Endlich mal ein SciFi Buch das nicht nur spannend ist sondern aus dem man durchaus noch etwas lernen kann!

 
Ausseriridische Imperialisten besuchen die Erde und haben ein den Menschen nicht allzu unähnliches Konzept von Ethik. Wie reagiert die Menschheit – kann sie sich in anbetracht der neuen Macht auf dem Planeten vereinen und den Start in eine positive neue Zukunft schaffen? Sind die Besucher Freund oder Feind sind sie gar gekommen um zu bleiben? Sehr gut recherchiert zieht der Autor Vergleiche zu historischen Ereignissen und verbindet Elemente des aktuellen geopolitischen Geschehens geschickt mit der Handlung.

Die Story fesselt einen an das Buch von der ersten bis zur letzten  Seite. Am Ende bleibt sicher immer ein nachdenklicher Leser zurück und legt das Buch hoffentlich mit dem Vorsatz aus der Hand sein Leben nachhaltig zu ändern. Eine Pflichtlektüre für alle SciFi Fans und jene die es werden wollen. Ich würde mich freuen in einigen Jahren die Verfilmung dieses Werkes zu sehen.

Mehr Informationen findet ihr unter www.schutzzone-erde.ch direkt erhältlich ist das Buch hier.

What has only been possible in the James Bond movie “Die Another Day” in 2002 with special computer effects, Mercedes Benz has turned into reality. For a new promotion, they managed to make their car invisible. The advertising campaign is to promote its new fuel cell vehicle. The project F.cell manages to drive 400km without any emission and is therefore invisible in its carbon footprint. Instead of shooting a nice clip or covering every billboard, Mercedes sent a car on a tour through Germany, which was made invisible. One side is completely covered with small led lamps, while the other has a system if cameras. The filmed image on the one side is immediately transmitted to the other, onto the led carpet. It can of course also act as a moving billboard.

Kleine Wundertüte

(Kleine Wundertüte is a collection of all wonderful things that we come across in our every-day life. The project is based on the idea to document, connect and share interesting information from different kinds of media.)

visit “Kleine Wundertüte’s” blog

Cézanne’s two rustic workmen are shown playing cards, but a game of dice might have been more appropriate for the price of this picture is the most graphic illustration to date of the random nature of art market pricing. (Where better to start on this than the American economist William Baumol’s 1986 paper — ‘Unnatural Value: Or Art Investment as Floating Crap Game’, American Economic Review, 76, 1986, pp10-14).

Drawing on the classical economic theory of Adam Smith, Baumol was one of the first to explain how the art market lacks the mechanisms that govern other forms economic activity in which market prices for commodities are always propelled back towards a “natural price” by the equilibrating forces of supply and demand, etc. As a non-fungible asset, art does not respond to that gravitational pull, resulting in off-the-scale prices like the Qatari Cézanne purchase.

Wealth managers and investment advisors will be salivating at the news of this price for it reinforces the hypnotic illusion that art is not merely a safe store of value but an asset that can deliver staggering returns on investment.

And what of the broader cultural impact? There was a time when museums provided an environment in which to focus on the aesthetic attributes of a work of art without the white noise of commerce and controversy interfering in the contemplative process. But such is the hype around these astronomical prices that this version of Cézanne’s Card Players is at risk — like the Parthenon Marbles in the British Museum — of being famous for all the wrong reasons: “Wow, this picture’s worth a quarter of a billion dollars.”

Arguably more interesting still is the influence this price could have on how European and North American museums manage their collections. Many of them are already wrestling with the dilemmas of deaccessioning certain objects — to sell or not to sell? The prospect of a single picture raising $300 million or more is very likely to lead some museum boards to countenance previously taboo solutions for fixing their balance sheets.

This picture came from the collection of the Greek shipping magnate George Embiricos. With many more equally important pictures still in private hands and the great maw of emerging market money opening ever wider, who is to say that other Greek shipping families won’t decide to liquidate some assets. A price of $250 million may seem off the scale, but it will soon be surpassed.

