During five decades, photo journalist Don McCullin documented environmental and man-made disasters such as urban unrests, social ills, wars and epidemics. C/O Berlin presents some 150 black-and-white and colour photos from the complete works of McCullin for the first time in Berlin. The retrospective with its sanguine title “The Impossible Peace” looks back to an impressive half-centennial lifework.
The exhibit “Relics of the Cold War” of works by the Dutch documentary photographer Martin Roemers will be presented in the Willy-Brandt-Haus in Berlin from 10 November 2009 onwards.
Moeller Fine Art shows in its Berlin gallery the multifaceted group exhibition “Manifest Destiny” with photographs, installations, sculptures, collages and drawings by Mildred Howard (USA), Tom Molloy (Ireland) and Simon Norfolk (Nigeria/UK). The title refers to the homonymous 19th-century-doctrine that was also used to legitimate the territorial expansion of the USA as God’s will.
In the German news magazine Spiegel, Sven Stillich published a short article on animated short movies that had been produced in the USA during the Second World War. Stylistics and motivation were quite different. The most known movie will be Disney’s “Der Fuehrer’s Face” from 1943, in which Donald Duck has a nightmare in “Nutzi Land”.
After his impressive exhibition “Panthersprung” at Schultz Contemporary in Berlin, Alexander Seiler presents not only two of his both massive and grandiose ship sculptures at the Spinnerei (a former spinning mill) in Leipzig , but 6 further works. The exhibit “Triumph wieder Willen” (“Triumph against Will”)1 will be shown from 1 May to 13 June 2009. It will be opened on 30 April within the framework of the “spring tour” through the many galleries present at the location.
It is difficult to strike the right note on this translation, thus the one I chose is rather clumsy. The German original is surely playing with Riefenstahl’s“Triumph des Willens”(Triumph of the Will); literally translated, it would be “Unwilling Triumph”. ↩
To remember the 70th anniversary of the German attack on Poland and the beginning of the Second World War, the exhibition “Im Objektiv des Feindes” (In the Enemy’s Lens) will be shown at Willy-Brandt-Haus in Berlin. It will consist of photos that had been taken by German Wehrmacht or Waffen-SS war correspondents in Warsaw between 1939 and 1945. In addition to the images, diaries, memories and other documents will be shown.
German war correspondent (Air Force NCO with Leica III and tele lens), Warsaw 1939 Read more…
2000 years after the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest1, this event is taken as opportunity for an highly interesting exhibition in Osnabrück, close to the assumed battlefield: “Image Battles” will deal with “news from the war” in a multi-faceted approach on issues of technology, media and art.
Christo wrapped one of the massive World-War-II AA towers in the Austrian capital – at least on a stamp that had been issued on 15 April 2009 with a nominal value of 0,55€ with an edition of 300,000 prints.
The New Museum in New York, founded in 1977, openes on 8 April 2009 its first triennale “The Generational: Younger Than Jesus” with works by 50 young artists from 25 countries, united by their age of less than 33. Some 145 works will be presented in the exhibit, making it quite varied, according to the background and themes of the artists, but also to the form, ranging from paintings and photography to film and animation, and from installation and performance to computer games. It remains interesting if the high artistic value implied in the exhibit’s title will meet its equivalent in reality.
On 29 April 2009 from 1830h, a panel discussion on the topic of “Remembering Soldiers in the Federal Republic of Germany” will be held at the Landesvertretung Sachsen-Anhalt in Berlin. The event will be organised by four associations and will include two scholars and journalists each. It will tackle both historical and contemporary aspects of remembering soldiers in a democratic society and should be worth a visit.
On 2 April 2009, the news agency Xinhua reported that China launched an online memorial for this year’s remembrance day to commemorate its revolutionary heroes.
The Deutsche Hygiene-Museum (German Hygiene Museum) in Dresden presents from 4 April to 9 August 2009 the comprehensive exhibition “Krieg und Medizin” (War and Medicine). It has been organised in cooperation with the Wellcome Collection in London, where the exhibition could be seen from 22 November 2008 to 15 February 2009. The multifaceted Ausstellung exposition includes 450 exhibits on 800m²: photos, surgical instruments, prostheses, documents, but also video installations, paintings and other works of art. A visit is highly recommended.
Currently, NATO is holding its summit in Strasbourg, Kehl and Baden-Baden, commemorating the organisation’s 60th anniversary. While the third city is not mentioned at all in the official programme (“Strasbourg-Kehl Summit“), the local confectioner Klaus Vollmer designed a “NATO welcomes Obama cake“.
On 1 April it is an old custom to play some jokes on the esteemed readers. Regarding this subject, there is usually not much fun to find. Thus, I reduce myself to this wonderful picture I recently found in the web.
10 Years ago, on 24 March 1999, Operation Allied Force had been started, commonly known as the Kosovo War. The satirical version of a Beach Boys song from the USA was used in 2002 by some Norwegian peacekeepers to make a music video, leading to diplomatic disturbance some years later. The result is still amusing – not the least because of the timeless and transferable text.
This year’s art Karlsruhe will take place between 5 and 8 March. The quite young “international art fair for classical modern and contemporary art” is already well-established on the market. Besides the many presentations of galleries and artists, it is not the least worth mentioning that with “Leipziger Strasse, 1952″ one of the panoramic images by Fritz Tiedemann can be seen, shown at the exhibition “As Far as No Eye Can See” that had been already mentioned here. Read more…
On 5 March 2009 at 2000h, the Berlin theatre Volksbühne will show the movie Nuit de Chien(This Night). Its director Werner Schroeter will be present. the theatrical and opulent film is about Ossorio, the hero of a failed resistance movement who is looking in a ficticious South-American city for his past love Clara to flee with her, while the city is increasingly descending into chaos and the secret police and brutal militia are struggling for power. Read more…
This year’s 
