Philosophy, Sociocultural Phenomena, Visual Arts

Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel (1834–1919): draftsman, physician, zoologist, philosopher, and freethinker

Who was this «German Darwin», the scholar whom particularly conservative circles and the Catholic Church criticized for his evolutionary theory and insulted as the «Ape Professor»? The man who coined the term Oecologie in 1866? Due to whom biology lessons were altogether banned by law from classrooms in Prussia? Who was proclaimed «antipope» at an international congress of freethinkers in Rome in 1904? Who wrote in Magnus Hirschfeld’s magazine for sexology about human hermaphrodites? Whose ideas even left-wing circles were interested in, but whose writings on «eugenics» and »racial hygiene» were later appropriated by the Nazis, and who posthumously became a progressive inspiration for «real existing socialism» in the German Democratic Republic?

“Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel (1834–1919): draftsman, physician, zoologist, philosopher, and freethinker”

Travels, Visual Arts

Kochi – Mumbai – Bangalore: A la recherche de l’art indien

I traveled to India in December for the fourth time within a few years because the country still holds so much for me to learn and discover. Of course, I am interested in the contemporary art production, so I visited the Kochi Biennale in Fort Kochi on the coast of the Arabian Sea in the southern Indian state of Kerala. Like all other Indian and international colleagues, artists, and art lovers, I had arrived on schedule for the opening. Only, nothing was ready on time, and literally in the last minute, the opening was postponed from the beginning of December to just before Christmas…

“Kochi – Mumbai – Bangalore: A la recherche de l’art indien”

Travels, Visual Arts

Vietnam

Last November I visited Vietnam for the first time. The occasion of my trip was the book launch of Don’t call it art! Contemporary Art in Vietnam, 1993–1999, edited by my German artist friend Veronika Radulovic and the current director of Museum Rietberg in Zürich, Annette Bhagwati (published by Kerber Verlag, 2021) who introduce us to a number of ground-breaking contemporary artists in Vietnam, such as Truong Tan, Nguyen Quang Huy, and others. To the best of my knowledge, I had organized the first exhibition of Vietnamese art in Germany back in 1996, featuring the then young artist Truong Tan at Kunsthalle Bielefeld

“Vietnam”