succession of dicta torships, both fascist and communist, and then finally liberated, with the whole free world open to them, gnawed by the nostalgic yearning for that which has left them crippled forever.

Meanwhile we have entered a modus vivendi which is possibly worse than the heated arguments we used to have. We act as if there is no glass wall between us. As if there had never been a wall. Sometimes I think it would be better if we didn’t see each other again, instead of pressing our cheeks against the cold, smooth surface, trying to get closer to each other and watching how the tears come down our faces. Now I feel that dramatic moment right before Georg Bendemann throws himself into the black water of the river, when he calls out quietly, Dear parents, I have always loved you. I feel the cruel iciness of the water that engulfs him.

Mircea Ca˘rta˘rescu, born in Bucharest in 1956, made his debut as a poet at the end of the 1970s and became one of the leading voices of an entire genera tion of poets in Romania. His volume of prose n ostalgia (1993 ) gained him international acclaim. Set in run-down Bucharest of the 1970s, the pieces are full of morbid imagination and exquisitely crafted mannerisms. A new edition of the volume will be published by Suhrkamp Verlag this autumn. Last May Ca˘rta˘rescu received the Romanian State Prize for literature for his novel trilogy Obitor [Blinding] a Baroque-style epic of more than a 1000 pages about socialist Romania. The first book of the trilogy, Aripa stinga , was published in German [d ie Wissende ] by the Zsolnay Verlag in 2007. Ca˘rta˘rescu’s vol ume of short stories Why We l ove Women , published in German by Suhrkamp in 2008, has become a phenomenal bestseller in Romania.

Liblice Castle on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of Kafka’s birth in 1963. The event was a significant turning point as it not only increased public awareness of Kafka’s works in Central and Eastern Europe, but also served as a harbinger of Prague Spring. Now 45 years later, the next Kafka conference has invited Jirˇí Grusˇa, Klaus Theweleit and others to discuss the writer’s influence as one of the greatest experts on power (Elias Canetti).

An opera and two theatre performances will premiere at theatres in the Czech Republic and Germany, after which they will be shown in the other country. An auto bahn rest area between Berlin and Brno is the setting of the opera exit 89 by Jaroslav Rudiˇs and Martin Becker (who described their collaboration on the libretto in »Magazin # 11«). This is where six people meet, whose lives have been significantly altered by the experienc es of 1968. (Premiere: 22 October 2008, Theater Archa, Prague)

everything will change, predicts Thorsten Trimpop as he presents true personal stories of Germans and Czechs whose lives were impacted by the year 1968 including the twins Gisela Getty and Jutta Winkelmann (Premiere: 30 October 2008, Kampnagel, Hamburg). In the piece nico sphinx of ice Oliver Sturm will present a death monologue by the legendary lead singer of Velvet Underground together with the young Austrian musician soap&skin (Premiere: 20 November 2008, So phiensaele, Berlin).

This past spring Zipp German-Czech Cultural Projects hosted two theme-based events titled »Crossing 68/89« in Berlin and »Misunderstanding 68/89« in Prague. These will now be followed by two additional theme-based events. On 1 November, Kampnagel in Hamburg will pre sent performing 68/89 which will highlight the influ ence of pop culture on social upheavals. transform ing 68/89, a week-long series of events at the Theat erzentrum in Brünn from 9 17 November, will examine the multifaceted significance of the years 1968 and 1989 for German and Czech history.

Exhibitions are becoming more important for literary promotion than ever before. We at the Federal Cultural Foun dation are receiving an ever-growing number of funding applications for literature exhibitions. But as the popularity of such exhibitions increases, so do the challenges of presenting literature in a modern form that goes beyond display cas es in traditional exhibitions. The Goethe Museum / Freies Deutsches Hochstift, which regularly shows exhibitions of its own collection, and the Department of Cultural Affairs in Frankfurt a. M. are holding an international workshop for ex perts at the Frankfurt Literaturhaus from 23 to 25 October 2008. There, the participants will discuss the ambitions, reali ty, theory and praxis of literature exhibitions today.* In the following, Verena Auffermann, a distinguished expert on the literature industry, reflects on what appeals to young and older readers alike.

reading safari

by verena auffermann

Clara is a twelve-year-old girl. She packs her suitcase for a trip to Amsterdam for a long weekend. Jeans, t-shirts, underwear, re tainer, pink Converse trainers, stuffed animal, hairbrush and four books. When do you think you’ll have time to read four books? I ask. We’ve got a full programme a tour of the grachten, Van Gogh Museum, Rijksmuseum and all of Amsterdam to discover and enjoy. Clara gives me a stern, determined look, I don’t care, I need four books. I say, But that’s too many, too heavy, the suitcase is full. Clara replies, I’m not going without my books. I say, There’s no way you can read them all, we won’t have any time. She answers, I know that, but I read differently. I ask, What do you mean, you read differently? She says, When I get tired of reading one book, I skip to the next and then the next. When I tell her that’s not really reading, she looks stunned. Yes, it is. You don’t understand, do you? I’ve read the books already, lots of times, now I’m mixing them up. Sometimes they don’t match, but that’s OK This way I can make new books out of the ones I’ve finished reading. Clara beams triumphantly, You’re sur prised, aren’t you? I laugh and nod, Clara, you’re right, I’m truly surprised!

The French historian and Jesuit Michel de Certeau came up with a concept in 1980 that perfectly describes Clara’s creative reading methods — Reading as Poaching. He would have been happy to have lugged Clara’s bag of books along Amsterdam’s grachten and, with mischievous pleasure, slipped his own Practice of e v eryday l ife among her bundle of books. He would have told her that she was an extremely intelligent, modern girl and that her active consumption, i.e., her tick of reading four books from which she constructs a fifth, represented the practical realisation of his theories. Of course, Clara would grin in embarrassment while she watched the old stranger talk up a storm. The text only gains its meaning through the readers, it changes with them, do you under stand? The traditional space of perception, for example, reading from the first to the last page, should be obliterated, if only for the sake of experimen tation, so that art... Clara notices a pizzeria across the way and no longer listens to what De Certeau has to say about the old world and how one can consciously and productively change one’s hab its in order to create something entirely different and new. She bites into a piece of cheese and rucula pizza and says, I can’t live without reading. Michel de Certeau nods, gently strokes her dark hair, and rewards her with an ice-cream cone.

Michel de Certeau was a perceptive scholar. His observations have come to pass. We can view a wide range of texts on our screens, watch a movie or sport broadcast while reading the lat est news and stock market figures on the ticker. Multitasking has become an essential skill of the 21st century. Although many have bemoaned the death of the traditional book, books simply refuse to die, and in the sense of active consumption, they remain a media reservoir which is in no danger of drying up.

The question is what we could do to help active readers find more enjoyment in multivariate reading. How can we make books more appealing to a modern, diversion-oriented reader ship which though well-trained in mass-media consumption and multitasking has little practice in patience and, therefore, little practice in reading for longer durations? We can read books quietly or aloud, we can listen to them, discuss them, make films based on them, we can even exhibit them. Despite all the omi nous news to the contrary, we remain a reading society. We are writing (text messages) and reading (text messages and Internet) more than ever before in human history. Granted, what we write is not exactly sophisticated texts, but we do have to read them. But how can we make the leap from the short message to the big book, from information to literature?

What would Clara find exciting ? The world of ideas captured within, the historic context, the imagination of the writer or the materiality of literature? Readers demand a great deal from com plex stories such as Harry Potter’s story, in which millions of children, young people and adults have become engrossed in re cent years. The story is chock-full of catastrophically difficult names, fragments of myths, epics and fairy tales which are trans ported from book to book in the series. Clara would be interested in everything, every minor narrative detail, the material sources that Joanna Rowling used for her story, every thought the writer pondered while creating Harry’s world. Probably readers of all ag es would feel the same way and ignore the question as to whether the silent book, which is written for the reader and not the view er, loses it special aura when displayed in an exhibition. Clara wouldn’t be able to understand the concern that large exhibitions spoil traditional values. Why she would ask, and what traditional values and what do you mean, aura ?

Literature houses everywhere are showing literature exhibitions on a variety of writers Robert Walser, Arthur Schnitzler, Han nah Arendt, Martin Walser, Thomas Mann and Robert Gern hardt, to name a few. The exhibitions are executed so well and with such dramatic imagination, and thereby present the works and their ideas so appropriately that they do not detract from the aura of the literature or special character of the texts. That’s great, Clara would say, but there’s more to poaching than that. Poaching is like opening a secret drawer, searching for something concealed within, a discovery or in other words it’s the unexpected, that fifth book created from four other books. Perhaps literature ex hibitions could present the fifth book.

It is conceivable that an exhibition on a writer, an era or literary style will someday attract large audiences because the ideas are just as fascinating as the people who came up with them. Ideas can be exhibited. The best example of this was the exhibition l es

Immatériaux held at Centre Pompidou and curated by JeanFrançois Lyotard in 1985. Lyotard wanted to sensitize audiences to the digital age and show what we are and the objects that sur round us in the world of new communication forms. Is it possible that this type of modern concept exhibition could include litera ture? Writers, poets, thinkers and event-addicted consumers are not such strange bedfellows as we might initially believe. The first are providers for the latter though they would vehemently de ny it, they are service providers for the mind and soul. The writ ten word is rigid, but the ideas they convey are not. To make an idea visible, to examine its core and avoid sensory overload, we have to illustrate the exemplary aspect of the idea. We could bet ter understand Bettina von Arnim, Kafka, Musil or Gottfried Benn if an exhibition shed light on what constituted their times. We could better understand the Romanticists if we painted a pic ture of the era in which they lived.

For decades the beautiful book, the beautiful writing and beauti ful illustrations have been sequestered away in glass display cases and exhibition-goers have been forced to bend down, heads low ered, hunched over, to view them. The first signs of fatigue set in within a half an hour, because as we all know, our attention span nowadays has decreased to a ridiculous ten seconds. We also know that readers fall asleep while reading. The writers, who went to great pains to stimulate the reader and not put him to sleep, are comforted by the thought that the reader might incorporate their ideas into their dreams where they can freely flourish. Poaching is allowed and encouraged. All readers who write their own books in their heads are textual poachers. Regardless of whether they are conscious of it or not, they modify the text through their identity, previous knowledge and presuppositions. Perhaps they might snap up a few significant details from the body of text with which they supplement their own imaginative repertoire. Litera ture only rarely mirrors reality. All we can do is circle it litera ture is the centre, an indestructible artwork which we have no rea son to worry about.

Unexpected events often happen on the book market. No one could have predicted that a novel about the quirky mathemati cian Gauss, who has driven high school students to the edge of madness for generations, and the fanatic world explorer Alexan der von Humboldt would have ever sold a million copies. Daniel Kehlmann’s incredibly successful novel Measuring the World [Die Vermessung der Welt] is evidence that the pub lic’s thirst for knowledge and their pleasure in learning are far larger than the traditionally negative experts on education would lead us to believe.

Dear reader, quoting Italo Calvino, who addressed his reading au dience more than forty years ago Dear reader, where will our

clara or what we expect from new forms of literature exhibition

journey take us as we continue into this multi-medially-strained, patience-impoverished century? How can we most productively use the vibrant curiosity that links the text to the person, the life to the work, story-borne literature to feelings for both readers and writers?

The simplest and oldest variant is the poet’s home a more or less authentic literary site. People from all walks of life shuffle across the same (or similar) floors as the poets who had once resid ed there. They marvel at the bedrooms, working rooms, kitchens and gardens Goethe’s parental home in Frankfurt, the room where he died in Weimar, Schiller’s birthplace in Marbach, sa cred relics everywhere. Oh, so small, so big, so poor, so rich! The connection between the poet’s life, the literature and place where they lived enables us to perceive this deceased genius as a crea ture with hunger and thirst, a bed and a chair. Everyone who visits a poet’s home, be it Hermann Hesse’s in Calw, Thomas Mann’s in Lübeck, Kurt Tucholsky’s in Rheinsberg, Gerhart Hauptmann’s at Hiddensee or Bertolt Brecht’s homes in Augsburg, Berlin and Buckow, consciously or unconsciously enjoys the feeling of indis cretion. The table is not set for us, our dear reader has dropped in uninvited, paid an entrance fee, and is captured in the museumlike privacy, in the biographic reflection of the literature. The traces, sentences, scenes from the works become recognizable. The quill, typewriter, suitcase and manuscript pages are present ed with annotations for all to see. Bertolt Brecht asked that upon his death everything he owned including his car be sunk to bottom of the Schiffmauerdammkanal in Berlin. Obviously no one fulfilled this last wish, but it was respected to a degree; in stead of building a Brecht Museum at Chausseestrasse 125, they built a Brecht Archive.

But what is the situation outside these memorial sites? Why is it important to venture in new directions and not simply make eve rything publicly accessible through the Internet? Let us put it this way it’s like handing out an enormous amount of wealth. There is a multitude of themes, stories and histories hidden deep within the quarry of the literary universe. Continents of insight and recognition and paths to self-reflection. Today we can inte grate a book by a popular writer into a commercial, we can com bine a classic novel with photos of today, exchange a Brougham with a Smart, the Kaiserwalzer in a castle with disco music and a DJ , the strategic placement of a football team, eleven against elev en, with the strategic troop deployment in the battles described in Tolstoy’s War and Peace . Or we could place a lock of Less ing’s hair next to a snippet of Gerhard Schröder’s undyed hair. There would be no obtrusive educational purpose, the past and present would interweave, and those who usually tend to say What do I care? would suddenly realize they should.

