bauhaus in ny

Last Summer MeinMann and I visited in Berlin the wunderbar bauhaus exhibition in Berlin. We were a bit disappointed by the fact it was located at the Martin Gropius Bau. The furniture and interior design section was a bit cramped in the tiny exhibition rooms. But this was the first time we could see all in one go the entire history and the whole spectrum of the bauhaus movement, starting with the skyscraper inspired by the gothic cathedral…

Now the exhibition migrates to the neo-modernist cathedral, the MOMA in NYC…

 

Madame de Merteuil de Prenzlauer Berg!

Tomorrow night MeinMann and I will go and see this fabulous pièce…our friend Christina is the naughty Madame de Merteuil de Prenzlauer Berg! Critical acclaim…see below!

Potremmo definire eroica l’impresa in cui si è cimentato Rinaldo Felli nel portare in scena quel “Le relazioni pericolose” che diede i natali ad un tanto celebre quanto meraviglioso film del 1988. Eroica perché certamente non si può prescindere il paragone con un pezzo da novanta del cinema contemporaneo. Eroica perché gli attori devono vedersela con artisti del calibro di Glenn Close, Michelle Pfeiffer e John Malkovich.

no excuses

With so many newspapers, magazines and new media reporting on Berlin’s 20th anniversary, no excuses for not flocking to Berlin…Yesterday nights at our local Dorita shared with us this beautiful interactive feature from The Guardian, containing videos, interactive maps and MP3.

Photo: corbis / Arno Burgi

Join the Mauer Mob!!

Thanks to ItaliansOnLine I discovered tonight that a British guy is organizing a flash mob in Berlin, the Mauer Mob.

33,000 people will recreate the Berlin wall. StripedCat and MeinMann are booked in…we are waiting for the confirmation…we’ll be by the river in the Regierungsviertel.

We’re looking forward to the Zeitgest and the Sense of Place of this thing!

See below more about the Mauer Mob…

This project is initiated by Martin Butler, a British performance maker and curator, working together with the liminal institute.

“Mauer Mob. 2009 – Recreating the Berlin Wall” is a large scale art project in the frame work of the 20 year anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, in Berlin, Germany. The idea is to form on the 9th of november 2009 – the night the Wall fell 20 years ago – a line of people that will recreate the Berlin Wall with their physical presence, marking the path where the wall once stood. Thousands of people will form a human chain that will make its way on the 9th of november around 8.15pm. This action will last for approximately 15 minutes.

The Berlin Wall project is about creating a “temporary monument of reflection”. When it was created, the wall was one of the clearest man-made divisions of people with different ideologies. For the 20th anniversary of its deconstruction we will rebuild the Berlin Wall, not from steel and concrete, but from people. To remember when Berlin became one again after decades of separations – physically as well as in the minds…

With the “Mauer Mob. 09 Project”, we want to say that such divisions are no longer acceptable in today’s society. To join, just register with one of the 330 groups on this website – we are looking forward to make something special happen together… and to see you all on the 9th November…

Best wishes
Mauer Mob

Going mobile with Calder

It’s nice to use the word “mobile” for aesthetics and art rather than for telcos, for one night…Mein Mann and I went tonight to the inauguration of the Calder exhibition at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni. Nice ambiance, that rainy-autumn feeling of the cultural season.

We recall a summer day in Venice’s Guggenheim and a swirling mobile in a great hall full of colors…or a street view from a cab in Chicago were the bright red metal contrasts with the gray builidngs. A morning crossing of the Esplanade de la Défense on the way to a meeting. These were our Calder souvenirs. Today we could enjoy the whole oeuvre from A to Z. With our mobiles shut down, and all the mobiles drawing beautiful shadows and swirling around in the autumn rainy breeze. We were mesmerized at the sight of Snow Flurry moving slowly in circles, and we loved the Fish’s byzantine shadow…

PS

The Berlin fans were at the rendez-vous…Giuliana with a nice orange skirt and plenty of stories on Calder’s fabulous années de formation, and J-G feeling a bit day-dreaming like a Calder mobile himself, due to jet-lag…a mood we swiftly joined in with the help of Chardonnay…

Tear the wall down on twitter!

Tear the wall down on twitter! (thanks Pino!)

A Triestiner: Claudio Magris

Magris spent most of his life living near the Iron Curtain

Italian author Claudio Magris has been awarded the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade on Sunday. DW spoke with the literary giant about war, peace, the Cold War and the troubles between China and the West.