A couple of years ago, during the toxic disputes swirling around the Barnes Foundation, New York dealer Richard Feigen was filmed speculating about the value of the Barnes Collection’s own version of Cézanne’s Card Players (Cézanne painted five variations of the theme). “Who knows what it could be worth?” he mused (I’m paraphrasing here). “A hundred million? Two hundred million? A billion dollars?”

Already there is speculation that the actual price for the Qatari Cézanne may have been well above the $250 million quoted, but a classic art market omertá has descended so we may never know.

Also worth noting here is the direction of flow. Like China, Qatar is now a huge magnet pulling in treasures from European and North American collections. When, or whether, this process will ever stop is impossible to say, but if the odious Assad regime finally falls in Syria and the social networking-driven contagion of unrest spreads to the bloated, oil-rich desert kingdoms, these oligarchies could tumble too and their powerful cultural magnets would quickly lose their gravitational pull.

It’s well to remember that they’re all built on sand.

Dr. Tom Flynn

(Dr. Tom Flynn is a London-based writer and Art historian and is frequently blogging about interesting issues in the Art business. He has published books and written journalism at numerous magazines including The Art Newspaper, Art & Auction, ARTnews, Art Review, Art Quarterly, Apollo, The Spectator, Museums Journal, The Sculpture Journal, etc.)

Visit his blog

picture credit: PHIL GODDARD PHOTOGRAPHY

For all of Phil’s coverage during London Fashion Week, go to: http://philgphotography.com/#/gallery/people-at-london-fashion-week-2012/lfw-2012-19/

picture credit: RACHEL PHIPPS 

Another really nice person was Rachel Phipps, freelance writer, editorial consultant and owner of http://www.rachelphipps.com/. She’s also running a separate beauty blog, which you find at http://www.theglossyguide.com/ and which I fell in love the moment I entered the website. She shot this nice picture of my bright colour blocking outfit in the morning of my second day spent at LFW.

Thank you for posting this.

***

 

picture credit: RACHEL PHIPPS 

Another really nice person was Rachel Phipps, freelance writer, editorial consultant and owner of http://www.rachelphipps.com/. She’s also running a separate beauty blog, which you find at http://www.theglossyguide.com/ and which I fell in love the moment I entered the website. She shot this nice picture of my bright colour blocking outfit in the morning of my second day spent at LFW.

Thank you for posting this.

Yeah, I kind of feel the same like some of you with the thought “when does she stop posting about London Fashion Week over and over again..I CAN’T SEE THESE LEO PANTS ANY LONGER” in my head. But I just had to share these cool people with my readership. Don’t tell me that they’re not worthy to mention over here… they truly deserve it (to land on my highly important blog – for all the humourless people: *this is the moment you should laugh for 2 seconds & move on with reading*) .

This Saturday I will be attending the official London Fashion Weekend. It feels like it has been more than 3000 years that I attended this event, so I’m really looking forward to it!!

Stay tuned and have a nice Friday night.

Anna Theresa Winkler for Pulcinella

(Anna Theresa Winkler is an independent fashion blogger and has worked for a major german fashionblog ‘lesmads.de’, while attending fashion shows all over the world. Her attitude to fashion is: “classy, fury & puristic”)

Visit her blog

Anna Theresa Winkler for Pulcinella

(Anna Theresa Winkler is an independent fashion blogger and has worked for a major german fashionblog ‘lesmads.de’, while attending fashion shows all over the world. Her attitude to fashion is: “classy, fury & puristic”)

Visit her blog

After three years of construction, the Städel Museum in Frankfurt is finally opening its extension dedicated to contemporary art to the public. The exhibition space is situated underneath the Städel-Garden and only circular portholes provide a source of natural light. Art from 1945 is until now is exhibited across 3000 square meters through which the Städel is doubling its already existing exhibition space . The significant architectural structure thus completes the 200 year old history of the Städel museum which is now host to art works ranging from 700 year old occidental art over old masters and modern art to contemporary art.

