If you rule long enough, you can achieve quite a lot in the 17th and early 18th centuries. For Louis XIV, this included disempowering the nobility and pursuing an expansive foreign policy. The game of disempowerment played out through the various perfectly normal things that a living being has to do every day, such as getting up, getting dressed, working, eating and sleeping. The king ... read more
Ukraine continues to be attacked on a daily basis – it is clear that international law is being violated on a constant basis and that this is also being acknowledged in the West. Now Trump and his administration are violating international law, and some want to hear verbal condemnation from European leaders, because Russia and China are rightly pointing out the violation (in order to ... read more
That's it for a peaceful start to the New Year – the American president has thrown a spanner in the works and pushed Russia's atrocities into the background for the time being. Maduro rigged the elections to stay in power (Trump is redrawing electoral districts), the Venezuelan state confiscated and nationalised the assets of American oil companies decades ago (the same thing is currently happening ... read more
Now there are only three days left of the old year, and this week a new year begins. It is time to look back a little, also in an attempt to understand why so many things are currently moving in directions that are initially confusing. To do this, I need more lines than our readers are normally expected to read – but perhaps this time ... read more
The fourth Sunday of Advent is over, and Christmas Eve is just three days away. The world around us has not become a better place this year. Putin continues to twist the truth when he claims that Ukraine started the war, drones continue to fly towards civilian targets, and people are freezing in the ruins that Russian henchmen have left them to live in. Negotiations ... read more
The world is not becoming more peaceful, and the conditions under which artists can work are not becoming more free – censorship, sales bans, obstructed publications, gallery closures and daily bombings are restricting the space in which art can develop in many places around the world. An association has now been founded in Cologne: Support Artists in Exile Cologne e.V., which will award studio grants ... read more