The skilled man or woman of today sifts through the masses of images, sometimes curious or looking for entertainment, some times serious and seeking knowledge. At best, texts should have various layers of meaning and be accessible to all. Clara, who is used to jumps in time due to her reading experience, thinks it’s totally OK if writers twist, enchant or change reality. As an avid reader, Clara would trade her Harry Potter Syndrome for the Alice in Wonderland Syndrome, enter the portal of literature, discover new realms of perception and, with any luck, experi ence extremely intense moments of happiness. Thomas Mann summed it up quite succinctly and apodictically: Only those who read can see. We can just as easily reverse the word order and say that only those who see, read. Reading habits correspond to one’s living habits. Each generation reads and sees differently. The silent book does not wish to remain silent. It wants to be read, thought, seen, exhibited and understood again and again.

literary projects currently funded by the federal cultural foundation:

and seek another, always speaking of hölderlin. international hölderlin days in driburg Hölderlin spent what were probably the happiest weeks of his life with Susette Gontard the Diotima in his poetry in Driburg in 1796. Because his stay in Driburg strongly influenced his poetry, the small town is now the venue for a large public poetry conference of renowned Hölderlin translators from several European countries and the Unit ed States. The conference will address the challenges of new Hölderlin translations, the influence of his poetry on other languages and artistic genres, in particular music, which will form the basis of discussions and musical per formances. Artistic director: Brigitte Labs-Ehlert; Partici pants: Aris Fioretos(SE), Christopher Middleton(GB), Philippe Jaccottet(FR), Luigi Reitani (FR), John Ashbery (US), David Constantine(GB), Fuad Rifka(LB), Rüdiger Safranski, Urs Widmer (CH), Walter Steffens, Dževad Karahasan(BA), Petr Borkovec(CZ), Friederike Mayröcker (AT) / 13 Nov. 2008 16 Nov. 2008, various venues in Bad Driburg and the sur rounding area / Literaturbüro Ostwestfalen-Lippe in Det mold e.V. www.literaturbuero-detmold.de

nelly

sachs the woman with the white

suitcase exhibition In May 1940 Nelly Sachs (Berlin 1891 1970 Stockholm) boarded the last flight out of Berlin to Stockholm. During the next thirty years in exile, she received treatment at psychiatric clinics, gained literary acclaim late in life and eventually won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1966. Nelly Sachs initially lived together with her mother in Stockholm’s south end. She ate, slept and worked in the kitchen which she called her »cabin«. This »cabin« with its view of the bay is the central element of the exhibition »The Woman with the White Suitcase«. It serves as the basis for presenting Nelly Sachs’ life and works, featuring unpublished material (photos, manu scripts, audio and video recordings and medical files). The exhibition portrays both the radical nature of her work and the socio-historic context in which it was cre ated. In addition to references to colleagues, e.g., Paul Celan, Gunnar Ekelöf and Hans Magnus Enzensberger, and close friends, such as Gudrun Dähnert, the exhibi tion will also highlight many of the mythical figures which played a significant role in Nelly Sachs’ world of thought, imagery and emotions. The exhibition is a cooperative venture between gewerk Berlin, the Jewish Museum, the Swedish embassy and the Suhrkamp Verlag, which will publish a complete edition of her works in 2010 Artistic director / Curator: Aris Fioretos; Project manager / De signer: Jens Imig / Exhibition venues: Jewish Museum Berlin and Jewish Museum Frankfurt, autumn 2010; Liter aturhaus / Strauhof, Zürich, autumn 2010; Royal Library in Stockholm, Sweden, winter 2010; Stadtmuseum Dort mund, spring 2011. www.gewerk.de

play at the historic Villa Augustin. With over 11,000 visitors every year, the museum has contributed to making the site a highly frequented meeting place for literary enthu siasts. The project »Youth Meets Literature«, financed by the Fund to Strengthen Citizen Involvement in the Culture of the New Länder (FNL ), allows young people to develop and organize their own literary educational programme. www.kulturstiftung-bund.de/FNL

litrix.de

online magazine and translation

programme Germany is a major importer of literature. At present, there is a strong imbalance between the re ception of German literature in other countries and the reception and translation of foreign language books in Germany. Nevertheless, both here and abroad, German contemporary literature has become noticeably more popular. The Federal Cultural Foundation has funded the launch of the online magazine www.litrix.de to promote German contemporary literature internationally. This on line magazine provides up-to-date access to first-class sample translations of new literary publications and of fers the latest news regarding the German publishing trade. The magazine’s target group includes foreign pub lishers, editors, translators, critics, German specialists and generally anyone who is interested in literature. Each year an international jury of experts selects approx. 30 newly released books, of which sample translations are made available worldwide free of charge. The online mag azine is published in German, English and Portuguese. The second part of the project is a programme to promote translations for certain regions of the world. In consultation with the Goethe-Institut / Inter Nationes, the programme selects a new geographic focus each year, funding translations in regions where literature can play an integral role in intercultural dialogue. In 2004 the trans lation programme focused its efforts on countries in the Arabic world. In order to promote German literature in China, Litrix organized reading tours, workshops and a publishing seminar in China. It also funded a wide range of translations into Chinese, including specialist litera ture, popular fiction and children’s books. Brazil has been the geographic focus of translations from Litrix since 2007

The Federal Cultural Foundation also funds the German Literature Fund and the German Translator Fund. www.uebersetzerfonds.de www.deutscher-literarturfonds.de

Verena Auffermann studied art history after completing an internship in the publishing trade. As a literary critic and journalist, she regularly writes for a number of publications, such as d ie Zeit , s üddeutsche Zeitung and l iteraturen . Between 1991 and 1996 she was a jury member for the Ingeborg Bachmann Literature Competition, and from 1997 to 2002 , she lectured on the subject of Publishing and Media Practice at the University of Frankfurt am Main. From 2000 to 2003 she edited the anthology Beste deutsche e rzähler [Best German Storytellers], published by the Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt. In addi tion to writing and publishing, she is involved in several juries and works at Deutschlandradio in Cologne and Berlin.

* The workshop is only the first phase of the project. The exhibition designers who participate in the work shop will be asked by the project organizers, Prof. Dr. Anne Bohnenkamp-Renken (director of the Freies Deutsches Hochstift/Goethe-Museum) and Dr. Sonja Vandenrath (literature consultant for the city of Frankfurt am Main), to put their ideas into practice based on a predetermined theme. They will have the choice of creating an exhibition based on either a classic or bestseller of modern literature. The results of the project will be presented to the general public at the Goethe-Haus in 2010. For more information, please visit www.goethehaus-frankfurt.de.

youth meets literature

The Dresden Literaturbüro has devoted itself to introducing literature to the public since 1995. Its activities involve organizing readings, lec tures, discussion circles, film evenings and writing work shops. However, its office also serves as an information centre and consultation service for both professionals and writing enthusiasts on authors, publishers and insti tutions. It also provides assistance in realizing project concepts. Through its combination of city and regional activities and international festivities (for example, the Erich Kästner Days or the German-Polish Literature Days), the association strives to create a bridge between the lo cal and global literature scene, between high culture and popular literature. The Dresden Literaturbüro has recent ly gained recognition with its festival »Bardinale« and its co-founded project »Poets on the Road«, a network of European poetry festivals. In 2000 it created the mobile, interactive Erich Kästner Museum, which is still on dis

illegal

An estimated forty to fifty thousand illegal immigrants foreigners without identity papers are said to live in Munich alone. They are predominantly refugees who have fled their countries because of economic crises or political repression. They frequently work low-paying jobs at restaurants, as caregivers and cleaning personnel. With funding from the Foundation’s Home Game Fund for Theatre Projects, the play Illegal t he Invisible l ife , written by Polle Wilbert and directed by Peter Kastenmüller, was performed at the Munich Kammerspiele following intensive research on the situation of illegal immigrants in Munich. The Munich-based lawyer and writer Georg M. Oswald attended the performance which inspired him to write a story on the same theme. In contrast to the play, however, his story does not focus so much on the difficulties that result from leading an invisible life. Instead, he describes the precarious normality with which society takes advantage of the services of illegal immigrants with the discrete charm of the well-situated.

by georg m. oswald

The town of Z. is located in that part of upper Bavaria where res idents believe that someone most likely God himself has blessed them in abundance. The town is surrounded by lush, green rolling fields and azure lakes. In the summer the moun tains radiate in bronze, and in the winter, they sparkle snowy white. Red and white geraniums cascade from plant boxes that hang from dark-brown, wood-stained balconies. Stately farm houses, meadows and tractor roads are reminders of a time when farmers lived here and cultivated the land. If everyone did their share, the yield of the hard, never-ending, daily toil was sufficient to feed a family. It is understandable that the children who inher ited the farms looked for other ways to make a living that required less effort. They stopped tilling the fields and, as town councillors, worked to shift their focus to development as there were many people who were interested in living there well-paid locals and newcomers who worked at high-tech companies that had set up operations there over the past forty years. Much had changed since then. Even the newcomers were now considered natives. They were all lightly suntanned which was still considered a sign of affluence, and on certain festive occasions, they wore exclu sive, traditional costumes and on other occasions, the typical in ternational designer fashion. They lived in classy and sometimes stately single-family houses around the lake on which the town of Z. had originally been built. Their children, who had been born in prosperity, exhibited something of a laid-back Califor nian attitude. During their summer holidays they would drive their »SUVs« from barbecue to barbecue and beach party to beach party, while their parents would while away the time at the golf courses around the region. The place where fishermen and farmers had once lived was now inhabited by directors, chair men of the board, managers, bosses of every kind who were ac customed to calling the tune wherever they were, and that’s what they did in Z., as well. When they invited each other and their

families to garden parties, the men and women would talk about their world and confirm each other’s opinions of it. The men had especially strong words to say about the government. Where were all those problems they were talking about? Somewhere else, that was for sure. But here in Z., where they lived, they knew how to organize society. Everyone was doing well in Z. Very well, in fact. There was no unemployment, not even a single unemployed per son registered here. Just the opposite it was extremely difficult to find someone, for example, to take care of one’s garden, to clean one’s house. Most people found it beneath them. And here in Z. absolutely nobody was willing to take on menial labour. The men firmly repeated what they only knew from hearsay name ly from their wives, who were in charge of the household and all matters of decorating, maintenance and cleaning while their husbands were out in the world going about their executive tasks. Of course, the women did everything possible to find paid help who could do the work for them. The horticulture companies, if they were any good, were outrageously expensive, not to speak of professional cleaning women and domestic servants and let’s be honest could they really be trusted?

It happened that at one of these garden parties, a retired senior medical consultant, Dr. Göbel, claimed she had found a solution to their problem. No cooking recipe, no invitation to a charity ball, not even the announcement of a ladies golf afternoon could have caused a bigger sensation. The heads of all the invited guests turned in her direction.

»I now have a Ukrainian«, she said as if she were revealing a beau ty secret. And what a secret it was! The guests reacted in several ways. Professor Klatt, an electric drill magnate who hadn’t quite understood the signs of the times, grinned snidely at Dr. Göbel’s husband, as if to say »sic transit gloria mundi«, but the women were more interested in concrete details than philosophy. »Does she clean well?« »Is she reliable?« »Can you trust her?« »Is she

taking on new customers?« Dr. Göbel said yes to all these ques tions, her eyes shut tightly with delight. »Her number, give us her number! « Dr. Göbel was prepared to do just this when Dr. Kurtz, a tax advisor, smugly interrupted, »Is this under the table?« Dr. Göbel rolled her eyes, »What do you think?« and all the women chittered with laughter. Dr. Miller, a lawyer, pressed the matter further, »Is she legal?« With outstretched hands, shrugging her shoulders, Dr. Göbel quoted a saying she had read somewhere, »No human is illegal! « which, again, gave the women cause to laugh. However, Dr. Göbel had to answer the most important question herself since no one had yet thought to ask »You’re probably wondering what her name is, and now I’ll tell you. It’s a beautiful name. Her name is Oksana.«

Most of them had never heard of the name before, but in a matter of a few weeks, Oksana was a household name in practica lly every respectable home in Z. After taking one look at her, the men with the exception of Professor Klatt no longer object ed to having her around. Oksana was a slim, beautiful, 25-yearold brunette whose presence could immediately disperse any concerns one might have. The minute Oksana left one job to go to the next, two housewives would be talking on the phone:

»Well, this was the third time she’s been here and I’m so happy with her.«

»That’s good to hear. So thorough or neat! Listen, I have some thing to confess.«

»Yes? What is it? «

»I wanted to put her to the test. I hid several banknotes in some of the clothes I asked her to iron for me.«

»And?«

»She collected them all and gave them back to me when she left. She said, ›You don’t have to worry. I’d lose my job if I stole from you.‹ I agreed, but I was a little confused because it sound ed like it wouldn’t have been me who fired her.«

For some reason, every housewife who hired Oksana felt obliged to put her to the test by leaving jewellery, private letters and money out in the open. With the same forced smile, Oksana amiably re turned the valuables to her employers, who gave a poor perform ance of surprise before putting them away. A short time later it became a custom to offer Oksana refreshments while she was working. Wherever she went, they offered her a fine cup of coffee or tea, accompanied by the best baked goodies from the local bakery. When the housewives noticed that Oksana had a limited selection of jeans and t-shirts, they opened their closets and wardrobes to her and gave her more clothes than she could carry home. Naturally, everything fit her because most women in Z. were extremely diligent in watching their weight. Oksana’s out fits became more stylish by the week. The women also paid her well. Two of them were talking about it on the phone:

»How much do you give her, actually?«

»We pay ten euro an hour. Is that too little?«

»No, that’s a lot. As much as we give her. Just imagine, if she works six days a week, ten hours a day, that’s 2,400 a month. There are researchers at my husband’s company who don’t even earn that much. Are you coming to Nordic Walking this afternoon?«

»I can’t, I’ve got my massage on Tuesday afternoon, you know, because of my golf injury. Is that 2,400 after taxes?«

»No, it’s all under the table!«

»Don’t you think there could be trouble?«

»What kind of trouble?«

»With the authorities.«

»Ah, come on, with the authorities! We don’t have those out here.«

Just when everything seemed to have turned out for the best, trouble was, in fact, brewing. But differently than they had ex pected. Oksana, who had once been so reliable, started showing up late for work without calling ahead. Then she didn’t show up at all. Perplexed housewives took to the phones.