Kleine Wundertüte

(Kleine Wundertüte is a collection of all wonderful things that we come across in our every-day life. The project is based on the idea to document, connect and share interesting information from different kinds of media.)

visit “Kleine Wundertüte’s” blog

This must surely rank as the most tedious and banal art conference ever staged, so if you’re suffering from insomnia I recommend clicking your iPad to Future Generation Art Prize, which is still live on the web. The $100,000 accolade is bestowed every two years on an artist under the age of 35 by the Victor Pinchuk Foundation established by the eponymous Ukrainian entrepreneur and philanthropist.

Brought together to launch the second edition of the prize were Richard Armstrong, director of the Solomon Guggenheim Museum and Foundation, Nicholas Serota, director of the Tate, Cinthia Marcelle, winner of the first Future Generation Art Prize, and Damien Hirst and Jeff Koons, the Prize’s two “Patron Artists”, whatever that means.

After 30 minutes it was still unclear what the biennial prize intends to achieve other than to promote the Pinchuk Foundation and the Pinchuk Arts Centre in Kiev. The webcast discussion seemed preoccupied with the market, with prices, and with certain unnamed artists who had been magically transmogrified into “celebrities.”

Otherwise things were as clear as mud. Serota looked embarrassed and mortally bored, although this may have been because web technology in London is not as advanced as it is in a wealthy market democracy like Ukraine.

Koons and Hirst, the world’s leading manufacturers of luxury goods for billionaires, looked sheepish and confused, as if itching to get back to their production lines. Not even the inestimable Anna Somers Cocks, founding editor of The Art Newspaper, sitting resplendent in a fur hat (presumably in deference to her Ukrainiain hosts), could squeeze any sense out of the robotic participants.

The first winner of the Pinchuk Prize, Cinthia Marcelle, broadcasting from Brazil, was unable to articulate the benefits of winning the prize other than how it had enabled her to employ more people to make her art. Koons and Hirst seemed to nod and smile benignly, clearly empathising with this critical management issue.

Jeff Koons offered some obscure wisdom about “artists’ vocabulary,” but it was Hirst who cut to the chase. “You can’t underestimate the importance of the cash prize,” he said, referring to the generous $100,000 being dangled before thousands of hopeful applicants. “The money is the key,” he said. Having raised £100 million in a single day’s auction in October 2008, he should know.

Pinchuk himself, seated in front of a gigantic Koons sculpture, said, “This prize is mainly not about art; it is mainly about the future generation.” He went on to explain how displaying Ukrainian artists in his foundation’s arts centre had exerted an immediate impact on the art market. “Very soon their work appeared in the catalogues of auctions, the prices for their works became relatively high, and very soon contemporary art in Ukraine became very popular….and now Ukrainian artists are really like celebrities.”

So there you have it — the directors of two of the world’s leading art museums endorsing a prize, the central purpose of which is to grow the Ukrainian art market.

Culture, schmulture. Show me the money.

Dr. Tom Flynn

(Dr. Tom Flynn is a London-based writer and Art historian and is frequently blogging about interesting issues in the Art business. He has published books and  written journalism at numerous magazines including The Art Newspaper, Art & Auction, ARTnews, Art Review, Art Quarterly, Apollo, The Spectator, Museums Journal, The Sculpture Journal, etc.)

Visit his blog

Boris Johnson is keeping his promise of reenacting the hop on hop off buss in London. The new bus, in service from early 2012, is inspired by the much-loved Routemaster and will use the latest green technology. Officials say it will be the most environmentally friendly bus of its kind, equipped with the best hybrid technology. The new bus, reminiscent of the iconic Routemaster, has undergone very extensive design and testing for the last few month, ready for eight initial buses to operate from February this year. Depending on the route and location the rear doors can be opened, ensuring a hop on and hop off service, especially handy for busy commercial streets, such as Oxford or Regents Street.