On Sunday, Claudio Magris receive the Peace Prize, awarded annually for the efforts of artists and scholars to overcome hatred. A native of Trieste, he is a retired professor of German literature who writes essays and novels. He had a brief political career as a Left Alliance senator in Rome for Trieste from 1994 to 1996.

His selection in June for the prize brought renewed interest in his philosophical ideas and incisive writing, and revived speculation that he was in line for the Nobel Prize for Literature. However some German arts commentators criticized the choice, saying his enthusiastic vision of European unity was out of date at a time when many EU citizens are bored with European Union politics and nationalism is rampant again.

Deutsche Welle: Claudio Magris, this weekend you’ll be awarded the 2009 Peace Prize at the Frankfurt Book Fair, let’s talk about peace and war. War plays a big role in your works. Do we have to accept war as a part of our lives?

Claudio Magris: No. Of course there are different kinds of war, not just war where bombs are dropped. There are wars in everyday life – latent wars. There are two dangers. Firstly, that people think that war is unavoidable, that it’s part of life. On the other hand, the false optimism that people think that in our world progress has eliminated wars like immunization has eliminated smallpox. This is a danger, because to fight a disease – and war is a disease – you have to know the disease. You also have to unfortunately be aware of how serious it is and how probable it is that another war will break out.

You’ve mentioned different types of wars, the Cold War, for instance. In Europe we’re celebrating the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War. You come from Trieste, one of the places where east met west. You were on the border during the Cold War. How did you experience the end of communism and how Europe grew together?

First of all it was a big surprise for all of us. Nobody could believe in September 1989 that the Berlin Wall would fall so quickly. I couldn’t have imagined it. Even people who were active in bringing down the wall, I talked with some of them, and right up until the day before they never believed that the wall would fall. And they were fighting for this to happen. This is a danger that we blindly believe. We believe that the reality and the situation we are currently in today can never change. This border that was impregnable up until the end – the Iron Curtain – was close to my house. I lived in the center of Trieste, but it’s a small city, so I always felt that someone in spirit I was on the other side of the border. Not on a political level, but because these regions were divided for absurd reasons. Today we have other barriers; invisible, social barriers. Ethnic barriers within our towns that we can’t or don’t want to see. So the borders are still there.

the long shadows of triest

The BerlinRomExpress stopped today in Triest…here our beautiful town in a picture done by my brother. The problem is, it took me from 14.44 until 22.30 to cover the distance between Rome and the outskirts of Triest. It used to take up less time. As Richard Florida says in “Who’s your city?” the distances are not collapsing, they are increasing. Trenitalia says that the Venice-Triest section is not profitable, so they don’t invest on it. I bet it’s not profitable, if people feel they can’t have a proper service they won’t rely on it.

Maxxi dialoge

We love the film 24hberlin. In one of the evening episodes we discovered Sasha Waltz’s performances, filmed in the Volksbühne. The RomaEuropaFestival has just started and Sasha Waltz will create a performance for the inauguration of the MAXXI, the new museum for contemporary arts designed by Zaha Hadid, at mid november…

We followed the development of the huge building site over the years…but refrained from going there in the latest months…we want to have the big surprise.

Roma kaputt mundi

The dark of the Middle Ages has engulfed Rome, you knew that already, but we’re reaching new depths and beating new records.

In the evening entire streets plunge into complete darkness, only the traffic lights (when they work) are source of light. Pedestrians risk to break a foot on the uneven pavements and risk their lives when crossing the street. In the spring it happened once in a week, one block or two. Beta test. Now it’s kick off time: yesterday I crossed San Lorenzo and the whole area was plunged in complete pitch-black darkness. Of course this does not happen in Piazza Navona, but you need just to get a bit out from the historical city center and, on rotation, entire neighborhoods are plunged into darkness. But nobody talks about it, be it newspapers or tv.

During the elections the name of the game was security, Veltroni had to go home, the right won the local elections. And just after the 2007 elections the cases of rape increased. Now attacks to gays and gay couples happen on a daily basis. And at the same time the government encourages the formation by citizens of (pathetic) rounds in order to increase security.

It’s the market of fear. And trading is increasing. Isolate people. Make them use cars even more and not feel secure on the street or in public transport. A de-facto curfew. Stay at home. Watch TV. Roma kaputt mundi.

So these are the interesting developments since we have the new Mayor, Alemanno. I’m glad that once in a while my Mayor is Klaus Wowereit.

Berlin poor but sexy. Rome even poorer, but nasty…