TSUNAMI’S CULTURAL WAKE

Three weeks after the disaster in Japan, officials are starting to get an idea of how much cultural heritage was damaged by the earthquake and the tsunami. As the Süddeutsche Zeitung reports, an initial survey of the northeast Japanese coast has produced a growing list of damaged art and cultural treasures. The Agency for Cultural Affairs, which is part of the Japanese ministry of education, reports that 353 cultural buildings and/or art objects were destroyed or damaged in the catastrophe, including many Buddhist sanctuaries in and around Sendai. Many Shinto shrines and temple are listed, including the Zuigan Temple in Matsushima, the Osaki Hachimen shrine in Sendai, the Amida Hall in Iwaki, and the Buddha Hall of the Seihaku temple in Yamanashi.

AND LIBYA . . .

Unesco has issued a warning about possible damage to cultural sites in Libya due to the ongoing conflict. The former Roman city Leptis Magna, whose ruins include an amphitheater and a victory arch, lies only eighty-one miles east of Tripoli. The archeological site belongs to the United Nation’s world heritage list. To date, there’s no information available about possible damage to such sites through the conflict, but the UN’s cultural branch Unesco has made an appeal to all parties participating in the conflict “to spare cultural sites in their military operations.” In addition to Leptis Magna there are four more world heritage sites, including the former Greek city Kyrene, the Roman archeological site in Sabrata, and the city of Ghadames, among other sites.

GUGGENHEIM LAB IN BERLIN?

Berlin may soon be getting another Guggenheim branch, albeit a smaller and temporary one. As the Berliner Morgenpost reports, BMW Guggenheim Lab––a mobile research laboratory––may be coming to the city’s district Prenzlauer Berg. Various researchers, including artists, architects, and scientists, will be invited to develop ideas for the city of the future in workshops, discussions, and exhibitions. The lab, called “Confronting Comfort: The City and You,” designed by the Tokyo architectural firm Atelier Bow-Wow, will be set up in three cities around the world. According to the report, the tour will start later this summer in a North American city, move to Berlin in March 2012 for three months, and then wind up in a city in China. There are three possible sites under discussion for the lab’s sojourn in Berlin, including a parking lot in the Kastanienallee, which is currently under reconstruction. Now, a city councilor has made a request to the construction companies to change the dates for the reconstruction of the street near this location in order to facilitate the lab’s operations. To improve future city life, it seems necessary to suspend current improvements.

TALE OF TWO PYRAMIDS

Pyramids seem to be making a comeback in contemporary art. As the Süddeutsche Zeitung reports, the Italian artist Mimmo Paladino’s monumental “Montagna di Sale” (Salt Mountain)––literally a mound of salt in the shape of a pyramid, 114-feet wide and 27-feet-tall––has been installed in the Piazzetta between the Dom and the Palazzo Reale in Milan. The work, which was first made twenty years ago in Gibellina and fifteen years ago at the Piazza del Plebescito in Naples, was recreated for the Mimmo Paladino retrospective taking place at the Piazza Reale and the Vittorio Emanuele II Gallery Octagon. The exhibition continues until June 26.

Meanwhile at Berlin’s KW Institute, French artist Cyprien Gaillard also opted for a pyramid, albeit made out of boxes of beer. The Recovery of Discovery features hundreds of stacked boxes holding 72,000 bottles of the Turkish beer Efes, which were especially imported for the work. Unlike visitors to Paladino’s pyramid, visitors to Gaillard’s are invited to sit on the structure and to consume it––not grain by grain of salt, but beer bottle by beer bottle. According to another report in the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Gaillard linked the steps of the Pergamon Altar, an archeological find that was shipped from Turkey to Germany and which now stands in Berlin’s Pergamon Museum, and his own drinkable altar. The exhibition continues, at least until the beer lasts, through May 22.

CATTELAN TAKES A BREAK?

Maurizio Cattelan is ready for a “creative break.” Süddeutsche Zeitung cites an interview with the artist in the Italian daily La Repubblica. The fifty-one-year-old, who splits his time between New York and Milan, is also looking to get some distance from “the market and the polemics” in order to define his existence in the art market and to strengthen his independence. Currently, Cattelan is working with the photographer Pierpaolo Ferrari on the magazine Toilet Paper––and little else. The second edition of the magazine, sponsored by Fondazione Trussardi, was recently presented in Milan. According to the report, working on Toilet Paper fascinated Cattelan more than an event with his art in the Guggenheim Museum. “When that became clear to me,” said Cattelan, he knew there was only one decision: “I have to stop.”