Kleine Wundertüte

(Kleine Wundertüte is a collection of all wonderful things that we come across in our every-day life. The project is based on the idea to document, connect and share interesting information from different kinds of media.)

visit “Kleine Wundertüte’s” blog

criticizing Damien Hirst’s ‘factory’ approach to making art

Pressed by the Radio Times for clarification of whether this was a sly dig at Hirst, Hockney replied that the prevailing approach to art making promoted by today’s art schools and adopted by Hirst et al was “a little insulting to craftsmen.”

This inevitably invited the predictable gale of references to Leonardo, Rubens, and Rembrandt, all of whom used assistants. In fact, the history of art is replete with instances in which an artist’s success has prompted the recruitment of assistants to help meet the demand of a growing number of collectors.

But what these knee-jerk comparisons between Hirst and Rubens always leave out is that many of the collectors who sought to acquire a work by Rubens direct from the artist stipulated that the work be made entirely by him and not by his assistants. To some clients, not even those pictures to which the artist himself applied the finishing touch were acceptable.

Henry Danvers (1573-1643), art adviser to Charles I, wrote to his colleagues recommending Rubens for a royal portrait commission, but made clear that, “In every painter’s opinion he hath sent hither a piece scarce touched by his own hand,” and demanded that Rubens paint another “to redeem his reputation in this house.” Rubens, in response, promised “a large picture entirely by my own hand.” (Jerry Brotton, The Sale of the Late King’s Goods, Pan, 2006, p75).

Similar skepticism has long surrounded the work of Rembrandt for similar reasons. In the 1950s, David Roell, director of the Rijksmuseum, wisely declined an offer from Duveen Brothers in New York to buy aPortrait of Hendrickje Stoeffels, attributed to Rembrandt (right), stating that he did not “feel the inner conviction that it is entirely by the hand of Rembrandt.” (Suzanne Muchnic, Odd Man In: Norton Simon and the Pursuit of Culture, University of Caifornia Press, 1998, p43). In the event the picture was sold in 1957 (as a Rembrandt) to Norton Simon for $133,500. Simon’s wife Lucille later inherited it as part of their divorce settlement, but it was eventually sold at Christie’s in New York in 2002 as “Studio of Rembrandt” for $152,500.

Such connoisseurial ponderings are unlikely ever to surround the work of Hirst or Koons since neither of them are artists in the sense that Rubens or Rembrandt were. Hirst and Koons are manufacturers and their output ought to be considered as ‘products’ rather than as works of art. The fact that they are not is testament to the impoverished critical judgement underpinning the contemporary art market. This is essentially what Hockney was referring to when he said “…you can teach the craft; it’s the poetry you can’t teach.”

This also helps explain Hirst’s justification for employing other people to execute his spot paintings — “I couldn’t be fucking arsed doing it,” he was quoted as saying.

That blunt statement implies a mean-spirited disdain for the art market and the credulous millionaires whose collective aesthetic myopia has made him rich as Croesus. In other words, they got the ‘art’ they deserved. The fact that his products lack poetry and indeed even craft (Hirst’s butterfly pictures tend to fall to bits) — is confirmation of the gaping chasm separating Hirst — and for that matter Koons, Murakami and the rest of that warehouse generation — from Rubens, Rembrandt, and yes, despite his ludicrous recent landscapes, Hockney himself.

Dr. Tom Flynn

(Dr. Tom Flynn is a London-based writer and Art historian and is frequently blogging about interesting issues in the Art business. He has published books and  written journalism at numerous magazines including The Art Newspaper, Art & Auction, ARTnews, Art Review, Art Quarterly, Apollo, The Spectator, Museums Journal, The Sculpture Journal, etc.)

Visit his blog

This er, seminal performance piece was not, however, what ‘super-collector’ Charles Saatchi was referring to in today’s Guardian when he blasted the denizens of today’s art world as “masturbatory”, although as Acconci’s performance piece makes clear, onanism has long been a feature of the art world.

Saatchi doesn’t often address the media, generally preferring to keep his opinions to himself. Something of an art vampire, he is rarely glimpsed, only venturing out to feed on the freshest young contemporary talent for his Chelsea gallery.

