International News Digest
RIGHT AND LEFT, CALLS FOR MITTERAND RESIGNATION
The right-wing French political party Front National (FN) has called for the resignation of the national minister of culture, Frédéric Mitterrand, after Mitterrand showed support for the cause of the French-Polish film director Roman Polanski. As Agence France-Presse reports, the FN petition included excerpts from Mitterand’s best-selling 2005 book, La Mauvaise Vie (The Bad Life), with details of sexual tourism. “It’s not surprising that Frédéric Mitterrand supports Roman Polanski,” said FN party head Jean-Marie Le Pen, who qualified Mitterand’s book as “dishonorable writing.” In a press release, the FN stated that it was “indefensible that a French minister publicly make an apology for such acts. . . . How could the president of the French Republic nominate such a person to the head of such an emblematic ministry as culture?” Le Pen has already demanded the resignation of Mitterand as well as the minister of foreign affairs, Bernard Kouchner, for their support of the film director. For his part, Mitterand judged the recent arrest of Polanski in Switzerland as “absolutely appalling,” while Kouchner wrote to his American counterpart, Hillary Clinton, asking for his release. The seventy-six-year-old film director is currently being held in Switzerland in relation to the case that opened in 1977 in the United States against him for having “illegal sexual relations” with a thirteen-year-old.
UPDATE: BBC News reports that the French left has picked up on the controversy, with Socialist Party spokesman Benoit Hamon telling Reuters: “As a minister of culture, he has drawn attention to himself by defending a filmmaker accused of raping a child and he has written a book where he said he took advantage of sexual tourism. To say the least, I find it shocking.” Mitterrand said it was an honor to be dragged though the mud by the National Front and criticized the Socialists for making common cause with the extreme right. A senior aide to President Sarkozy, Henri Guaino, on Thursday backed the minister, saying the row was “excessive and quite undignified.”
PIERRE BERGÉ RECEIVED DEATH THREATS OVER CHINESE BRONZES
Pierre Bergé—the collector and the partner of the late designer Yves Saint Laurent—received death threats in relation to the two Chinese bronzes that were put on the block at a Christie’s sale last February. As Agence France-Presse reports, Bergé made the comments during an interview on the French television station RTL on Monday. The two bronze heads—a rabbit and a rat—have long been claimed by Beijing. “I’ve been the subject of many attacks,” said Bergé. “I was threatened—even with death.” Following the advice of police, Bergé was given protection around the time of the sale. The bronzes—which were taken during the pillage of the Summer Palace in Beijing in 1860—were sold for more than forty-two million dollars to a Chinese collector who then refused to pay. “Since I have no desire to be assassinated or to raise useless quarrels,” explained Bergé, “these Chinese heads are currently being safely kept in a safe at Christie’s.” Bergé explains that he had considered donating the bronzes to a Taiwan museum, as well as to the French Guimet Museum, but does not want to create discord between these countries and China. Bergé hopes to sell the bronzes one day to a “courageous” buyer. “But in any case, what’s certain is that I will not give them to China.”
CITING HEALTH REASONS, AI WEIWEI CANCELS APPEARANCE
Ai Weiwei canceled his appearance this week at Frankfurt’s international book fair due to health reasons. According to a report that appeared last week in Die Zeit, the Chinese artist, architect, and activist had been released from a Munich clinic after undergoing treatment for a cerebral hemorrhage and was living in a basement room in Munich’s Haus der Kunst, where he is preparing his upcoming exhibition. But as the Süddeutsche Zeitung reports, Ai decided not to go to the Frankfurt fair, where China is the guest country of honor of this year. “After the operation, I still have to recuperate,” Ai told the newspaper. “That’s the main reason. The other reason is that I’m not really interested in empty and meaningless political debates.” The international book fair has come under criticism from all sides due to the handling of the participation of Chinese dissidents and critical writers. “It’s uncertain whether or not [Ai] was pressured into canceling by the official Chinese side.”
BRIDGET RILEY HONORED
Bridget Louise Riley has been honored with the Kaiserring from the city of Goslar. As the Süddeutsche Zeitung reports, the English artist––who was born in 1931 and is considered a leading practitioner of Op art—received the award for contemporary art last weekend in the city, which has previously recognized the work of Joseph Beuys, Gerhard Richter, and Jörg Immendorff, among others.
SOMETHING ROTTEN IN DENMARK?
The Danish right-wing populist political party Dansk Folkeparti (DF) is taking a stronger critical role in criticizing and defining culture in Denmark. The Süddeutsche Zeitung’s Alex Rühle takes a look at recent incidents, including an interview with the party chairperson Pia Kjaersgaard. Speaking with the daily newspaper Politiken, Kjaersgaard took direct aim at modern art, specifically Piero Manzoni’s artist’s shit from 1961. “I think I can judge that shit is shit, and that shit in a jam glass is not art,” said Kjaersgaard, who went on to criticize “the cultural elite who take lifelong grants from the [government] art funds.” According to Kjaersgaard, it’s high time that the Danish state establish “clarity” in art. For Rühle, it’s no wonder that many have interpreted the interview as the beginning of a struggle over culture. Moreover, Kjaersgaard will be sitting as a representative for her party for the next four years on a state art council as well as on the committee for art funding.
According to Rühle, rumor has it that Kjaersgaard—who would like to hear more Danish songs on the Danish radio and see more “popular naturalism” on the Danish stages—has her eye on the position of national cultural minister. Kjaersgaard seems to have touched a nerve. The political scientist Hans-Henning Scharsach, who has written about Europe’s populist parties, notes that in no other country in Europe has “the political climate been changed by a right-wing populist party so quickly and in such a lasting manner” as in Denmark.