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Culture news, previews, reviews and essays – newest first.

4 Nov
20:46
EDITORIALForm Is No Side IssueArguing about chairs, graphics and furniture does not necessarily mean missing the point. A case for precision of form.
4 Nov
14:23
MUSICBeyond the Certificate: What a Composition Prize Can AchieveAn award brings names to public attention. Whether that translates into new music in the concert hall depends on more than a certificate.
4 Nov
14:21
STAGELydia Steier: The festival begins before her first festivalSteier takes over the Ruhrtriennale before her first edition begins. Her ambition: bold imagery, open doors and a festival that reaches the region.
4 Nov
14:21
LITERATUREJudith Kuckart: What passes from dance into storytellingFrom movement to language: Judith Kuckart brings stage experience and prose together. On 10 November, she will receive the Wiesbaden Literature Prize.
4 Nov
14:21
ARCHITECTURE & DESIGNAfter the Art Festival: Who Takes Over the Church?Designs turn churches into cultural centres. Whether they become lasting venues depends on more than architectural ingenuity alone.
4 Nov
14:21
CULTURAL POLICYDeutsche Welle: Between a Cultural Remit and Budgetary DisciplineThe federal government funds Deutsche Welle; parliament sets its budget. What pressure to cut costs means for culture, language services and independence.
4 Nov
14:20
VISUAL ARTSWhose Body Is in the Museum?Feminist art in Wien, bodies and machines in Basel, figures and models in Düsseldorf: three perspectives on visibility and power.
4 Nov
14:20
STAGEWhat a set design can do to ‘Hamlet’Ersan Mondtag is responsible for both the direction and set design of ‘Hamlet’. The premiere at the Berliner Ensemble asks how space can open up new readings of a classic.
4 Nov
14:20
FILMA company as a political pressure chamber: Zvyagintsev’s return to cinemaIn “Minotaurus”, a company’s crisis becomes a question of power, fear and responsibility in Russia in 2022.
4 Nov
14:20
VISUAL ARTSMapplethorpe at eighty: Who sets the limits on visible bodies?Mapplethorpe sought beauty in the body, challenging public boundaries in the process. Today, the question is also who controls these images.
4 Nov
08:31
IN BRIEFDocumenta 16: The curatorial team grows – responsibilities remain unclearFour new specialist perspectives broaden the documenta 16 team. How these will translate into specific responsibilities has yet to be explained in detail.
4 Nov
08:30
LITERATUREWho belongs in Swiss literature? The book prize ahead of the decisionFive titles, one award: what the rules of the Swiss Book Prize reveal about literary belonging.
4 Nov
08:30
VISUAL ARTSCalder Fifty Years On: Movement Needs SpaceCalder’s sculptures change with air, time and viewpoint. What do they gain when we give them space?
4 Nov
08:30
VISUAL ARTSThe Twenties without the Gilt FrameBetween metropolis, theatre and night: Salzburg shows how artists of the interwar period observed the world around them.
4 Nov
08:30
ARCHITECTURE & DESIGNDesigned Certainty: Why Information Is Never Just ContentFigures and facts do not speak for themselves. Those who can read their design can also recognise what a graphic highlights — and what it leaves out.
4 Nov
08:30
STAGEBöll’s dissent on stage: how political is a small act of refusal?Refusal to carry out a routine assignment becomes a court case: Armin Petras brings Heinrich Böll’s satire to Theater Bonn. What does a small act of disobedience mean today?
4 Nov
08:29
MUSICWho sits where – and who decides?A dispute over double basses at centre stage scuppered the concerts with Iván Fischer. Seating is a question of both sound and power.
4 Nov
08:29
FILMEinar Schleef: How an archive becomes an interlocutorA documentary assembles Einar Schleef’s own voice and images into a portrait. In doing so, it makes the question of remembrance itself its subject.
4 Nov
08:29
CULTURAL POLICYWhat book culture should the federal government protect?Between diversity, competition and reading promotion: what the federal government can do for books — and where its remit ends.
3 Nov
23:40
VISUAL ARTSWhen art invents a trialA fictional Swiss bank on trial: in Appenzell, Gabriela Löffel asks how art can investigate financial power and its narratives.
3 Nov
23:40
LITERATUREFiston Mwanza Mujila and the paths between languagesFrom French into German, from the written sentence to the voice: Fiston Mwanza Mujila's literature thrives in transition.
3 Nov
23:40
MUSICMadeleine Landlinger: Leading an orchestra also means shaping its public roleThe new artistic and managing director of the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra promises openness and participation. How much of this will become visible in its programming and everyday practice remains to be seen.
3 Nov
23:40
CULTURAL POLICYWho pays for cultural institutions to change?New models require not just money, but staff time and political backing too. What a federal programme can achieve — and what it cannot.
3 Nov
23:40
STAGEWhat holds Joseph Roth’s hotel together on stageReturning soldiers, people left adrift and operetta melodies meet in ‘Hotel Savoy’. Franui brings Joseph Roth’s novel to the Burgtheater on 7 November.
3 Nov
23:40
ARCHITECTURE & DESIGNEileen Gray: architecture begins with livingEileen Gray conceived furniture and architecture together. An exhibition in Kaiserslautern brings this approach to life through models and spatial installations.
3 Nov
23:39
VISUAL ARTSBefore Renoir: Islamic Art and the Folkwang’s Other Founding StoryThe Folkwang did not begin with modernism alone: Osthaus’s Islamic art collection shaped his early vision of a museum spanning periods and regions.
3 Nov
23:39
STAGEDoris Uhlich: A Dance Archive of Living BodiesTwenty years of Doris Uhlich: a Vienna retrospective traces how bodies, biographies and movement shape her choreography.
3 Nov
23:39
FILMWho owns the voice? AI and responsibility in cinemaBetween archive audio and synthetic voices lie questions of consent, labelling and documentary truth.
3 Nov
22:56
EDITORIALThe New Needs a Second TimeRepetition need not mean retreating into the familiar. It can give the new the very chance it needs to become more than an announcement.
3 Nov
16:59
ARCHITECTURE & DESIGNArchitecture in motion: what Wim Wenders’ Zumthor film can showAs Wim Wenders’ portrait of Zumthor opens in cinemas: how moving images convey space, material and use – and where they reach their limits.