Schlingensief on Bayreuth; Lucian Freud Photo; Hunt for Richter Portraits; Asatiani wins Camera Austria Prize; Dumas Takes Düsseldorf Prize

SCHLINGENSIEF TAKES ON BAYREUTH

In a recent interview in the German edition of Vanity Fair, the director-cum-artist Christoph Schlingensief has expressed an interest in heading the prestigious Richard Wagner Festival in Bayreuth. But as the Frankfurter Rundschau reports, the controversial Schlingensief does not want to take the position alone. "Why shouldn't Bayreuth be taken over by a team of artists?" Schlingensief asked. "Why shouldn't I apply [for the position as festival director] with Matthew Barney or Paul McCarthy or Doug Aitken?"

For Schlingensief, Barney, McCarthy, and Aitken are the dominant American media and performance artists. Schlingensief—who directed Wagner's Parsifal at the festival in 2004 to mixed audience reactions—is critical of the fact that only members of the Wagner family have applied to take over from outgoing director Wolfgang Wagner. "I link Wagner with life," Schlingensief said. "Bayreuth needs contact with life, that's all. And life is not always commensurable with the Wagners."

PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST

A rare photograph of Lucian Freud has been published in the November issue of Photo. As Le Monde's Philippe Dagen reports, the image shows the eighty-five-year-old painter—with a nude torso—painting in his atelier. The photograph was taken by David Dawson, an amateur photographer and Freud's assistant, who replaced Bruce Bernard after the latter's death in 2000. Bernard, who was also an amateur photographer, began to take pictures of Freud in his studio in the ’80s, but the painter preferred pictures taken of his subjects and his working methods to photographic portraits. To date, Freud has taken a certain pride in escaping the lens, frequently cajoling colleagues who sat for the camera. "When I see the photographs of painters with their gaze fixed on the horizon, I say to myself, 'What idiots! I don't want that at all!'"

SEARCH ON FOR LOST DANIEL RICHTER PORTRAITS

Daniel Richter's stint last summer as a street portraitist outside Paris's Centre Pompidou has evolved into a treasure hunt. As the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung's Niklas Maak reports, last August, Richter sketched tourists at the bargain-basement price of five euro per portrait—well below market estimates. "No one seemed to recognize him," writes Maak. "Some threw their sketches away, others stuffed them into their backpacks."

Now collectors, reporters, and gallerists are hot on the trail of the ephemeral tourist trinkets. Most of the portrait sitters could not be found, with perhaps one exception: the Israeli film director Michale Boganim. As Maak writes, Boganim appears in the German boulevard newspaper Bild; a photograph shows Boganim holding her portrait above the caption: "My five-euro portrait is worth a fortune!" Indeed, according to the Bild, a gallerist has offered her €6,500 ($9,670) for the sketch by the "genius Richter."

ASATIANI WINS CAMERA AUSTRIA PRIZE

The Camera Austria Prize for 2007 has been awarded to the Georgian photographer Marika Asatiani. As Der Standard and the APA report, the thirty-year-old photographer impressed the jury with photographs that document her homeland in the wake of its separation from the Soviet Union in 1991. "Asatiani's serious and distinguished work offers a promising approach also for future projects," said the jury in its official statement. The prize, which is awarded every two years by the city of Graz, includes €14,500 ($21,570).

DUMAS TAKES DÜSSELDORF ART PRIZE

Marlene Dumas has been awarded the Düsseldorf Art Prize. As the Süddeutsche Zeitung reports, the city offered an official statement, which praised Dumas's continuing work on the "basic conditions of humanity," including sexuality, birth, death, and gender relations. The prize of €55,000 ($81,800) will be presented to the artist in Düsseldorf on December 19.

— Jennifer Allen