Culture & Literature

The Chinese artist Ms Jing SONG has just had a solo art exhibition in Vienna with “STEALING HEAVEN” as the motif. STEALING HEAVEN is devoted to the moment at which a particular development culminates and in the end breaks off. The project tells of life in a state of wind-stillness, of circumstances to which one has accustomed oneself, of tranquil presence, trance; up to a point of realization or action. A moment of rupture in which the self is both the shipwrecked castaway and the onlooker. (1)Seconds, minutes or years can pass before the eyes open. “[…] We all want to…

In the Western world, Christmas time is considered to be the most wonderful time of the year and is celebrated accordingly. Even in today’s China, celebrating Christmas is getting more and more popular — at least in major cities, where the festival is basically embraced as a commercialized event.  Not aware of its religious background, the Chinese tend to associate Christmas mostly with Santa Claus, who brings presents as well as festive music and decorations. No wonder, China has been pursuing a consumption-driven economy for decades now. As a cultural and religious holiday celebrated by Christians, Christmas commemorates the birth…

The night comes, boosting my creativity. The night, the dream, the fever. Doors to undiscovered worlds open up. Arms reach out, arms of darkness, of light, arms that grasp my eyes and my head, forcing me into another dimension.  I have no control of it. There, I do not harm anyone, and do not get harmed.  In that other dimension, however, everything seems as usual, real. The sounds of cars passing by, as frequently as the cries of the pitch-black crows. The clock is ticking, as regularly as planes flying across the sky. It is still the usual world with…

Music is a matter of taste. Yes, the kind of music someone likes often depends on where they grow up, which people they are surrounded with and how much they know about music (its history, theory or practise, etc.). However, I believe that in the end, it is very individual whether a genre of music is worth listening to or not, especially for the young generation. I grew up with classical music and shreds of Jazz. In fact, until the age of 12, I could not even bear to hear non-classical music without freaking out immediately. Often, after listening to…

“… For beauty is only a step removed from a burning terror we barely sustain, and we worship it for the graceful sublimity with which it disdains to consume us.” (Rainer Maria Rilke, from The First Elegy (Duineser Elegien, 1923), translated by John Waterfield) Born in Austria in 1980, Bianca Regl lives in Beijing since 2010. In her prior years she spent time in Los Angeles and Berlin. The theme of her paintings was, and is, the (picturesque) localization. Terms such as ‘homeland’ and ‘tradition’ face others, like ‘emigration’ and ‘hyper culturalism’. François Jullien writes that coming across China means compiling a sloping and strategic access that makes us grasp European…