Romania was one of the guest countries invited to the Turin International Book Fair in mid-May. The country did an excellent job of presenting itself, writes the Romanian writer Mircea Cărtărescuin the daily Evenimentul Zilei: "With the help of the Romanian Cultural Institute ICR more than 300 books by contemporary writers have been translated into numerous languages in the past six years. That's roughly one book per week. It must be pointed out that six years ago you could count the translations of Romanian authors on the fingers of one hand. ... This time our stand was so impressive, so visible, that it dominated the fair. What a difference: How ashamed we have been in recent years, when our stand was relegated to the furthermost corner of the fair. ... Romania left the impression in Turin that it is a country that knows how important culture is for its reputation, and for that reason it came presenting the very best. In a country that is filled with Romanian immigrants about whom it has mixed feelings, it is very important that we have shown a different face." (25/05/2012)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Literatura, » Política Cultural, » Migración, » Italia, » Rumania
Todos los textos disponible de » Mircea Cărtărescu

The Finnish city of Turku's year as European Culture Capital 2011 has also paid off in economic terms, according to a report published by the Turku School of Economics. The experience gathered in the last year must now be put to use for the future, writes the liberal daily Turun Sanomat: "Turku has no reason to rest on the laurels of its success; it's time it rolled up its sleeves again. The year as Culture Capital is particularly promising for the creative economy. The positive climate for culture, the citizens' activities, the experience that was gained and the networks that were created must be put to good use. ... The creative economy could be a new pillar of support for Turku. Especially now that the trend in the traditionally successful sectors of biotechnology and IT is leaving much to be desired." (18/05/2012)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Política Cultural, » Economía de los medios, » Cultura, » Finlandia

A version of the painting The Scream by the Norwegian painter Edvard Munch was sold for just under 120 million dollars (roughly 90 million euros) at an auction in New York on Wednesday. But this astronomic sum is not an expression of how highly art is valued, writes the left-leaning daily taz: "No, the real focus of attention is the money. High prices in art have great potential for triggering excitement because the value of art has always been only an asserted value. The fact that the buyer has remained anonymous only raises more suspicions. ... The immeasurable nature of the value of art is something uncanny which the market attempts to counter with price indexes and charts. ... And yet it is exactly this asserted rationality of the market which the record prices thumb their noses at. They seem to suddenly reveal something frenzied and irrational, one of the spectres of capitalism. That makes the art market a stage for proxies and sub-agents: because the spectacle of an auction when a painting is being sold is far more transparent than other financial transactions that are also based on fictitious values." (04/05/2012)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Artes gráficas, » EE.UU., » Global
Todos los textos disponible de » Katrin Bettina Müller

The city of Helsinki has decided not go ahead with the planned  construction of a Guggenheim Museum. The decision was passed by the city administration on Wednesday with a slim majority. The liberal tabloid Iltalehti hopes this doesn't mean the end of cultural funding: "Is the baby - support for the arts - to be tossed out with the bathwater? Hopefully now that the Guggenheim has been rejected we won't see a complete lack of willingness to allocate state funds to culture. Were the polite funding promises on the part of those who were the driving force behind the project, that is the conservatives, the Swedish People's Party and private patrons, merely interested in allying themselves with the US trademark? It would be sad if the political factions used the Guggenheim project simply for their own power games and to mete out political retribution. After this fight, other ideas for developing the museum landscape in the capital region will presumably fail to kindle widespread enthusiasm." (03/05/2012)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Exposiciones / Museos, » Política Cultural, » Finlandia