»Could we have misjudged her character?«

»Who can tell what kind of problems she has.«

»What do you mean, problems?«

»Well, you watch TV drugs, the Russian mafia, prostitution...«

»But not Oksana!«

»No, I can’t imagine that...«

A few days later, Oksana showed up late in Z. and apparently had no intention of going to work. Instead of her usual happy self, she looked sombre and frightened. The only person she confided in was Dr. Göbel. Her story was complicated and puzzling. Dr. Gö bel passed on what she had learned to the others over the phone: »She said that her ›organization‹ was in danger, whatever that means. The police are after her. But not after her personally, but after the woman who owns the flat where Oksana and who knows how many others are living. They pay this woman a horrendous rent every month, if I understand correctly. In return she finds them a secure cleaning job. ›Secure‹ means secure from the au thorities. So anyway, this woman lives together with a drunkard who apparently also owns the flat. He molested the women, Oksana said. There must have been some screaming and cries for help. The police came and confiscated a list of names which also included Oksana’s name. She’s leaving tomorrow. On a bus to Kiev.« Life without Oksana began. Winter came, and the women of Z. somehow had to make due. In the following spring, Oksana showed up in Z. quite suddenly, and she seemed much more op timistic. She had been issued another three-month tourist visa. The police investigation from the previous year had come to noth ing, and it must have escaped the notice of the passport agency that she had worked during her last visit as a tourist. This time Ok sana didn’t come alone she brought Yuri with her, a strapping, good-looking, blond man in his twenties. He said he’d be happy to take any work he could, work that others might find too diffi cult. Furthermore, he was a skilled craftsman. Now that spring had come, the men of Z. had to have the winter damage removed from their homes and estates. Roofing tiles and rain gutters had to be fixed, rotten planks replaced, fences mended, trees and shrubs pruned, ponds cleaned, lawns mown and countless other odd jobs done. Welcome Yuri!

Again, Professor Klatt was the only one who believed it was illegal and thus, a mistake to employ these people. Everyone else rejec ted these rather abstract concerns as unfounded, and when Yuri renovated Klatt’s pergola in a very professional manner for let’s be honest next to nothing, he stopped vocalizing his concerns,

as well. Oksana and Yuri were well-known throughout the town and were highly regarded as hard-working, uncomplicated em ployees. The money they earned wasn’t half bad, either, if the re sidents of Z. were any judge. The men of Z. didn’t want to come across as cheap especially toward Yuri, to whom they always preached the necessity of being a go-getter in life and lending a hand to get the job done. And while their own children covered their ears during these lectures, Yuri was grateful for their advice and was a patient listener, for he soon discovered that this in creased his pay significantly.

When Oksana confided in Dr. Göbel that she was pregnant and Yuri was the father, Dr. Göbel was delighted, as if Oksana were her own daughter who was going to give birth to her first grand child. Yet Oksana was anything but delighted. She wasn’t mar ried. But Yuri was he had a wife and child in Kiev. Oksana’s family would disown her she could never return home with an illegitimate child. And her visa was going to expire in a month.

»And Yuri?« Dr. Göbel asked, dismayed.

»He loves only me. He wants to stay with me.« Dr. Göbel asked Yuri to come to see her. She had a serious talk with him. What was all this about his family in Kiev? Not really married, they’d been separated for a long time, he pays child sup port, but hasn’t had any kind of contact with his wife for a long time, he replied. With all her authority from years as a senior medical consultant, she drew him to her bosom and asked:

»Do you want to be with Oksana and start a family with her, or not?«

»Yes,« replied Yuri, sincerely and whole-heartedly, at least that was her impression. Therefore, Dr. Göbel made a decision. Yuri and Oksana could move in with her and live in the basement. The rooms down there were empty. Yuri could fix it up in his free time before the child was born. Dr. Göbel’s husband, however, wasn’t so enthused by the idea, but he had no mind to contradict his wife, because he knew it would have been futile anyway.

»I don’t trust the Russians«, Professor Klatt said to Mr. Göbel when they met at the golf clubhouse.

»They’re not Russians«, Mr. Göbel countered boldly.

»The whole country, the former Soviet Union, has collapsed into anarchy. You can’t survive there unless you’re a criminal.«

»Could we please leave politics out of this? These are two friend ly, young people looking for a chance.«

»This is not politics, this is the truth! One of them has a family in Kiev which he’s not taking care of. And she, she’s going to ah, I don’t even want to think about that.«

There was no getting through to Professor Klatt. His opinions hadn’t changed since the Cold War. Yuri worked like a madman to earn as much as possible. »For the future,« he said. He laid a par quet floor in the basement and people around town gave him furniture they no longer wanted or needed. Yuri’s and Oksana’s visas were now expired, but who could care in light of their hap piness which was practically in their grasp? Everything was turn ing out for the best, as was usually the case in Z. Until the phone calls came. The Aliens’ Registration District Office had some questions. Did Dr. Göbel happen to know anything about ille gally employed workers in the town of Z. ? Or any violations of residence laws? Dr. Göbel denied everything, and condescend ing asked:

»Do you really think I have any interest in such matters?«

She called her friends.

»Shh, not on the telephone. We have to meet in person and talk about the situation.«

The other women had also received calls. They had all denied everything. At least, that’s what they said. But now there was a real danger they could get caught. Thank goodness there were people you could count on. Dr. Bingert, a gynaecologist who had studied with Dr. Göbel, agreed to give Oksana a pregnancy checkup without identity papers, without an insurance card. Dr. Göbel paid for it in cash. Oksana’s belly grew; the ultrasound showed a healthy little girl growing inside. Dr. Göbel received a letter from the Aliens’ Registration Office. Although there was no court order for an official investigation, they wished to pay her a visit announced at her convenience. They had re ceived information of a violation of the law pertaining to alien residents. Dr. Göbel called the authorities and arranged an ap pointment for the following weekend.

»If you really think you must, then I’d rather get it over with as quickly as possible. This all makes me feel well, as if I had bro ken the law!« The next call she made was to a moving company

which emptied the entire basement apartment and put its con tents into storage. In a concerted effort, Oksana and Yuri were brought to Berchtesgaden to a ski cabin owned by the tax advisor Dr. Kurtz. There they remained in hiding for two weeks so that they could enjoy the clean mountain air. When the official from the Aliens’ Registration Office came, he was very disappointed at what he didn’t find, but also had his suspicions.

»You have a beautiful parquet floor in the basement. And no furniture?«

»Why furniture? Nobody lives here! And the children moved out of the house long ago.«

The official left. There was obviously something amiss here, but couldn’t exactly say what. Maybe he was afraid to get tangled up in something that would cause a lot of work and be of no use in the end.

In any case, Dr. Göbel never heard from him again.

She had the furniture brought back, and Yuri and Oksana moved back in. Their child was born at the gynaecologist’s practice around Christmas time. Soon photos of an exhausted, but happy Oksana with her baby girl, embraced by a happy Yuri were mak ing the rounds. A Christmas tree glittered in the background.

The entire town of Z. was touched that the birth coincided with Christmas, and for some inexplicable reason, they all felt like good people. And Dr. Göbel was at the pinnacle of her fame, as she was now regarded as a kind of freedom fighter, a reputation she found somewhat flattering. The happy course of events could have continued. They’d found solutions to all their problems. The town of Z. stood united behind their little Ukrainian fami ly which they pledged to look after for as long as they could. Yet the end of the story came non-allegorically and so suddenly that there was not enough time to even contemplate what happened. Yuri decided to return to work in January, though there wasn’t much to do in town. Against the explicit advice of Dr. Göbel who thought it more prudent if Juri only took on jobs in Z., he joined a crew of illegal aliens and boarded a VW bus for a clean-up job in the city. The job was relatively easy and would have only taken two days if it weren’t for the police raid that interrupted it. In a matter of moments, twenty immigration officers had surround ed the building unnoticed and everyone inside was seized and frisked. To avoid arrest, Yuri was asked to present his long expired visa and tell them his story, which he did. Nonetheless, the police took him into custody and when he was finally released, was is sued a deportation order with which he had to comply within twenty-four hours. However, the police only released him after he had revealed his address in Z., which, in effect, betrayed Oksa na, the baby, and of course, Dr. Göbel. A police patrol verified the information on location. Dr. Göbel asked Dr. Miller, the law yer, whether there was something they could do, but even he had no idea. Dr. Göbel couldn’t bear the thought of having the fami ly take the bus back to Kiev, and so she drove them to the airport the next morning and bid Oksana a tearful farewell. Yuri was gloomy and laconic. The baby was fast asleep.

For a while Oksana and Dr. Göbel corresponded by letter. Oksa na wrote that they were well, and she and Yuri were still together, and that he had found a good job at home. But Dr. Göbel feared that she wasn’t telling the truth. The letters had been postmarked in Hamburg. Following the payment of a small fine, the criminal proceedings against Dr. Göbel were dropped a few months later.

His

The Home Game production Illegal premiered at the Munich Kammer spiele on 20 June 2008. An audio play of the same name was released on CD by intermedium records in October. Polle Wilbert: Illegal Music: Kamerakino / Direction: Peter Kastenmüller, Michael Graessner, Björn Bicker / Production: BR Hörspiel und Medien Kunst in cooperation with the Munich Kammerspiele 2008 / Duration: 62’ 40 / First broadcast on 27 June 2008 in Bayern 2 / ISBN : 978 3 939444 60 2 www.intermedium-rec.com

Georg M. Oswald, born in 1963, works as a lawyer and writer in Munich. His published works have been translated into several languages and have been distinguished by numerous awards, including the Literature Promotion Prize by the Free State of Bavaria ( 1995 ) and the Arno Schmidt Scholarship ( 2000 ).

most recent novel, v om Geist der Gesetze [The Spirit of the Laws], was published by the Rowohlt Verlag in 2007. He writes a weekly column for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung titled Wie war dein t ag s chatz [How was your day, darling?].

toys for adults

b:

Contemporary art utilizes a wide variety of high-tech media tools, digital cameras and computers. However, these new image-generating technologies hardly possess the charm of old-fashioned optical devices. And the images they create have something magical that still fascinates us today. For centuries scientists have investigated how people are accus tomed to seeing things, the physiological conditions of perception and the mechanisms necessary for creating images. Their research has resulted in a long series of impressive op tical devices, used as attractions at fairs and as tools in the arts and crafts, technology and science. The experimental filmmaker Werner Nekes has spent many years collecting his toric picture machines a unique collection of gadgets that illustrate the cultural history of optical media. The exhibition Picture Machines (Museum of Contemporary Art in Siegen, 23 Nov. 2008 10 May 2009 ) presents items from Werner Nekes’ collection and compares them with works by contemporary artists who also experiment with optics. The exhibition features moving, delirious and mysterious images in room installations and projections, walk-in kaleidoscopes, wunderkammer, shadow play, bespectacled helmets and other viewing devices, peep-show boxes and flip-book stories. The art historian and one of the curators of the exhibition, Nike Bätzner, spoke with Werner Nekes to shed some light on a universe of illusions.

b: Mr. Nekes, you collect things that have such wonderful names the Wheel of Life, the Tur ning Marvel, the Deceptive Viewer. As a filmmaker, how did your passion for ancient optical devices come about?

n: Back in the 1970 s I was teaching in Ham burg and was asked to write an essay for the Ham burg Film Discussions. It was the first time I had ever intensively dealt with the origins of my me dia. Reflecting on how cinematic language has developed, I realized that the differences between images have continually grown throughout the history of film. I also noticed that viewers had developed the ability to see things at a faster rate, enabling them to understand larger jumps be tween the images. As I was researching for my essay, I happened across the Thaumatrope (the Turning Marvel), an optical toy invented by the English doctor John Ayrton Paris in 1825. There is a sitting bird printed on the front of a round card, and on the back, there is a cage. When the card is spun, we see the bird enclosed within the cage. The merging of these two images rep resents the largest amount of information that can be possibly conveyed by film. I was inspired by all these strange optical toys, sometimes called philosophical toys, and wanted to find out to what extent the principles of the pre-cinemat

ic period apply to film today or whether they are already being applied.

b: Were these philosophical toys only meant for adults toys with high educational value, but more for specialist clubs than children?

n: Adults also investigate the world playfully. These toys exploit the sluggishness of our per ception and make us aware of it, and at the same time, popularize visual effects.

