End of the Year Tales: Women and the Scarcity Economy of Love

End of the Year Tales: Women and the Scarcity Economy of Love

Reading Susan Sontag’s journals from the early 1970s I skip the part that is about her unfortunate love with C. While leafing through the pages, there is one sentence, though, that sticks: “Scarcity eco…

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End of the Year Tales: What have human cultures made of time?

End of the Year Tales: What have human cultures made of time?

The artist, critic and activist Nine Yamamoto-Masson has a new radio series News from the Sun . The first part is on the topic of time, which is a great thing to reflect about in this time slot between…

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Uncertain States at Akademie der Künste, Berlin

Uncertain States at Akademie der Künste, Berlin

Everybody kept telling me how great the current show Uncertain States at Akademie der Künste is, so I was excited to finally check it out. I love the architecture of the old academy at Hanseatenweg.…

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Things I Heard This Week

Things I Heard This Week

S told me at a Japanese plum dinner how it seems to him that all Japanese art has a  same kind of sensibility: a bit of sadness, melancholy, and a bit of nature.   Pickled Japanese plum is a very so…

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Pills for the Heart. Leftovers from a conversation with GuNa, resident at NON Berlin

Pills for the Heart. Leftovers from a conversation with GuNa, resident at NON Berlin

These are thoughts that came up during my visit to GuNa’s exhibition My black brown at NON Berlin on Saturday November 26, from 3:30 till 6pm in the afternoon.  Talking with Nayeon and GuNa. Photo: …

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The Importance of Being Artist

The Importance of Being Artist

Are you sometimes wondering during your museum visit if you've spotted an important artist? Somehow you can just feel you've seen one by the way they walk through the exhibition space. It's …

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Warning: This Is Self-Promotion. The Shape in the Air. An Art Philosophy for the 21st Century

Warning: This Is Self-Promotion. The Shape in the Air. An Art Philosophy for the 21st Century

A week ago I presented my newest publication in collaboration with the electronic duo Ducks! at Bar Babette in Berlin. It's titled  The Shape in the Air. An Art Philosophy for the 21st Century and p…

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Art Trivia of Insignificant Importance: Furniture and "Accessoires"

Art Trivia of Insignificant Importance: Furniture and "Accessoires"

Who would have thought that German language can cheer one up. It has a bad reputation, but German is actually a funny language. I attended a dinner party and a friend and I were talking about Laur…

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Four Reflections on Current Hamburger Bahnhof Shows

Four Reflections on Current Hamburger Bahnhof Shows

In the Rieckhallen of Hamburger Bahnhof there is an exhibition of musical scores by visual artists. You might know the Rieckhallen as that eternally long hall that takes two hours to walk and then two …

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Casual Smart Cultural Dining at the Swiss and Belgian Embassy

Casual Smart Cultural Dining at the Swiss and Belgian Embassy

Antwerpse handjes Two weeks in a row I was dining at an embassy. Not bad at all, I wouldn’t mind getting used to this. The first dinner was a cultural get-together at the Swiss Embassy, which is in…

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Art Question: Can an artist still work with the material fat?

Art Question: Can an artist still work with the material fat?

It’s really hard to pull it off. Some material is just done with. It’s rare that an artist used a material in such a way you can’t use it anymore. Whereas Andy Warhol did it with coca cola, Josef Beuys …

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Art Question: Why is Female Sound Bad to Hear?

Art Question: Why is Female Sound Bad to Hear?

“Why is female sound bad to hear?” that’s the question asked by Anne Carson in an essay on the gender of sound. It reminded me of the artist Tino Seghal choosing women to perform the role of security gu…

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Abstract Cries of Murderous Birds: the Trautonium

Abstract Cries of Murderous Birds: the Trautonium

I had a good time yesterday listening to the trautonium played by Peter Pichler at the Alfred Ehrhardt Stiftung. At moments it go so loud and shrill that some people in the audience had to hold their han…

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Cocktail Hour at a François Morellet Exhibition

Cocktail Hour at a François Morellet Exhibition

Invitation card of the exhibition in Thibaut de Ruyter's trademark - the negative photograph Raisins, green tomatoes and crackers were served together with some delicious cocktails at last nigh…

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Such Great Heights. On Artists Climbing High, the A-Team, Frieze and Karstadt

Such Great Heights. On Artists Climbing High, the A-Team, Frieze and Karstadt

Thinking about religion this Sunday morning, I decided to stay on a high level in the afternoon and go see the exhibition such great heights at a former indoor climbing hall in Neukölln. The exhibitio…

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Art Question: Do Contemporary Art  And Religion Go Together?

Art Question: Do Contemporary Art And Religion Go Together?

Yesterday during my guided tour we started talking about how many are surprised to discover that Andy Warhol was religious. Others are surprised to hear that Joseph Beuys wasn’t religious, although hi…

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Two Critics Waiting in Line of the EDEKA

Two Critics Waiting in Line of the EDEKA

It was in the line of the EDEKA on Sunday that I felt a man pushing at my back. I turned around to see my former professor, legendary art historian Horst Bredekamp, standing there. Not really my prof…

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Oooookay. More Flesh or the Existential Crisis of the Art Critic

Oooookay. More Flesh or the Existential Crisis of the Art Critic

My favourite answer to criticism, is to mimick Ms. Swan's '"Ooooookay".  “You have to give your reader more flesh”, my friend criticised me Friday night over a glass of red wine. “P…

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Little Thoughts on Art: Did Warhol Meet Picasso?

Little Thoughts on Art: Did Warhol Meet Picasso?

Andy Warhol loved France, or at least, I know for sure he loved the French language. He had such a good time in Paris exhibiting his Flowers there (I believe it was in 1965) that he decided it would be …

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