Laszlo F. Földenyi

The Old Berlin is lost, as would be any city that has been destroyed more than once. No "Remake" can change this. What then is the new Berlin? Only one thing is certain, that Berlin, today, can only be described as a stringing together of fast-changing phenomena. A city suspended amidst massive developments, Berlin now exists as a metaphor for the unknown. Remake Berlin attempts to do the impossible, to pull together a visual and textual portrait of this unknown city, through the combined imaginations and documentary explorations of eight artists and six writers, men and women, national and international, locals and visitors. They approach the city in a careful way, laconically recording its violent geographies, ironically commenting on the peculiarities of its architecture and population, and finally forming a constructive, exploratory array of subjective glances which, together, draw up a possible portrait of a new Berlin.… (mais)

A lovely idea, and a beautifully designed book, but it's a bit hard to swallow the idea that Foldenyi is "one of the most brilliant essayists of our time." His thought, here, seems fairly standard (all thinkers are out to oppress everyone, and it's our job to catch them in that oppression (vs: all thinkers are out to think as well as they can, and sometimes they go wrong)); and the prose is... well, it reads a bit like a post-structuralist writing to the masses.

So perhaps I was just ruined by the marketing, which suggested this would be some shallowish, but beautifully written reflections on melancholy. Instead, it was some shallowish, but academically respectable, sludge.… (mais)