b: Has the development of film always been your primary interest?

n: At the time, it was. Back then I was making experimental films and tried to take advantage of the immanent potential of film montage, to regard film as a medium, which, like a poem, conveys meaning, but not necessarily in a linear narrative form. I was interested in experimenting with the structural conditions that can also con vey meaning and use film as an instrument to make things visible that are normally invisible.

b: I think it’s remarkable that these old-fash ioned optical devices can still captivate us today, though we’ve become used to completely differ ent technologies and speeds. What makes these devices so fascinating?

n: You can set these machines in motion by hand. Because you can manipulate them me chanically, you’re able to understand them at once. There are no wires soldered onto circuit boards which conceal the mechanism. You can reproduce any of the machines yourself.

b: The fact that there’s no complicated tech nology preventing us from understanding the machine is certainly a good point. We can also observe firsthand how the images are generat ed. Although we recognize the illusion, we are still amazed at how our perception is tricked. But this doesn’t lessen our belief in the magic of images. They lose none of their poetic power. n: Yet many of the principles of transforma tion, animation and montage have been forgot ten. For instance, few people are familiar with the beehive pictures in which a honeycomb struc ture has been cut into a piece of paper. The perforated paper is then pasted onto a picture. By pulling a fine thread, a three-dimensional form of a beehive rises, revealing the picture under neath.

b: Some objects are comprised of several layers. The visible image reveals a secret beneath the picture on top poses a question that is answered

with a hidden image. It is something like the in timate encounter with exhibits in the old wunder kammer which contained secrets and objects of amazement.

n: The wunderkammer united all the curiosities ever found in the world, although the word curi osity had a different meaning then. The cabinets de curiosités, for example, were art cabinets for the curious, for scholars with a thirst for knowl edge. Such cabinets or kammer contained and classified all things that were deemed strange. In this respect, my collection resembles the wunder kammer in that it brings together devices, illus trations and media-related literature and mixes them up. Only later when museums were estab lished based on the original wunderkammer, were all these worlds carefully separated from one an other and ensconced in libraries, technical mu seums and picture galleries.

b: There are some objects in your collection which use materials taken from nature. There are also pieces that artificially reinterpret natural phenomenon, such as picture puzzles. In these pictures we see landscapes interpreted anthro pomorphically, i.e., human characteristics are ascribed to natural phenomena. Looking at a landscape portrait, for instance, we can gradu

n: Werner Nekes

Nike Bätzner

ally make out the contours of a face. Such puz zles demonstrate how we can see things in two ways simultaneously.

n: The human mind adapts to how and what it can discover and that’s why we are both fasci nated and baffled when we discover ambiguity. For example, the anamorphoses consciously distorted illustrations are clearly philosophi cal objects through which we gain awareness of the relativity of perception. The concealed im age is only visible to those who know how to see it either from a distorted angle or in a mirror.

b: Anamorphoses are used in a wide variety of thematic or ideological situations. A good ex ample of this is Hans Holbein’s famous paint ing t he Ambassadors (1533 ), in whose fore ground we discern an anamorphotic depiction of a skull, reminding us of our mortality. We can view the skull without the distortion from only one particular angle.

n: There is a long tradition of memento mori in art. The distortion should demonstrate that we have to position ourselves at the right angle to be able to recognize the Grim Reaper. Anamor phoses became widespread with the develop ment of the camera obscura, a dark chamber in which one of its walls had a small hole. Daylight was then focused and cast through the hole and projected upside-down on the opposite wall, re vealing an image of the outside world. By placing a canvas in the projection and tilting it this way or that, one can create a distorted image socalled linear anamorphosis. Leonardo da Vinci worked and experimented with a camera obscura, and was one of the first to paint an elongated, cloudlike picture which turned out to be the head of a baby.

b: If I remember correctly, there was a parallel development in the Renaissance. On one hand, artists strived to depict the visible world more realistically on the two-dimensional surface. Using a construction based on the central perspec tive, they created the illusion that the real world stretched into the frame of the picture, as if the viewer could step right into the canvas. On the other hand, everyone knew that the picture was an illusion which contained these distorted im ages, much like the anamorphoses. Perhaps to show that the central perspective was not a natu ral phenomenon, but a construct, and to dem onstrate our multifaceted sense of perception.

n: It just occurred to me that Leonardo com pared the camera obscura with the biological structure of the eye. At the time people began reflecting on how we actually see, on how that strange organ inside our heads uses two eyes to perceive the world around us. It’s rather sur prising that nobody asked themselves why we have two eyes until the 17th century when Ché rubin d’Orléans of Antwerp started investigat ing how both eyes process one congruent image of the world. René Descartes also intensively examined the problems of sensory perception, while scholars in monasteries everywhere asked themselves how we as human beings can know anything and be able to distinguish reality from

illusion. In terms of cultural history, Plato’s cave allegory was the first attempt to answer this question.

b: Plato’s cave allegory casts doubt on whether the things we perceive are real or merely shad ows of ideas, of true being. This strong scepti cism toward sensory appearances leads us to question what we can truly know based on what we learn from our senses. In the exhibition Pic ture Machines we try to examine the mech anisms of illusion and investigate the conditions of perception and the interplay between the fine arts and human perception.

n: The important thing is to regard any ma terial as a source of inspiration, be it vomit or spilled milk. Friedrich Kaulbach, for example, utilized this concept for his coffee stain pictures and Victor Hugo in his folded ink splotches.

b: Leonardo claimed that the ability to form a picture from marks on any arbitrary wall was necessary to escape the artistic routine.

n: Artistic works that exploit forms that one happens to find in nature investigate the sociali zation of perception, because people always try to identify something abstract or familiar with in them. It is an endless pastime that has exist ed for centuries, whereby the graphic informa tion is partially spread out. The images are meant to show you that different people see different things, such as in the Riefel or slat paintings de veloped in the 16th century. The same principle is still used in commercial billboards with rotat ing prism-shaped carriers.

b: The slat paintings depict two to three indi vidual pictures which can be viewed separately from different angles. The puzzle pictures, how ever, show only one image that can be interpret ed in various ways.

n: Arcimboldo and Dalí are perhaps best known for pictures which play with ambiguity. They function on two levels: time the time it takes to fathom the picture and depth a multi-layered image which can be recognized in various ways depending on the psychologi cal disposition of the viewer.

b: The varying dispositions of the viewer lead us again to the question of cultural influence. We’ve already mentioned lines of tradition strongly rooted in European history. But your collection also contains pieces from Asia, such as shadow theatre. In terms of optical devices, do you see a specifically European tradition, or has there always been an exchange of various ideas and discoveries around the world?

n: Based on my sources, I believe that catop tric anamorphoses, which were the focus of in vestigation in the cylindrical, pyramidal and conic mirrors, were not developed in Italy, but in Asia. The first graphic representation of a cy lindrical anamorphosis in Rome depicts fauna surrounding a table, and one can view the image of a prostrate elephant suddenly standing erect once the distortion is removed with a cylindri cal mirror. The image of an elephant is evidence

that the Jesuits probably imported the principle of anamorphosis from Asia. Of course, we can as sume that ideas were exchanged back and forth. Shadow play apparently originated in ancient China. According to legend, it was created for an emperor as a surrogate for a love he had lost. A magician returned his lover to him in the shape of a colourful, transparent figure in shad ow play. This historic colourful shadow play spread across India, to Turkey, and finally, to Greece. Our Western European version with its black silhouettes is a poor imitation in compari son.

b: Are there certain points of crystallization for certain phenomena? Are certain ideas or forms more popular or highly developed in some areas than others?

n: My collection is categorized by century and region. Objects and books that deal with the de velopment of the central perspective starting in the 15th century can be found in Italy. The Ger man Jesuits, and in particular Athanasius Kirch er, were especially active in Rome in the 16th century. The Flemish-Dutch region produced a wealth of material in the 17th century, especial ly in the field of science with a variety of books on anatomy and astronomy. The French intel lectual movement began gaining momentum in the 17th century, and by 1800, both France and England were producing many optical de vices. Around 1830 the German physiologists arrived on the scene and made significant con tributions to the development of cinematogra phy with their analyses of movement. For in stance, the Weber brothers applied mathemat ics in the form of differential equations to ana lyze the mechanics of walking a process very similar to image-generating algorithms created for computer applications today. The Phenakis toscope (Deceptive Viewer) developed by the Belgian inventor Joseph Antoine Ferdinand Pla teau and the stroboscope (short-duration view er) invented by the Austrian Simon Stampfer at around the same time led to serial photography by Eadweard Muybridge in the US and chrono photography by Etienne-Jules Marey in France, paving the way to cinematography.

b: Having sketched the development in West ern culture, how did Islamic cultural circles re flect on optical phenomena and what effect did it have on the fine arts? Are there any differenc es between the Islamic and Christian traditions in terms of how scholars approached the study of optics?

n: I think the traditions in these cultures de veloped along separate lines for the most part. From my point of view, I find it interesting that the Islamic tradition recognized images in calli graphic writing similar to the European gro tesques in the Baroque period in which a varie ty of shapes could be seen in the squiggly flour ishes of the quill. We shouldn’t underestimate, however, the influence of the study of optics from the Arabic region which provided Euro pean monks important theories to reflect on. For example, consider how magnificently Ibn

Al-Haitham (Latin: Alhazen, ca. 965 1039 AD ) explained the principles of the camera obscura in his opus Book of Optics . His writings, even if they were only circulating through Europe as manuscripts, strongly influenced Roger Bacon (1214 1294). In the mid 13th century, Vitello, a Polish mathematician in Erfurt, translated Al hazen’s writings into Latin. Western European monks applied his ideas and manufactured the first plano-convex lenses as reading aids. With the development of the printing press, his inves tigations were finally made available to a larger segment of the scientific elite.

b: I’d like to return to the topicality of your collection for a moment. Today’s computer-gen erated visual media offer a wide range of techni cally advanced ways of designing images and film. On the other hand, as our exhibition dem onstrates, there are many artists who conscious ly work with the old optical traditions and incor porate various optical devices and phenomena into their works, such as the shadow theatre by Eulalia Valldosera, the kaleidoscope by Sebas tian Diaz Morales or the peep-show box by Pipi lotti Rist. These artists re-examine the process of image-making and seeing and how we come to understand what we see. This experimental activity is what fascinated me and led me to cre ate an exhibition that featured your collection together with contemporary art. Do you expe rience any exciting moments when you come across new adaptations of age-old technology? n: What does a horse have in common with a car? Yet we still use the term horsepower. Old media lives on in new media, only in an altered form. The visual structures of thought and ex pression remain intact to a certain extent. By changing them slightly, they can become enti ties with entirely new meanings. I believe there is a universal, visual understanding that has de veloped over centuries and has been constantly modified into something new like theatre modified to film or film to computer animation. All the optical rarities in my collection represent options that could be included on a menu bar in a visual processing programme and could be translated into algorithms in a computer lan guage. The link between merely entertaining and purely scientific principles of knowledge clearly demonstrates that we continue to think in a uni versal, encyclopaedic language. There are artists who modify old technology which lead to new insights, such as William Kentridge’s anamor photic film projections, Ludwig Wilding’s moiré illustrations or Alfons Schilling’s reverse perspec tive glasses which transform the positive image of one’s surroundings into the negative. These are exciting innovations based on old optical so lutions and scientific-artistic research.

Werner Nekes was born in Erfurt in 1944 and grew up in the Ruhr region. Today he owns one of Europe’s larg est collections on the history of image creation, which is stored at a former factory building in Mülheim an der Ruhr where he also lives. As an experimental filmmaker, Nekes litera l ly wrote film history with his prize-winning, epochal film Uliisses ( 1980 82 ) which takes the viewer on a Homeric journey through cinematic history.

one-word phrases (II) by burkhard müller

Is there such a thing as a single-word phrase a word that leads a quiet life in the dictionary, an innocent building block in any sentence, be it mindless, insightful, truthful or false? Can a sin gle brick be architecture? Sometimes it can. Sometimes an entire world of thought lies concealed within one word, which makes it all the more necessary to reveal the creature within the cocoon. Here is the second instalment of our one-word phrases

you want to be like Maggie Thatcher who claimed that society didn’t exist, but only the individual or at most, the family? You still remember Maggie Thatcher with that hairdo and those out fits? So there you go!

The whole of society it’s like biting much too eagerly into an ap ple that has become extremely sour.

format

gesamtgesellschaftlich — the whole of society Logically speaking, there is no reason to object to this word other than its repetitive nature, the same reason we object to male stal lions. A stallion that is not male is not a stallion, which makes the attribute unnecessary; the redundancy of the adjective seems ri diculous. And the same applies to the whole of society which de notes nothing more than society itself. In contrast to the singular ity of an individual, a group, a region, etc., society refers to the historically formed connection among people. The term partial society might only be acceptable if we twist the meaning signifi cantly.

However, it is always worthwhile to examine words in our lan guage which break with the deeply rooted laws of economy. How could this six-syllable monster ever become so popular? To answer this, we would have to take a journey back in time to the 1960s and 70s. Back then every new book in the Suhrkamp series t aschenbuch der Wissenschaft [Paperback of Science] had a first print run of approximately 50,000 instead of the 1,000 or so normally printed today. Whenever a title began with the words A Critical e xamination of , it was re garded as possessing the right to universal attention, and it was unforgivable to fail to take note of it. Criticism also meant that the examined phenomena whatever they happened to be were boiled down to their social conditions. It was a trick that al ways worked, but that didn’t make it any easier for those who had to defend it. The result was a build-up of unspoken resentment. This eventually boiled over in the 1980s when theory weariness made the rounds. One can also call it theory laziness with good reason, as many who complained of such weariness had caused their own affliction.

