Back when I read this exposé in November it struck me as gripping but also as something that could become messy. Turns out that’s true since the piece now has the mark “Censored” and some choice parts of text have been blanked out. I did a quick search but can’t find any updates what might have happened. If I find time later, I’ll look in the Wayback Machine to see what pieces of text disappeared.

The kind of property deals that are described in the article are par for the course in any up and coming city. Recently there was a piece about resistance to the city giving away one of its largest buildings to a private art gallery: https://www.freitag.de/autoren/der-freitag/portraet-wut-motiviert-mich

The academic backroom dealings should also be considered to be normal especially in small subfields such as Turkey studies. Academics are playing funding games more than they research and the web of foundations that float around are ways to creatively bookkeep and move money around. None of this is really surprising.

Turkish MC XiR has a new trap song out with the noteworthy title Angela Merkel. There is even somebody with a Merkel mask in the video.

The video has a quick and dirty German subtitle bundled with it which you can turn on and read.

In the spirit of international relations, I will translate to English the hook of the song (lyrics on Genius). The rest of the song is either not that interesting or I’m missing out on a lot of inside baseball. Either way, I won’t try it.

Angela Merkel Schengen yok Karaköy’e sen gel

Bozulur dengen Yol aldı yengen Karaköy’e sen gel Angela Merkel

Angela Merkel There is no Schengen You come down to Karaköy

You’ll lose your senses Your woman’s gone ¹ You come down to Karaköy Angela Merkel

I can’t make much more of it other than that the mythologization of Angela Merkel continues. I’m curious what the German foreign office thinks about that.

Like everybody says the quality of video art in general is extremely inconsistent. That is true in this exhibit as well. There are a bunch of works where it is not at all obvious why somebody finished it, somebody approved it and somebody paid money for it.

The works that were most interesting in this exhibition consistently were not the video ones but those created with a game engine. That may be my own novelty bias at work, but a fully digital workflow like that allows: 1. more and faster iteration 2. fully dynamic products, the combination of which leads to totally new kinds of things that can be produced.

Some examples:

I forget what this was, but despite the concept being more or less ridiculous it has a compelling internal consistency.

RMB City by Cao Fei is a rich and spectacular playground of randomness.

I can’t really argue with any of Ed Atkins’s work which stands out for the pure skill of the renderings combined with spoken word that is not trite (so rare).

Ian Cheng’s Emissary Forks at Perfection is an ongoing collage of elements in a dynamic simulation that looks like an edgy version of the large scale installations Theo Watson makes.

I was recently attended to her existence by MacGregor’s series on German history (episode). I now believe that she is one of the most important German artists of the past couple of centuries. If there are any other significant candidates, I would like to hear about them ¹.

What makes her stand out as an artist are:

• Her mastery of both drawing and sculpture.
• That she depicts ‘common’ people and social themes prominently. She thought these people were beautiful in their own way and that their plight was one that merited attention. For me this is a stark contrast with how current (artistic) elites try to ignore the ‘common and stupid’ people (like Trump voters).
• The loss of her son and how that permeates her later work.

Our tour guide didn’t make the connection but I find it more than fitting that on May 1st we would be looking at for instance the Weavers cycle (one of which I have pasted below).

The exhibition is a collection of recent work and is still exhibited there for this entire month. James is one of the few artists who creates thoughtful work from the conflation of state power and information technology. His work is only made stronger by the writing that underpins it which is all worth reading and listed neatly over on booktwo.

Iepe Rubingh who I to my shame only met last night told me about these beautiful works of art by Joachim Sauter (and music by Ólafur Arnalds) and this being the last chance to see them. I don’t think I have really seen a music and installation piece before where both parts combine this well. Julio Le Parc’s kinetic work in the Palais de Tokyo is comparable, but this is better.

This is Berlin at its finest.

Net in het Oog op Morgen Ernst van den Wetering een van de organisatoren over de goede, de slechte en de lelijke evenementen die gepland staan. Alles van tentoonstellingen, wandelingen, musicals tot ijssculpturen aan toe om elke denkbare Rembrandtfetisj te bevredigen.

De website van het jaar is erg Leiden gericht (en gemaakt door een bekende) terwijl de leukste dingen toch buiten Leiden gebeuren.

Rembrandt-Caravaggio lijkt mij de leukste tentoonstelling. Daarin worden werken van Rembrandt naast die van Caravaggio gezet. Beide kunstenaars waren experts op het gebied van **chiaroscuro en van Caravaggio ben ik al een tijdje fan.

Rembrandt-Caravaggio met wat beeldmateriaal op de hoofdsite.

Daarnaast is er in het Rembrandthuis nog een tentoonstelling Rembrandt — Zoektocht van een genie die ook wel boeiend moet zijn (volgens die vent), maar die loopt wat later (vanaf 1 april) en heeft nog geen informatie beschikbaar.

Check it out, most of the other performances and installations look pretty interesting as well.

Mijn Museumjaarkaart is nog geldig tot en met 15 april. Ik moet maar opschieten.

Hmm, Gaudí vanaf 23 april.

Korte linkdump van “October 18, 1977” met heftige werken als Erhängte en Beerdigung

Te doen: goed boek vinden over de RAF. Aha