Constant grumbling and futuristic architecture: Salzburg exhibition
“… everything is incorporated here: Whether it’s Trakl’s ‘beautiful city’ or the Mozartkugel, everything is incorporated”. Hardly anyone hated the city of Salzburg as much as Thomas Bernhard. Of course, that doesn’t change the fact that the writer is honored extensively here at every possible opportunity. Rarely, however, has this happened as charmingly as in the new exhibition “Salzburg unique” in the Salzburg Museum in the New Residence. There Bernhard’s grumpy Salzburg sentences are placed next to wonderfully amusing illustrations of a permanent melancholic. You have to laugh at quotes like: “The people of Salzburg were always terrible, like their climate, and when I come to this city today, not only is my judgment confirmed, everything is even more terrible.”
In any case, the exhibition about Salzburg is quite successful: although it does not omit the tourist trademarks of this city, which actually make up Salzburg for many of its visitors, i.e. Mozartkugel, coffee houses and Salzburg Festival, it still shows what Salzburg still has to offer in terms of art and cultural history . Amazingly archaic Krampus and Perchten runs, for example. And the architectural counterpart to the literary grumbler: the Salzburg master builder Gerhard Garstenauer. In the 1960s and 1970s, the architect, who died in 2016, provided the already fantastic Bad Gastein, the sophisticated mountain town south of Salzburg, which looks as if Wes Anderson had provided the master plan and where Art Nouveau houses grow out of rocky gorges, with downright fantastic concrete buildings. Garstenauer’s mountain station in Sportgastein, for example, looks as if the urban future should just begin in the Alps. His local rock pool could still provide the setting for a new James Bond film to this day. And the photographs of his congress center in the exhibition make it clear what a utopian spirit was at work in Bad Gastein. Today, many lack the imagination of what role the mammoth building could play. It has been empty since 2007 and is falling into disrepair. Laura Weissmuller
Lights on: Mendelssohn’s violin sonatas
Light, yet intense violin tone, uninhibited access to the piano: Alina Ibragimova and Cèdric Tiberghien play Mendelssohn.
Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy’s (1809 – 1847) three violin sonatas eke out a life in underexposure. This has to do with his own scruples, because he did not have the F major Sonata of 1838 printed and he did not complete the revision. He composed the early F major sonata at the age of eleven, the F minor sonata op.4 was written in 1823. Alina Ibragimova and the pianist Cèdric show that these three pieces, each in its own way, are highly original and attractive as a violin Tiberghien. They prove that Mendelssohn has nothing to do with supposedly romantic sentimentality. Ibragimova’s light yet intense violin tone and Tiberghien’s uninhibited approach make the three sonatas and a grandiose fragmentary movement an exciting encounter with Mendelssohn’s neoclassical genius. Harold Eggebrecht
Chatterbox, unstoppable: Ryan Reynolds
A silly line for everyone: Ryan Reynolds and Zoe Saldana in ‘The Adam Project.’
(Photo: Doane Gregory/AP)
He just talked Dwayne Johnson out of his mind in “Red Notice”, before that he joked in “Free Guy” about a sad existence as a minor video game character. Now the next Netflix hit is coming in “The Adam Project” – Ryan Reynolds is currently dominating the film world like no other star and producer. The Canadian has been the funny chatterbox on talk shows for a long time, but since “Deadpool” he has also successfully incorporated this persona into his roles. In the new film, his loose mouth has even doubled: he meets himself as a time-traveling test pilot at the age of twelve, and the funny insults fly back and forth. Do we currently need entertainment in which every sentiment and every heroism is countered with a stupid slogan? But hello. And how. Tobias Kniebe
Architecture as valuable material: “Upcycling” exhibition
New from old wood: The design of the exhibition “Upcycling :: ReUse” in Mainz takes up the theme of the show.
(Photo: Kristina Schäfer)
“Trash” is the title that Wolf Haas gave his new book about investigator Simon Brenner. This is currently the first thing that comes to mind when you think of garbage. Second place goes to the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch”. This is a garbage patch in the North Pacific that would cover Germany four and a half times over.
What doesn’t immediately come to mind, however, is the amazing fact that construction is responsible for more than half of the world’s waste problem. The world is not only suffocating with plastic waste, but above all with construction waste. The rubbish that – hardly noticed – is created when building, furnishing and using our houses, especially when demolishing buildings that are actually intact, is one of the most perfidious climate killers and worst destroyers of nature. However, this is hardly on the radar: the subtle architecture as an aesthetic discipline also has a rather dark side.
Against this background, the exhibition “Upcycling :: ReUse” comes at the right time. (Although the commendable show, at least in the title, shows a rather extravagant use of colons, capital letters and fashionable Anglicisms.) In the Brückenturm Mainz, the dated Center for building culture in Rhineland-Palatinate organized exhibition until April 8th the necessity of a cycle-oriented and resource-saving planning and building. Under the heading “Reuse instead of throwing away”, it brings together exemplary projects and exhibits from the fields of architecture, urban planning, landscape architecture, interior architecture and design.
The exhibition buildings, a demountable system made of old wood, conceived by budding interior designers at the Mainz University of Applied Sciences, also serve the upcycling idea. Incidentally, upcycling is not about cycling uphill, it is about waste products or seemingly useless materials that are converted into new products that are as climate-friendly as possible. Garbage is turned into something special: a valuable material. Basically, it is about a modern alchemy that takes both economy and ecology into account. Except that the magic also lies in being existentially important in a very real way. Gerhard Matzig
In the neon night of Chicago: James Caan as “Thief”
Frank sells cars – but he earns his money differently: James Caan in “Thief”
(Photo: MGM)
Frank carries his dreams with him, pocket-sized: a collage of pictures, a house, a wife, a child, what he needs for a happy life, folded in his wallet, behind the credit cards. James Caan is Frank in ‘Thief’, 1981, Michael Mann’s first feature film (new on DVD from Pidax). He marches along with an elastic stride but a tight body – he was in prison for a long time, now he’s selling cars. And carries out coolly organized major burglaries, diamonds or money. He was away from life for years, says Michael Mann, didn’t know the latest technology and doesn’t know how to talk to a girl. Only as a “professional criminal” is he completely himself (James Caan had to crack a safe himself in preparation for the role). In the end, Chicago’s neon night takes him in, glittering cold and comforting in the rain. Fritz Goettler