Since then, the word society provokes the same reaction as that of a fourteen-year-old who is told to clean his room. You have to pep it up somehow. The expansion of society to the whole of society might sound bombastic, but in fact it possesses something soothing. It means to say we both know that this is an ex tremely annoying issue. And we don’t want to do more than we have to. But sometimes we just have to talk about the essentials. If we, you and I, don’t deal with it from time to time and provide its most basic necessities, then we’ll soon have a mess on our hands that nobody can sort through. No one enjoys the effort it takes to create order. But it prevents something worse from happening. There is such a thing as society, you know it as well as I do. Or do

Once there was a time when, if someone said artistic format, they meant Oil on Canvas, 128 x 78 cm. However, the term format has long broken free of its rectangular prison. And, as is so often the case, the culprit was television. Everything with format on TV has tossed all the former meanings of the word out the window. When was the last time we heard of a company installing a new production format? A format on televi sion means the programme type plus broadcast time plus broad cast duration plus viewer ratings. The viewer himself, one variable in the calculation, would seldom use the word, unless he wants to show off his expertise, as the term refers to the aesthetics of pro duction, and not reception. Television is regarded as a fixed, ener getic power, a kind of blast furnace, which, when turned on, must never be allowed to go out and for which one draws up sophis ticated plans to fill orders. For those who have it and work with it, the important thing is the furnace and not the steel, since the furnace must continually churn out the steel. The show must go on!

Whoever applies the word format to other areas has chosen a met aphor equated with television, and in particular, the business of television. The customer is always right but only because he is needed to keep the business running. It tries to read the custom er’s reaction like a seismograph, telling him what he wants to hear, showing him what he wants to see. It is forced to do this, because the customer base seems like a mass of autonomous, unpredicta ble viewers. And as a result, its control of the content must be all the more complete. On one hand, it has to be flexible, but on the other, deliver recognizable patterns which enable longer-term planning. In the short-term, the viewers are the means, but the ends are always the business. Since nobody knows whether the fish will bite, the bait must be prepared and dipped it into the wa ter with the utmost care.

When people talk about formats in art, they are, in fact, claiming that the business of art is the purpose. This may be understanda ble for art dealers, or perhaps even museum curators, since both ultimately have a legitimate business interest. But for artists, it is a declaration of bankruptcy. It’s as if they are begging Throw me to the wolves! This is what art gets for making such a clean break from its traditional forms. They have nothing of their own to re sist the power of formats. Concept art and performance art are free and open, but because they’ve opted to remove the skeleton, they tend to be a little limp. They have almost no other recourse than to find another way to hold on, even if it is as a worm dan gling from a hook.

Burkhard Müller (born in 1959 ) is a lecturer in Latin at the TU Chemnitz and a journalist for the feature pages of the s üddeutsche Zeitung . His most recent book d ie t ränen des Xerxes v on der Geschichte der l ebendigen und der t oten [Xerxes’ Tears On the History of the Living and the Dead] was published by the zu Klampen Verlag (Springe) in 2006

52 Design sketch by Leo Wollner, undated 5 Textile print, Bawo pattern, designed by Wolf Bauer, Pausa print for Intair Internationales Stoffdesign, undated

film retrospective winter ade cinematic portents of change The entire world was taken by surprise when the Iron Cur tain began crumbling in Central Europe in au tumn 1989. For forty years people had become accustomed to the daily confrontation between the East and West bloc. And then, quite unex pectedly or so it seemed the Berlin Wall fell. However, if we take a closer look at the literature, fine arts and music, we can identify precursors to the imminent upheaval of 1989. In fact, cinema portrayed these portents of change more concretely than any other art form. This project, managed by Claus Löser, is a retrospective comprised of 15 feature-length films from East and West Germa ny and the former East Bloc which portray the hope of change and predict far-reaching chang es ahead. In the 2009 commemorative year, the retrospective will initially be shown at the Berlin International Film Festival. The programme will then go on tour to art-house cinemas and other venues until the end of the year. Cinemas that are interested in being included in the planned tour can begin applying in November 2008. Please contact Anke Hahn at the Stiftung Deutsche Kinemathek-Verleih (ahahn @ deutsche-kinemathek .de). Vision Kino will include four films from the programme in their School Cinema Weeks 2009. For more information, visit www.visionkino.de

shrinking cities cont. Six years ago the Fed eral Cultural Foundation launched the project s hrinking Cities, which investigated how we can deal with decreasing populations and shrinking economies in urban areas. Although the project has now concluded an international touring exhibition, it is clear that urban shrink age will continue to be a major issue in the fu ture. The project will close with an exhibition and symposium which provide an outlook on how the world’s shrinking cities will develop in the 21st century and how societal trends can be influenced by interdisciplinary projects com bining the fields of art and science. The exhibi tion will run from 16 Oct. to 23 Nov. 2008, and the symposium will take place on 16 17 Oct. 2008 at the Academy of the Arts, Pariser Platz, Berlin. In cooperation with the Federal Cultur al Foundation, the Shrinking Cities project, the Academy of the Arts and the Bertelsmann Foun dation. For more information and a schedule of events, visit www.shrinkingcities.com

short film compilation do what you want now available on dvd The short film compilation do what you want , fund ed through the Foundation’s Future of l a bour programme, is now available on DVD The accompanying educational DVD is also on sale for use in the classroom, educational institu tions and State Media Central Authorities. Sev eral of the eleven films in the compilation have received one or more awards, including the Frie drich Wilhelm Murnau Short Film Prize and the German Film Critics Prize 2007. Since its pre miere, the compilation has been shown at over 200 cinemas in Germany. The films were made for a short film competition of the same name, hosted in cooperation with the Federal Cultural Foundation, the KurzFilmAgentur Hamburg e.V. and the TV broadcasters ZDF / ARTE . The

DVD costs 11 95 euro and can be ordered directly from the KurzFilmAgentur Hamburg e.V. (www. shortfilm.com). The DVD with the accompany ing educational materials costs 35 euro for teach ers and students and 220 euro for State Media Central Authorities, and can be ordered at www.matthias-film.de

an instrument for every child widely popular among primary school students Around 89 percent of children who be gan the Instrument for e very Child programme last year have decided to continue and register for a second year a major success for the project in a year when the Ruhr region becomes a European capital of culture! Begin ning in autumn 2008, 6, 300 second graders will receive instrumental instruction in small groups and learn the instruments which they previous ly picked out themselves. Meanwhile the pro gramme continues to grow rapidly. At the be ginning of this school year, another 20,000 first graders were introduced to the world of musical instruments. Forty out of 53 communities in the Ruhr region offer the programme to their pri mary school students, and the number of parti cipating primary schools has risen to 350. However, the music schools still require more dona tions to purchase musical instruments! For more information about the programme and how to make contributions, please visit www.jedemkind.de

educational research on an instru ment for every child This November re searchers from various fields will begin accom panying the programme An Instrument for e very Child . The researchers will study the programme for a period of four years to as sess whether and to what extent its goals were achieved. The Federal Ministry of Education and Research has allocated a maximum of one million euro each year to fund the research. The researchers will also investigate how participa tion and the children’s social background correlate and how instrumental instruction influ ence the social skills of primary school children.

german president horst köhler distributes musical instruments in gelsenkirchen On 26 August 2008 forty-seven second graders received their musical instru ments from the German Federal President Horst Köhler. As the patron of An Instrument for e very Child, he visited one of the primary schools in Gelsenkirchen and official ly began the instrumental instruction which the children were greatly looking forward to. Together with the Minister-President of North Rhine-Westphalia, Jürgen Rüttgers and the Minister of State for Cultural Affairs, Bernd Neu mann, the German President expressed his ap preciation for the generous donations from citi zens and companies in the Ruhr region, with which 6, 300 instruments have already been pur chased. In other participating cities in the Ruhr region, municipal representatives and donors began giving primary school students their first violins, guitars, trumpets and other instruments. The children can use their loaned instruments at no charge for musical instruction and per formances from the second to the fourth grade.

Further donations are urgently needed. For more information, please visit www.jedemkind.de

an instrument for every child with its own children’s orchestra Last June the KinderOrchesterRuhr (Ruhr Children’s Orches tra) became a permanent fixture of the Instru ment for e very Child programme. In addi tion to normal instrumental instruction, seven ty children between the ages of nine and four teen participate in this orchestra. It presented its new programme Pictures at an e xhibition by Mussorgsky (conducted by Barbara Rucha) on 23 August, the day the Federal Chan cellery was open to the public, and again on NRW Day in Wuppertal on 31 August. Initiat ed by the NRW Minister-President Jürgen Rütt gers, the KinderOrchesterRuhr was established in 2007 as an orchestra for young, talented mu sicians. Under the aegis of the Instrument for e very Child Foundation, the orches tra will supplement its symphonic activities with other themes, such as the diversity of in struments used in the programme and the im migrant culture of the region. For more infor mation, please visit www.jedemkind.de

red dot awarded to the new music network for outstanding design Novamon do Design recently awarded the red dot one of the world’s most coveted design awards to the n ew Music n etwork for its outstanding design. This seal of quality is conferred each year at the international design competition red dot design award in recognition of top-quality and innovative design. For this year’s red dot in com munication design, the 14-member jury of inter national design experts reviewed almost 6,000 works from 39 countries, 381 of which were dis tinguished with the red dot. The awards ceremo ny will take place at the Gala Hall at the Zollver ein Casino in Essen on 3 December 2008. The red dot design museum in Essen will feature all the award-winning pieces in a public exhibition from 4 December 2008 to 11 January 2009. See www.netzwerkneuemusik.de for more informa tion.

topf & söhne exhibition attracts international attention The exhibition e ngi neering the Final s olution : t opf & s öhne t he Furnace Builders of Auschwitz , funded by the Federal Cultur al Foundation, opened at the Jewish Museum in Berlin on 19 June 2005. The exhibition then went on tour to seven other European cities Er furt, Essen, Lage, Nürnberg, Mechelen (Belgium), Mauthausen (Austria) and most recently in Co penhagen (Denmark), where it opened at the Ar bejdermuseet on 22 August 2008. Topf & Söhne was a typical German industrial company until they began perfecting the cremation furnaces installed at Auschwitz. How was it possible that a civilian company could aid the SS in the indus trial destruction of human life? This exhibition project by the Buchenwald Memorial investi gated the motivational structure and corporate culture at Topf & Söhne which ultimately led to their complicity in the Holocaust. A new exhi bition tour is being planned for summer 2009 which will take it through North America, in

particular Toronto, Chicago, Houston and New Jersey. Wiesbaden and Santiago de Chile have al so expressed interest in the exhibition. The mas sive media attention and positive international reaction demonstrate that the exhibition has suc ceeded in presenting a chapter of German histo ry that touches on issues which go beyond the usual context of German remembrance of the Holocaust. Due to its international success, a new topf & s öhne learning and documentation centre will be built in Erfurt where the exhi bition will eventually go on permanent display.

zipp presents german-czech theatre projects on 68 89 Zipp German Czech Cultural Projects , a programme initiated and funded by the Federal Cultural Foundation, is presenting a number of GermanCzech plays which will premiere at theatres in autumn 2008. These include the German-Czech opera e xit 89 by Jaroslav Rudiˇs, Martin Beck er (libretto) and Michal Nejtek (music) about the post-revolutionary experiences of the 68 gen eration in Germany and the Czech Republic. The opera will premiere at the Theater Archa in Prague on 22 October and will be performed later in Hamburg and Brno. The documentary play e verything will change (directed by Thorsten Trimpop) establishes connections between the lives of Germans and Czechs and examines the significance of the historic events of 1968 and 1989 for people today (premiere at Kampnagel, Hamburg on 30 October, guest per formances in Prague and Brno). The project n ico s phinx of Ice (directed by Oliver Sturm) is based on Christa Päffgen, alias Nico, the model, singer and actress who became a pop icon of the late 1960s (premiere at the Sophien saelen in Berlin on 20 November, guest perfor mances in Hamburg, Frankfurt and Prague). In addition to these new productions, the third edition of the journal on 1968 1989 will be re leased this autumn, accompanied by the third theme-based event of Performing 68/89 (1 November, Kampnagel, Hamburg). For more information, visit www.projekt-zipp.de

german literary fund awards gerhard falkner the kranichsteiner literature prize and ragni maria gschwend the paul celan prize The German Literature Fund, financed by the Federal Cultural Founda tion since 2004, has awarded this year’s Kran ichsteiner Literature Prize to the writer Gerhard Falkner. Born in 1951, Falkner began writing for magazines until he published his first volume of poetry so beginnen am körper die tage in 1981. His most recent work is the novella Bruno, published by the Berlin Verlag. The award, which includes prize money of 20,000 euro, will be conferred at a ceremony in Darmstadt on 15 No vember 2008. At the same time, the writers Mar tin Becker, who contributed to our Magazin # 11, Finn-Ole Heinrich and Matthias Karow will read unpublished texts in a competition for the 5,000 -euro Kranichsteiner Literature Promotion Prize. A ten-week scholarship has been awarded to the writer Sherko Fatah to fund his visit at the Deutsches Haus at New York University and Jan Böttcher, who will visit Queen Mary College at the University of London. The German Litera ture Fund has also awarded this year’s Paul Celan