I was therefore surprised, on emerging from the White Cube stand at the Frieze fair a few weeks ago, to spot the curmudgeonly old collector strolling towards me (above left), his features cast in a rictus of disgust, presumably at the acres of expensive tat that surrounded him. But given his usual reticence, it was even more surprising to see that look of disgust translated into an article for The Guardian, in which he rails at the “Eurotrashy, Hedgefundy, Hamptonites,” and the “trendy oligarchs and oiligarchs…nestling together in their super yachts” at this year’s Venice biennale.

He is right, of course. Loud money is everywhere in the art world. The big media draw at this year’s Frieze fair was a super yacht and matching Riva power boat (right) by Italian company CRN, both of which had been blessed by German artist Christian Jankowski to become something more than mere maritime vessels…or so they would have you believe.
Luca Boldini, CRN’s marketing director, told me, with an alarming lack of irony, “This is very much in the tradition of Marcel Duchamp and the idea of the Readymade. I am very confident that we will sell it. If we do, it will send a great wave around the world that will confirm the value of the project.” It didn’t sell. It sank like a rusty rowing boat in a force ten gale of mocking laughter. It’s amazing that the Frieze curators give tent-room to this stuff.

Such crass stunts surely endorse Saatchi’s central point, which is that the art world is overrun by witless opportunists with no taste and too much money. He suggests that “the success of the uber art dealers is based upon the mystical power that art now holds over the super-rich.” But ’twas ever thus.

You could probably track this trend back to the period of rising post-war affluence when Greek shipping magnates like Stavros Niarchos and Basil Goulandris — the oligarchs of their time, thanks largely to the Suez Crisis which made their shipping businesses so profitable — were paying top dollar for Impressionist and post-Impressionist paintings to stick on the walls of their many mansions. At the Biddle sale in Paris in 1957, Basil Goulandris bought Gauguin’s Still Life with Apples for $297,142 (buying power equivalent to $2.3m today), at which point “…the entire audience rose and burst into applause,” reported the New York Times.

Art has always been about conspicuous consumption (Veblen coined the term as far back as 1897), but it was really the Cognacq, Lurcy, Weinberg and Goldschmidt sales of the 1950s that marked the moment when the newly wealthy really discovered what Saatchi dismisses as the “pleasure to be found in having their lovely friends measure the weight of their baubles.” (At least a Gauguin was a bauble worth measuring, unlike the dismal rubbish commanding top prices in the market today.)

Saatchi clearly has a problem with the oligarchs (one assumes he means Russianoligarchs) and on that point he’s right on the money. Anyone who has bothered to read the recent history of Russia’s power struggles and the turmoil in its economy will know that the Russian people were robbed blind by a few ruthless individuals in the early 1990s (Londongrad by Mark Holingsworth and Stewart Lansley is a good place to start.)

Recent BBC Radio 4 reports have focused attention on the corruption in Moscow’s civic government and one can only wonder how far its tentacles spread. How much dirty money is being channelled into art? One sensed a good deal of it washing around Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Bonhams this week as all three houses dispersed Russian art to rooms full of what looked like paddle-waving gangsters with their anorexic girlfriends in tow.

The ‘art world’ has never been a particularly pleasant place in which to do business, but whether it’s as bad as Saatchi maintains depends on your moral bias…or your taste (or lack of it).

Then again, Saatchi himself has hardly been an unequivocal force for good. Ask those artists whose paintings he bought back in the 1980s before unceremoniously dumping them a short while later. I’ve spoken to one or two who still can’t bury the hatchet. Back then his approach to art was widely perceived as just as crude and philistine as the crapulous oligarchs and other freeloaders he’s gunning for today.

Plus ça change…

Dr. Tom Flynn

(Dr. Tom Flynn is a London-based writer and Art historian and is frequently blogging about interesting issues in the Art business. He has published books and  written journalism at numerous magazines including The Art Newspaper, Art & Auction, ARTnews, Art Review, Art Quarterly, Apollo, The Spectator, Museums Journal, The Sculpture Journal, etc.)

Visit his blog