전 세계 110여 개의 참여 갤러리와 한층 풍성해진 기획 프로그램으로 프리즈 서울이 돌아온다. 이번 아트페어는 갤러리 섹션과 함께 신진 작가 및 고대 미술품을 위한 특별 섹션으로 구성되며, 프리즈 아티스트 어워드(Frieze Artist Award), 프리즈 필름(Frieze Film), 다양한 토크 프로그램, 그리고 도시 전역에서 열리는 프리즈 위크(Frieze Week)의 문화예술 행사로 활기찬 아트페어 개최 주간이 준비되었다.
The death was announced this week of the reclusive American writer J.D. Salinger, author of one massively influential novel, The Catcher in the Rye. Written in 1951, Salinger’s tale of teenage rebellion and intellectual precocity has to date sold some 65 million copies and remains a much-loved work of American literature. Salinger’s death will be widely reported, yet this week saw the passing of another bestselling US writer, one far less well-known than Salinger, yet someone who gave voice to rebellion and alienation in other ways: Howard Zinn, who died aged 87 in Santa Monica, California.
First published in 1980, Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States tells the story of the U.S. from 1492 to the present from the perspective of American women, factory workers, African Americans, Native Americans, working poor and immigrant labourers. It is a radically revisionist history of the States, yet since its release it has sold over 1 million copies, been translated into Spanish, French, Italian, German, Turkish, Arabic, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Swedish, Norwegian, Czech, Portuguese, Russian, Greek and Hebrew, and taught in high schools and colleges throughout the country.
In a week when a Public Policy Polling nationwide survey also announced that the partisan right-wing news channel Fox News is the most trusted news network in the U.S., with an approval rating of 50 per cent, Zinn’s death has added resonance. Faced with criticism of the left-wing bias of his People’s History, Zinn was unrepentant. ‘It’s not an unbiased account; so what?’ he said in a recent interview for The New York Times. ‘If you look at history from the perspective of the slaughtered and mutilated, it’s a different story.’
It’s been announced that Claude Lévi-Strauss, the well-known French anthropologist, also regarded as one of the most influential Structuralist thinkers, has died, aged 100.
In case you forgot, Michael Jackson who sadly died yesterday at the age of 50, was the best combined singer and dancer of the 20th century. He never really arrived in the 21st. Probably his last great song is ‘Scream’ of 1995 (with Janet Jackson), which already tells his sad story: the isolation, the pressure.
Puberty stars like Boris Becker become narcissist idiots (Becker recently sold his entire wedding to TV stations and gazettes); child stars like Michael – with his plastic surgery, and Peter Pan sexual complex – become freaks. Genesis P. Orridge for example is a – great – freak too. He is admired for it often by the same people who have nothing but disdain for Jackson (and probably vice versa).
It would be great if P. Orridge could do a consoling cover version of ‘The Way you make me feel’ (here’s an interesting, almost-a-capella version).
It was announced this weekend that the novelist JG Ballard has died, following a long illness. The author of 19 novels and numerous short stories, Ballard exerted a huge influence over many artists, writers and filmmakers with his disquieting and vivid meditations on modernity, technology, violence, ecological crisis and psychological breakdown.
Obituaries on the BBC and the Guardian websites can be read here and here, respectively. An interview with Ballard by Ralph Rugoff, published in issue 34 of frieze, May 1997, can be read here. The website ballardian.com provides a comprehensive source of Ballard-related information, criticism and links.