Prize to Ragni Maria Gschwend for outstanding translations into German. Born in Immenstadt in 1935, she received the award for her life’s work which includes numerous translations into Ger man from Italian. The award with 15,000 euro prize money will be conferred at a ceremony at the Frankfurt Book Fair. www.deutscher-litera turfonds.de

work. meaning and care website

Since 2006 the Federal Cultural Foundation has initiated and funded numerous projects and larger programmes as part of its Future of l abour programme which addresses the cul tural impact of changes in the working world. The programme will conclude with the exhibi tion Work Meaning and Care at the Ger man Hygiene Museum in Dresden in June 2009 It will focus on the socio-economics of working society based on alternative scenarios. Instead of focussing on expert knowledge, the ex hibi tion will highlight individual perspectives on meaningful activity and predominantly employ film as its main medium. Long before the exhibi tion opens, the public is invited to visit a website which provides insight into its curatorial devel opment. The website presents the key issues of the project and demonstrates how the curators wish to present them as exhibits in an exhibition. To view this work in progress, visit www.arbeitsausstellung.de

art values society website In coop eration with the Working Society of German Art Associations, the Federal Cultural Founda tion funded a conference titled Art v alues s ociety at the Berlin Academy of the Arts in May 2008. The main purpose of the conference was to discuss how publicly-funded and nonprofit art institutions are impacted by the pri vate-enterprise art market, which increasingly shapes the public’s perception of contemporary art. Is the boom in the art market changing the role of these non-profit institutions as society’s mediators for determining the value of art? The conference was well attended and included lec tures, discussions and presentations by artists, representatives from art institutions, the art mar ket, cultural market, cultural policymakers and the media. For those who missed the conference, a documentation of the events is now available online at www.kwg.kunstvereine.de

conference an instrument for every child music school in primary school 14–16 november 2008 This conference, coordinated by the Instrument for e very Child Foundation together with the Music t eacher t raining Asso ciation , will address the opportunities and challenges that have resulted from the coopera tive projects between schools and cultural insti tutions. In addition to sharing their past experi ence and discussing new ideas for successful co operation, the participants will explore the cul tural-political dimension of such cooperation in lectures, workshops and open forums. Every one who is interested is cordially invited to par ticipate in the debate, which will take place in Schwerte on 14 16 November 2008. To view the conference programme, visit www.kulturstiftung-bund.de/jedemkind

new projects

Twenty-three new projects from all artistic areas were recommend ed for funding by the Foundation’s jury through the application-based General Project Funding in April 2008

first solo exhibition in Germany will focus on the forms of presentation he developed for his film material.

Project directors: Barbara Engelbach, Jonas Mekas ( LT ) / Exhi bition: Museum Ludwig, Cologne: 8 Nov. 2008 1 Mar. 2009 / Museum Ludwig, Cologne www.museenkoeln.de

alexander archipenko retrospective

image and space / exhibitions

the big game archaeology and politics in the age of colonialism (1860 1940) Why was there such an intensive scienti fic interest in ancient cultures during the 19th cen tury? Who were the pioneers who were the first to undertake major archaeological digs? What was the motivation of those who commissioned and financed their research? In cooperation with international partners, this project will address these questions in a comprehensive historic con text. The exhibition will portray the tremendous political motivation behind the European expe ditions to the Middle East, Central Asia and Af rica and show how archaeological excavations were instrumentalized for colonial policy. It will present various archaeological finds and the bio graphies of such renowned figures as Lawrence of Arabia, Gertrude Beil and Max von Oppen heim. While the exhibition will present detailed perspectives of the colonial history of various countries, its comparative and global focus rep resents a new development in archaeological re search. The history of the finds in archaeologi cal collections is also an issue of current interest in many European countries in light of recent demands for the return of archaeological treas ures. The exhibition will provide visitors with a more insightful view of colonial history.

Project director: Charlotte Trümpler / Research assistant: Tom Stern / Exhibition: Zeche Zollverein, Essen: 11 Feb.–13 June 2010 / Ruhr Museum Essen www.ruhrmuseum.de

jonas mekas first solo exhibition in germany By associatively linking film images, the filmmaker Jonas Mekas developed a unique essayistic, documentary style which continues to influence generations of artists and filmmak ers today. This exhibition at the Museum Lud wig in Cologne focuses on his work as an artist, initiator and mediator of the cinematic arts (film curator and critic), who made it possible, for example, to show movies at varying loca tions. Avant-garde and post-war films were cen tral to his film programmes and reviews, includ ing the so-called New American Cinema (John Cassavetes) and underground film (Andy War hol). One of the main features of the exhibition will be a film programme featuring a represent ative selection of his movies, as well as films which became popular due to Mekas’s involve ment. Co-directed by Jonas Mekas himself, his

sachsenhausen concentration camp 196 1945 development and creation of an interactive, multimedia presentation for the computer-aided learning center In April 2008 the Memorial and Museum Sachsenhausen opened its new perma nent exhibition s achsenhausen Concen tration Camp 1936 1945 e vents and d evelopments . Located in the former pris oners’ kitchen, the exhibition provides an over view of the history of the concentration camp. It is the main exhibition at the memorial site and prepares visitors for the exhibits they will encounter at various locations at the site. This project will integrate filmed interviews with sur vivors of the Holocaust into a multimedia Learn ing Center. The primary focus of the Learning Center will be the presentation of personal mem ories and opinions of those who survived impris onment at the camp. In their interviews the for mer prisoners will answer basic questions which usually arise in the minds of most exhibition goers. What did the prisoners experience in their various forced-labour brigades? During the death march, was there ever a chance to es cape? The former prisoners describe the reality of life in the concentration camp and other events they remember. The Learning Center will take the many personal perspectives into account and demonstrate the often widely di vergent relationship between objective and sub jective facts

Project directors: Astrid Ley, Markus Ohlhauser / Exhibition: Memorial and Museum Sachsenhausen, Oranienburg: 15 June 2008 31 Mar. 2009 / Brandenburg Memorials Foun dation www.stiftung-bg.de

colossal art fact fiction No one knows for sure where the Battle of the Teuto burger Forest (Varusschlacht ) took place. Over the course of many years, researchers have pin pointed hundreds of locations where the battle might have occurred. In commemoration of the 2000th anniversary of this historic battle in 2009, this project will present artistic in stallations throughout the Bramsche-Kalkriese region which highlight the area and the myths surrounding the battle. The project, directed by Jan Hoet (director of the documenta IX ), takes a unique artistic approach to history, historic myths and icons. Internationally renowned art ists will attempt to form new lines of reference between the historic facts and the tales surround ing them.

Artistic director: Jan Hoet / Curator: Lorenzo Bendetti / Fea turing works by: Massimo Bartolini ( I ) Katinka Bock ( D/F ) Monica Bonvicini , Heinrich Brummack, Rui Chafes P ) , Wim Delvoye ( B ) , Fabrice Gygi ( CH , Gabriel Kuri MEX/B ) , David Malijkovic ( NL , Slava Nakovska BUL , Eva Rothschild CH ) , Fernando Sanchés Castillo ( E , Susanne Tunn, Yue Min Jun ( CN / Exhibition: Bramsche-Kalkriese (archaeological park) and other venues in Bramsche, Bohmte, Bad Essen, Belm, Ostercappeln-Venne and Osnabrück: 24 Apr.– 31 Dec. 2009 / Landschaftsverband Osnabrücker Land e.V. www.lvosl.de

As the legatee of Alexander Archipenko’s artis tic works, the Saarlandmuseum owns a unique collection of original plaster casts, bronzes and works on paper by one of the most influential and pioneering sculptors of the 20 th century. Supplemented by loaned works from around the world, this exhibition will present an over view of five decades of Archipenko’s artistic de velopment. His early works were influenced by the Cubists’ form experiments while the human body played a central role in his later works. This exhibition will be the most extensive retrospec tive in recent decades and will help encourage the preservation and examination of his artistic legacy for the long term.

Artistic Director: Kathrin Elvers-Svamberk / Exhibition: Saarlandmuseum, Saarbrücken: 18 Oct. 2008 18 Jan. 2009 / Saarlandmuseum www.saarlandmuseum.de

spacespectives exploring the field

of artistic landscape planning Our environment is constantly changing. Public au thorities and agencies often determine how land scapes are developed and designed for the long term. SPACE spectives [Raumsichten] aims to add an artistic perspective to the process and goals of today’s landscape planning, which is so often motivated by economic or technological inter ests. The Vechte valley provides an ideal setting for this kind of project. With the district of Ben theim on one side of the Vechte River and the Dutch province of Overijssel on the other, the valley is already the venue of kunstwegen an open-air museum featuring contemporary sculp tures embedded in public space. SPACE spectives wishes to develop this successful concept further. An international advisory committee has invit ed artists to develop concepts for artistic projects for public display in landscape areas. A jury will choose eight artistic proposals which will be completed and exhibited in the Vechte valley by 2010. Meanwhile, representatives and policymak ers in public administrations will discuss larger landscape design projects with the invited art ists. The goal of the project is to enhance the of ten pragmatic landscape and recreational plan ning measures with artistic and aesthetic ideas.

Artistic director: Roland Nachtigäller / Consultants: Till Krause, Arnoud Hollemann ( NL ) , Stephan Berg, Udo Kittel mann, Charles Esche ( GB , Mark Dion ( US , Jörg Heiser, Ste fanie Rosenthal, Barbara Steiner A , Brigitte Franzen / Exhi bition: Städtische Galerie Nordhorn: 12 June–26 July 2009 and artistic projects in the district of Bentheim between Nordhorn and Ohne: 16 Mar. 2009 15 Sept. 2010 / District of Bentheim www.grafschaft-bentheim.de

a new way of seeing exhibition Many Germans are unfamiliar with the fascinating and diverse young art scene in Israel. The exhi bition A n ew Way of s eeing will present works by approximately thirty young artists and shed light on an art scene that has developed un der special conditions quite unlike any in West ern Europe. When planning the exhibition, the curators consciously decided against a fixed the matic focus. They wanted to do justice to the wide array of themes and media used by the in vited artists and avoid restricting their expres sion to the social and political conflicts in the Middle East. The exhibition explores the issues, themes and forms of expression which are im

57 Handkerchief with matching case, designed by Elsbeth Kupferroth, Christmas present for customers, 1951

58 Colour guide, undated

59 Colour guide, undated

60 Autumn collection flyer, designed by Anton Stankowski, 1957

61 Four letters in matchbox format, designed by Anton Stankowski, undated

62 Advertising stamps, designed by Anton Stankowski, 1986

6 Detail from an advertising brochure, spring 1956

64 Page from an advertising brochure, undated

65 Detail from an advertising brochure, undated

66 Detail from an advertising brochure, undated

67 Paper bag, designed by Anton Stankowski, undated

68 Advertising brochure, designed by Anton Stankowski, undated

69 Page from an advertising brochure, undated

66 67 69

portant to artists in Israel. It looks forward to discovering how large a role political and social issues play in their works, even when these are not the explicit focus of the exhibition. The ex hibition will present a wide variety of artistic forms, including painting, photography, sculp ture/object art and open-air installations. The goal is to increase the recognition of these young artists internationally and introduce their work to larger audiences at this early phase of their ar tistic development.

Artistic directors: Susanne Hinrichs, Nobert Bauer, Liav Mizrahi / Featuring works by: Liat Kuch, Vered Levi, Ravit Mishli, Ruth Orr, Naama Tsabar, Tali Keinan, Oly Sever, Maya Attoun, Eint Amir, Avital Cnaani, Dana Darvish, Assaf Evron Guy Goldstein Assi Mesholam Inbal Nissim Ariela Plotkin Bark Ravitz Talya Raz Hillel Roman Nurit Sharett, Lior Shvil, Anna Yam, Tal Yerushalmi, Shai Kocieru, Rona Yafman, Gali Grinspan, Zvi Gaston Ickowicz, Shunit Kushnir ( IL ) / Exhibition: Städtische Galerie, Bremen: 22 Nov. 2008 11 Jan. 2009 and the Syker VorwerkZentrum für zeitgenössische Kunst, Syke: 23 Nov. 2008 15 Feb. 2009 / Städtische Galerie, Bremen www.staedtische galerie-bremen.de

liam gillick: three perspectives and a short scenario exhibition The pieces by Liam Gillick, born in Great Britain in 1964, can not be categorized by artistic genre or medium. Gillick works with architectural elements and in terior spaces, incorporates minimalist concepts into his sculptures and is a prolific writer of es says, reviews, fictional texts and dramatic scenar ios. The exhibition t hree Perspectives and a s hort s cenario is the first retro spective spanning twenty years of Liam Gillick’s substantial, multifaceted works. The retrospec tive will be divided into four independently cu rated exhibitions presented at major art venues around the world, including the Museum Witte de With in Rotterdam, the Kunsthalle Zürich and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chi cago. The Federal Cultural Foundation is fund ing the fourth exhibition at the Kunstverein München. Gillick wrote the play Mirrored Image : A v olvo Bar especially for this ex hibition which will be produced, premiered and filmed at the Kunstverein and later shown in Chicago. The play is based on the relationships and artistic collaboration which have most sig nificantly influenced Gillick’s work.

Artistic directors: Liam Gillick and Stefan Kalmár / Exhibi tion: Kunstverein München: 26 Sept.–2 Nov. 2008 / Kunstverein München www.kunstverein-muenchen.de

geschlossene gesellschaft exhibition

Imprisonment is a condition of extreme psycho logical and physical distress and has been the subject of many artworks in past years. The KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin is cur rently showing an exhibition titled Geschlos sene Gesellschaft [Private Party] for which it has collected and commissioned works by more than twenty internationally renowned artists from twelve countries around the world. The organized detainment of citizens by the state is an important issue even in democracies. How do we deal with the increasing number of inmates? What is our opinion concerning partially privatized prisons and the legitimacy of torture? How does punishment change peo ple? What do imprisonment, isolation and tor

ture mean to inmates and what kind of impact do these have on society? The artworks in the exhibition will address these and other ques tions regarding arrest, exclusion and loss of free dom. The exhibition is accompanied by an ex tensive educational programme that addresses its themes and content.

Artistic director: Susanne Pfeffer / Featuring works by: Adel Abdessemed ( DZ , Pawel Althamer PL ) , Yoan Capote U ) , HansPeter Feldmann, Ashley Hunt US ) , Emily Jacir PS ) , Chloe Piene ( US ) , Mark Raidpere ( EE , Patrick Rieve, Jeroen de Rijke / Willem de Rooij NL , Gregor Schneider, Fiona Tan ID , Tem porary Service ( US , Clemens von Wedemeyer / Exhibition: Berlin, KW Institute for Contemporary Art: 21 Sept.– 30 Nov. 2008 / Kunst-Werke Berlin e.V. www.kw-berlin.de

word and knowledge

nelly sachs the woman with the white suitcase exhibition In May 1940 Nelly Sachs (Berlin 1891 1970 Stockholm) boarded the last flight out of Berlin to Stock holm. During the next thirty years in exile, she was treated at psychiatric clinics several times, gained literary acclaim late in life and eventu ally won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1966 Nelly Sachs initially lived together with her mother in the south end of Stockholm. She ate, slept and worked in the kitchen which she called her cabin. This cabin with its view of the bay is the central element of the exhibition t he Woman with the White s uitcase It serves as the basis for presenting Nelly Sachs’ life and works, featuring unpublished mater ial (photos, manuscripts, audio and video record ings and medical files). The exhibition wishes to portray both the radical nature of her work and the socio-historic context in which it was creat ed. In addition to references to her colleagues, e.g., Paul Celan, Gunnar Ekelöf and Hans Mag nus Enzensberger, and close friends like Gud run Dähnert, the exhibition will also highlight many of the mythical figures which played a sig nificant role in Nelly Sachs’s world of thought, imagery and emotions. The exhibition is a co operative venture between gewerk Berlin, the Jewish Museum, the Swedish embassy and the Suhrkamp Verlag, which will publish a com plete edition of her works in 2010. The exhibi tion will tour through the German-speaking countries and Sweden in 2010 /11.

Artistic director / Curator: Aris Fioretos / Project director / De signer: Jens Imig / Participants: Birgit Schlegel, Klaus Fer mor, Natascha Roshani / Exhibition: Jewish Museum Ber lin and Jewish Museum Frankfurt: summer 2010 ; Literaturhaus/Strauhof, Zürich: autumn 2010 ; Royal Library, Stockholm: winter 2010 ; Stadtmuseum, Dortmund: spring 2011 gewerk www.gewerk.de

international literature exhibitions in theory and practice conference of experts and exhibition Literature exhibi tions are playing an increasingly important role in the presentation and promotion of literature. Yet how can one design literature exhibitions that appeal to a wide variety of target groups? How can one make the leap from the written

word to an exciting visual presentation? The Goethe Museum in Frankfurt/Main is organiz ing a conference and workshop to address these questions. It will invite curators and designers from several European countries who have staged highly popular literature exhibitions in recent years. The conference will culminate in an exhibition on literature exhibitions. Four of the invited teams will present their own take on a common literary theme at the Goethe Muse um in Frankfurt and later during the RUHR 2010 European Capital of Culture programme. Research directors: Anne Bohnenkamp-Renken and Sonja Vandenrath / Curators / designers / experts: Luca Crispi IE , Onla Hanly ( IE ) , Heike Gfrereis, Andreas Hukeler, Susanne Fischer, Roman Hess CH ) Natalie Léger FR ) Nathalie Cri nière ( FR ) Nicola Lepp, Evelyne Polt-Heinzl ( AT ) Peter Karl huber (AT , Simone Schmaus, Bernhard Echte (CH and Heinz Kriesi I ) / Conference of experts and exhibition: Literaturhaus Frankfurt and the Freies Deutsches Hochstift/Goethe Mu seum, Frankfurt am Main: 23 Oct. 2008 31 May 2010. Pres entation is planned as part of the RUHR 2010 European Capital of Culture programme / Goethehaus Frankfurt www.goethehaus-frankfurt.de

olivier messiaen workshops and con-certs for young musicians from poland, the czech republic and germany Stalag VIII a was a German POW camp now located in the Polish city of Zgorzelec, a neighbouring city of Görlitz in Germany. Oli vier Messiaen (1908 1992), one of most brilliant composers of the 20th century, was a French par amedic during World War II . After he was cap tured and imprisoned at Stalag VIII a, he com posed one of his most important works there the Quartet for the e nd of t ime [Quatuor pour la fin du temps], which was first performed by his fellow inmates on 15 January 1941. In commemoration of his 100th birthday in June 2008, German and Polish youth partici pated in workshops given by musicians and com posers based on the theme Meeting Point Music Messiaen , and performed in joint concerts on both sides of the German-Polish border. The festival events culminated in a dou ble concert by the Warsaw Philharmonic Or chestra, conducted by Antoni Wit. In addition to Messiaen’s works, the programme also includ ed a piece by the contemporary composer Wo jciech Kilar and the world premiere of a work by the Saxon composer Andreas Kersting. The festival highlighted the historical significance of Stalag VIII a on both sides of the border and marked the start of construction for a new me morial and meeting centre at this location.

music and sound

anaesthesia a pastiche in commem oration of the 250th anniversary of the death of george frideric handel

The music by George Frideric Handel is the main theme of Anaesthesia, a musical theatre piece performed by the Berlin theatre ensemble Nico and the Navigators together with the music ensemble Franui. This commemorative project marking the 250th anniversary of Han del’s death pays tribute to a composer who lived in Germany, Italy and England and is regarded as one of the first Europeans. His oeuvre will be the basis of a pastiche, a popular musical genre during Handel’s lifetime, in which favourites are performed in succession. The new pastiche will mainly feature portions of Handel’s operas, but will also include his oratories and instru mental works. Rearranged in a new order, the pastiche will feature adaptations of the original libretti and newly-created plot lines. The art of Baroque is emotionally charged and ornate, though at the same time, unpretentious and puristic. Anaesthesia will musically, dramatically and artistically demonstrate both ends of the spectrum the joy and austerity of the Baroque form. The actors in Nico and the Nav igators will be working with singers for the first time. The goal is to counter the lack of dramat ic skill prevalent in musical theatre by develop ing the piece largely with improvisation. The musicbanda Franui from the village of Franui in eastern Tirol will perform Handel’s compo sitions in their own clearly recognizable style which resembles Austrian folk music.

Artists: Nicola Hümpel, Oliver Proske, Andreas Schett ( AT , Markus Kraler AT / Performances: Handel Festival / Neues Theater Halle, Halle an der Saale: 4 6 June 2009 ; Bregenz Festival (Austria): 12 13 Aug. 2009 ; Grand Théâtre du Lux embourg (Luxembourg): 27 28 Nov. 2009 / Nico and the Navigators www.navigators.de

Artistic director: Albrecht Goetze / Participants / Artists : An toni Wit PL ) , Isabel Mundry, Andreas Kersting, Walter Zim mermann, Karsten Hennig, Martin Smolka ( CZ , Jaromír Vogel CZ Tomáš Pálka CZ ) Eva Faltusova ( CZ ) Jan Dušek ( CZ ) Jan Srba CZ ) , Jörn Peter Hiekel, Graßyna PstrokoßskaNawratil ( PL , Regina Frank, Tadeusz Grudzinsk PL ) , Michal Muller ( CZ , Rolf Lislevand ( NO ) , Lars Friedrich, Marta Kli masara PL ) , Juergen Spitschka, Jolanta Szybalska Matczak PL ) , Catherine Simonpietri FR , Silvie Palka ( CZ / Workshop and concerts: Zgorzelec and Görlitz 14 29 June 2008 / Meeting point Music Messiaen www.messiaen.themusicpoint.net

theatre and movement

brasil move berlim festival of contemporary brazilian dance The democra tization of Brazil following the end of its mili tary dictatorship helped create a dynamic dance scene which contributes greatly to shaping the cultural identity of the country. In Brazil, dance is regarded as the genre which reflects the changes in society most radically. Its spectrum of themes ranges from traditional forms of pop ular culture to life in the metropolises in the south. It incorporates its own traditions and ex isting dance forms while artistically examining the social and political reality in Brazil. The 2009 Brasil Move Berlim will feature groups from various regions of Brazil, includ ing Piauí, where a strong, new dance movement deals with local rituals and social conditions which are considered reactionary. An exhibition of contemporary art from Brazil will run para l lel to the dance festival and present works which combine aspects of the fine arts and dance. The festival will also hold dance work shops and discussions with choreographers, cultural policymakers and journalists in hopes

of presenting a new view of Brazil and its cultural diversity.

Artistic directors: Wagner Pereira de Carvalho (BR) / Co-direc tor: Björn Dirk Schlüter / Featuring: Compañía (Cia.) Marcelo Evelin, Cia. Fauller, Cia. Letícia Nabuco, Cia. Denise Stutz, Cia. Jorge Alencar, Cia. Margô Assis, Cia. Dança Inclusiva, Cia. De Dança da Cidade, Sandra Meyer, Arnaldo Siqueira, Christiane Galdino, Inês Bogéa, Susi Martinelli, Patrícia Avellar, Marta Isacson, Roberto Pereira ( all BR ) / Theater Hebbel am Ufer, Berlin: 16 26 Apr. 2009 / Kulturprojekte Berlin www.kulturprojekte-berlin.de

impulse fringe theatre festival Since it was founded in 1990, Impulse has become one of the most important festivals of independent theatres in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. It is widely regarded as the fringe-scene counter part of the Berlin t heatertreffen also funded by the Federal Cultural Foundation. Di rected by Tom Stromberg and Matthias von Hartz, the festival will present a variety of plays, installations and performances at theatres in Bochum, Düsseldorf, Cologne and Mülheim. Impulse features productions which represent the unique character and innovative force of the independent theatre scene. It presents on ly those works which apply new approaches, ad dress current issues and demonstrate creativity in working with theatrical forms. At the con clusion of the festival, the jury will choose the most interesting production, which will then go on tour to the Berlin Theatertreffen, the Vien na Festival Weeks and Zürich.

Artistic directors: Tom Stromberg and Matthias von Hartz / Forum Freies Theater, Düsseldorf; Prinz-Regent-Theater, Bochum; Ringlokschuppen, Mülheim; Studiobühne, Co logne and other venues, 25 Nov.– 6 Dec. 2009 / NRW KUL TUR sekretariat www.festival-impulse.de

dogland theatre project With its grand opening in autumn 2008, the Ballhaus Naunyn strasse in the Berlin district of Kreuzberg has become a new performance and production venue focussing on issues of immigration. The opening festival dogland has invited secondand third-generation immigrant artists to per form inside the theatre and at public areas in its immediate vicinity. Neco Çelik and Idil Üner have developed a musical theatre soap opera based on the isolated and existentially threat ened individuals living in large cities in Germa ny. Filmmakers and writers will stage perform ances and installations at Anatolian coffee houses throughout Berlin. Nuran David Calis, one of the most successful young German playwrights at the moment, has written a piece titled Cafe e uropa about the search for identity, which will premiere at the Ballhaus.

Artistic director: Shermin Langhoff / Artists: Neco Celik ( TR ) , Nuran David Calis ( AM , Nurkan Erpulat TR , Mehdi Moin zadeh ( IR ) and others / Ballhaus Naunynstrasse, Turkish coffee houses, Berlin: 7 Nov. 2008 21 Jan. 2009 / Ballhaus Naunynstrasse www.ballhausnaunyn.de

my first sony theatre project Stéphane Bittoun is a theatre and film director, writer and actor. In his plays he combines text, perform ance elements and experiments with various forms of media. His current project is based on the novel My First s ony by the Israeli au thor Benny Barbasch. The novel portrays mod ern-day Israel mirrored in the seemingly ordi

nary depiction of a family history. The ten-yearold Jotam receives a cassette player for his birth day and begins to record everything around him arguments, sex, parties, the daily life of his entire family. Stéphane Bittoun uses this acoustic archive as the basis for his adaptation and supplements the recordings with other ma terial, such as records, slides and old Super- 8 movies. The adaptation becomes a mosaic of audio recordings, theatre elements, choreogra phy and film, and provides insights into the history and daily life of Israel in commemora tion of its 60th anniversary.

Author: Benny Barbasch IL ) / Director and co-author: Stéphane Bittoun / Singer & songwriter: Odelia BenAvi ( IL ) / Dramatur gy: Miriam Würtz / Camera: Mark Liedke / Film editing: Jörn Lemmer / Photographer: Katharina Ivaniševiç ( HR / Com poser: Stefan Lupp / Set design: Stéphane Bittoun, Brita Kloss, Nina Zoller / Actors: Selda Kaya, Rebecca Rudolph, Den nis Cubic, Peter Dischkow and Ralph Gander / Premiere: Mousonturm, Frankfurt am Main, 25 Sept. 2008, addition al performances between 26 Sept. and 1 Oct. 2008 in Düs seldorf, Münster, Bonn, Leipzig, Stuttgart and Tel Aviv, Is rael / Stéphane Bittoun www.bittounbittoun.com

the decentralized muezzin a docu mentary concert Until recently Cairo, the City of a Thousand Mosques, was filled with a myriad of calls to prayer from the muezzins. Meanwhile Egypt has implemented a central ized prayer call, broadcast via radio from all the state-run mosques simultaneously. the d ecentralized Muezzin , developed by Stefan Kaegi (Rimini Protokoll), is a documentary concert of urban sounds from Cairo and Berlin. It not only highlights the acoustic nuances of both cultures, but also the sounds of discord that often characterize the relationship between Islamic countries and the West. Kaegi examines the lives of the muezzins who are now unemployed and places the musicality of their voices in a foreign context. On stage they are experts who provide information about their culture. The muezzins will meet with acoustic artists, musicians and product designers in Berlin who work with the sounds of urban life, such as the noise of a car door or the sound of a traffic intersection.

Artistic director: Stefan Kaegi / Participants: muezzins and artists from Egypt and Germany / Theater Hebbel am Ufer, Berlin: Feb./Mar. 2009; Goethe-Institut Cairo: 1 Sept. 2009; El Sawy Culture Wheel; Cairo (Zamalek district): 1 Aug. 2009 / Hebbel am Ufer www.hebbel-am-ufer.de

optimizing the human brain theatre and science project Neuro-technologi cal operations of the brain target the organic lo cus of our consciousness and identity, which, in turn, has fundamentally shaped how we view ourselves. It is understandable that this sensitive procedure is as controversial as the study of the human genome. Although new neurologi cal discoveries and innovations in neuro-tech nology have made great strides toward improv ing human life, the possibilities of these advanc es have confronted our society with new ethical challenges and issues. Neuro-technological pro cedures are primarily used for therapeutic pur poses at the moment, yet they also enable us to optimize human performance. We have to ask ourselves what the limits of improvement are and what we mean by improvement. What kind of human image do we wish to choose as our

ideal and how significant a role does the brain play in our human existence? The project Op timizing the Human Brain poses these questions to a young target audience. The Theat er Freiburg has developed a unique cooperative project with the Interdisciplinary Ethics Center at the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität in Freiburg which addresses socially relevant issues from the fields of medicine and ethics. Over a period of nine months, sixty young people will work to gether with international scientists and artists to examine the ethical dimensions of optimiz ing the human brain. This will be followed by a research phase in which they will investigate the scientific fundamentals regarding brain-ma chine interfaces, deep brain stimulation, brain doping, visions and utopias of thinking and cy borg fantasies. The results will be presented at an international congress at which scholars and scientists from around the world will speak. The project will conclude with a theatre production based on the theme of cyborgs at the Theater Freiburg.

Artistic director: Barbara Mundel / Participating artists and scientists: Viola Hasselberg, Giovanni Maio Anna Geering Ad Aertsen Guido Nikkhah Klaus Theweleit and others / Theater Freiburg: 1 Oct. 2008 30 June 2009 / Theater Freiburg www.theater.freiburg.de

politics of ecstasy festival of contemporary dance, performance and music Ecstasy the physical experience of in tense joy, the simultaneity of being present and absent is the central theme of a two-week fes tival at the Hebbel am Ufer. Politics of e c stasy presents a variety of positions based on the theme of ecstasy from the fields of dance, performance, fine arts and music, and accom panies these with discussions, workshops and a series of improvisation events. Until the 19th century the concept of ecstasy was firmly rooted in the religious sphere. As a result of seculariza tion and psychoanalytical research, people be gan equating ecstasy with the realm of sexuality. Yet the political arena has and still does exploit emotionally-charged moments which can often culminate in ecstasy. Politics of e cstasy wishes to experiment with new forms of com munity building and test their ecstatic qualities. The festival will be directed by the American choreographers Jeremy Wade and Meg Stuart, together with the Berlin dramaturge Eike Chris tian Wittrock. Many artistic forms that incite states of ecstasy were originally developed in America, such as gospel, hip hop or jazz improv isation. A concert series will demonstrate musi cally generated ecstasies, while the performance and dance programme will naturally focus on ecstasies of movement.

Artistic directors: Meg Stuart, Jeremy Wade, Eike Christian Wittrock / Hebbel am Ufer, Berlin: 23 Jan.–1 Feb. 2009 / Hebbel am Ufer www.hebbel-am-ufer.de

transaction transdisciplinary acade my of contemporary dance and me dia production This project begins with a competition for choreographers, video artists and filmmakers to create projects that combine dance with new media forms. Nowadays the video clip format is prevalent in movies, televi sion, Internet and mobile phones. The goal of the project is to apply this format to the field

of dance in an innovative way. The short dance films, so-called choreographic captures, will then be shown during the commercial intros at cin emas and in other situations where they break conventional viewing habits and attract atten tion with their aesthetic quality. There are some performers and choreographers who have al ready become quite successful at combining dance and video art. This project hopes to strengthen this trend and attract even larger audiences.

Artistic director: Walter Heun / Participating artists: Ortho graphe ) , Ulf Langheinrich A , Richard Siegal ( USA , Chris Ziegler, Cristian Chironi ( I , Alexandra Bachzetsis ( CH/GR ) , Hans Peter Kuhn / Junko Wada JP , Michael Rodach and other local media artists and choreographers / Muffathalle, Munich and screenings in Great Britain, France, the Neth erlands at cinemas and dance festivals. Funding period: 24 31 May 2008 / Joint Adventures www.jointadventures.net

film and new media

johannes lepsius guardian angel of the armenians film project and audio-visual installation The German theo logian Johannes Lepsius was the founder of the Armenian Relief Organization and is regarded today as the Patron of the Armenians. When the genocide of the Armenian people in Turkey reached its height in 1915, Lepsius travelled to Turkey, collected testimonies from witnesses and other records documenting the crime. He later published these in Germany under the title t he d eath March of the Armenian People , which was banned shortly thereafter. In commemoration of the 150th anniversary of his birth in 2008, this project will present a doc umentary film and video installation about Lep sius’s life. The film examines the historical evi dence, tracing the path the Armenians took on their death marches through Turkey and the Syrian Desert. It also highlights the current situ ation of the Armenians living in Turkey today. Both the documentary film and video installa tion will be presented in cinemas and at interna tional cultural institutions.

Artistic director: Merlyn Solakhan /Research consultant: Herr mann Goltz / Production: Blankfilm Manfred Blank Film produktion / Film presentations: Lepsius-Haus, Potsdam, April 2009 ; OWZ at the Martin-Luther-Universität in Halle-Wittenberg, May 2009 ; German-Armenian Society in Frankfurt/Main, June 2009 ; Action Art Center in Yer evan, Center of Arts and Culture at the Sabanci University in Istanbul, Catholicosat Art Center of Cilicia, Antelias/Lebanon, July 2009 ; additional film presentations in Germany, Italy, France and Armenia

moving the arts film project on art and cinema The film Moving the Arts takes contemporary art to the cinema and con temporary film to the museum. Six internation al directors will film six artworks in the K 21 collection in Düsseldorf by Jeff Wall, Richard Serra, Andreas Gursky, Thomas Schütte, Juan Muñoz and Steve McQueen. Art will be the ba sis of these entertaining, cinematically-sensual

stories. By making art the subject of a popular film genre, such as a thriller or love story, the project hopes to counter the misconception that contemporary art tends to be hermetic. The in ternationally acclaimed directors/screenwriters intend to approach the artworks of their choos ing with their own unique imagery and narra tive style. Moving the Arts is not meant to be an art film, but aims to introduce contempo rary art to a wide segment of international film audiences.

Artistic director: Doris Krystof / Producers: Jörg Schulze, Holm Keller / Filmmakers: Atom Egoyan CA ) , Hal Hartley ( US ) , Lae titia Masson FR ) , Jia Zhang-ke CN ) , Julio Medem US , Chris tian Petzold / Based on works by: Richard Serra, Jeff Wall, Andreas Gursky, Steve McQueen, Juan Muñoz, Thomas Schütte / Festival premiere: Berlin International Film Festi val, spring 2010 / Exhibition premiere: Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin, spring 2010 / Commercial showings in cinemas and international tour starting in March 2010 / Cine plus Film produktion GmbH www.cine-plus.de

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committees

board of trustees The Board of Trustees is re sponsible for making final decisions concerning the gener al focus of the Foundation’s activities, its funding priorities and organizational structure. The 14-member board reflects the political levels which were integral to the Foundation’s establishment. All the trustees are appointed for a five-year term.

Bernd Neumann

Chairman of the Board

Representing the Federal Foreign Office Representing the Federal Ministry of Finance Representing the German Bundestag

Representing the German Länder

Representing the German municipalities

Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Cultural Foundation of German States

Representing the fields of art and culture

Minister of State in the Federal Chancellery and Commissioner for Cultural and Media Affairs Dr. Peter Ammon State Secretary Werner Gatzer Parliamentary State Secretary Prof. Dr. Norbert Lammert President of the German Bundestag Wolfgang Thierse Vice President of the German Bundestag Hans-Joachim Otto Chairman of the Parliamentary Cultural Committee Dr. Valentin Gramlich State Secretary, Ministry of Education and Cultural Affairs of Saxony-Anhalt Prof. Dr. Joachim Hofmann-Göttig State Secretary, Ministry of Science, Continuing Education, Research and Culture of Rhineland-Palatinate Klaus Hebborn Councillor for Education, Culture and Sports, Association of German Cities Uwe Lübking Councillor, Association of German Towns and Municipalities Stanislaw Tillich Minister-President of Saxony

Senta Berger

advisory committee The Advisory Committee makes recommendations concerning the thematic focus of the Foundation’s activities. The committee is comprised of leading figures in the arts, culture, business, academics and politics.

Actress, President of the German Film Academy, Berlin Durs Grünbein Author Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Wolf Lepenies Sociologist Dr. Christian Bode Secretary General of the DAAD Prof. Dr. Clemens Börsig Chairman of the Cultural Committee of German Business with the BDI e.V. Jens Cording President of the Society for Contemporary Music Dr . Michael Eissenhauer President of the Association of German Museums Prof. Dr. Max Fuchs Chairman of the German Arts Council Martin Maria Krüger President of the German Music Council Prof. Dr. h.c. Klaus-Dieter Lehmann President of the Goethe-Institut Isabel Pfeiffer-Poensgen Secretary General of the Cultural Foundation of German States Prof. Dr. Oliver Scheytt President of the Society for Cultural Policy and Dept. Head for Cultural Affairs of Essen Johano Strasser President of the German P E N. Center Frank Werneke Deputy Chairman of the ver.di labour union Prof. Klaus Zehelein President of the German Theatre Association

juries and curatorial panels Approximate ly fifty experts in the fields of science, research and art be long to juries and curatorial panels which advise the Federal Cultural Foundation in thematic and project-specific mat ters. For more information about these committees, please visit the corresponding projects described on our website www.kulturstiftung-bund.de.

Hortensia Völckers

Artistic Director Alexander Farenholtz Administrative Director

executive board team

Assistant to the Executive Board

Lavinia Francke Legal Advisor Dr. Ferdinand von Saint André Press and Public Relations

Friederike Tappe-Hornbostel [dept. head] / Tinatin Eppmann / Diana Keppler / Christoph Sauerbrey / Arite Studier General Project Funding Torsten Maß [dept. head] / Bärbel Hejkal / Katrin Keym Programme Department Dorit von Derschau / Eva Maria Gauß / Dr. Leonhard Herrmann / Anita Kerzmann / Dr. Holger Kube Ventura / Antonia Lahmé / Dr. Lutz Nitsche / Uta Schnell / Annett Meineke

Administration

Contributions and Controlling

Secretary’s Office

Steffen Schille / Maik Jacob / Steffen Rothe / Kristin Salomon / Kristin Schulz

Anja Petzold / Ines Deák / Susanne Dressler / Marcel Gärtner / Andreas Heimann / Doris Heise / Berit Koch / Fabian Märtin / Marko Stielicke / Claudia Wollmann

Beatrix Kluge / Beate Ollesch [Berlin office] / Christine Werner

Textile print, Gösta pattern, designed by Walter Mathysiak, ca. 1950 back page

Published by the Kulturstiftung des Bundes / Franckeplatz 1 / 06110 Halle an der Saale / Tel 0345 2997 0 / Fax 0345 2997 333 / info@kulturstiftung-bund.de / www.kulturstiftung-bund.de

Executive Board Hortensia Völckers / Alexander Farenholtz [responsible for the content]

Editor Friederike Tappe-Hornbostel

Image Sources Pausa Archiv

Design cyan Berlin

Circulation 4.000 Copy date 10. Aug. 2008

Editorial staff Tinatin Eppmann / Christoph Sauerbrey

Robert Brambeer / Nicola Morris (Cold War Art)

Translators

Image Editing cyan Berlin / Tinatin Eppmann

Production hausstætter herstellung