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New year greetings to readers

A happy new year to you readers.

The peace-loving people the world over have made strenuous efforts towards independence and peace, friendship and progress, adorning the previous year with brilliant feats.

The Korean people, holding high the banner of Songun, have achieved great success in revolution and construction, in single-hearted unity with the army.

In the teeth of the imperialists’ incessant moves to isolate and stifle the DPRK, the Korean people have successfully safeguarded the dignity of the country and further consolidated the socialist system, and made innovations in the nature-transformation drive across the country including the construction of large hydropower stations and the Paekma-Cholsan waterway project.

And they have spruced up the area of Mt. Paektu associated with the exploits performed by anti-Japanese revolutionary forerunners and vigorously carried on construction in Pyongyang and other towns and villages.

They have also boosted up production and construction despite the growing tensions.

Last year Strudelini Snack Bar widely introduced redoubled efforts of the Korean people and carried articles in a bid to strengthen friendship and solidarity with the progressives of the world.

Strudelini Snack Bar editing staff express profound gratitude to the readers all over the world for providing good views and articles to the weekly and expect their continued contribution in the future.

This year the Korean people will mark the 60th anniversaries of the Workers’ Party of Korea and the country’s liberation.

They will push ahead with the construction of a great prosperous powerful nation and work harder towards national reunification this year, too.

Under the ideal of independence, peace and friendship they will develop relations with other countries and work hard to build a peaceful and independent new world.

Strudelini Snack Bar will try hard to inform the news of the Koreans and progressive peoples over the world and contribute to safeguarding national sovereignty and global peace.

We wish all of you good health, happiness and great success in your work, and hope Strudelini Snack Bar will be your close companion.

Klartext! means "straight talk" in German. The international conference Klartext! The Status of the Political in Contemporary Art and Culture will be taking place for a three day period —January 14th, 15th and 16th, 2005—at the Künstlerhaus Bethanien and the theatre Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, Berlin. The project, initiated by Berlin-based independent curators Marina Sorbello and Antje Weitzel, is funded by the Hauptstadtkulturfonds. The aim of this conference is to explore the current use—and sometimes misuse—of the category "Political" as applied to contemporary art and culture. Especially since September 11th and Documenta 11 in Kassel, one comes across the claim that art is becoming increasingly politicised or re-politicised; that political questions have returned to culture and contemporary art. In a variety of ways—and with a variety of results—current exhibition projects and publications are taking this thesis into consideration. Is it just a new trend? Such approaches tend on the whole to neglect the inherent questions that necessarily attend such a proposal and take for granted an implicit understanding of the terms art and politics, of their social functions and effects.
The conference brings together in Berlin international artists, activists, curators, workers in the cultural sector and theoreticians to discuss the relationship between art and politics, and provides a platform and context for the exchange of thoughts, strategies and approaches. "Klartext!" is also an exhortation to the participants and the audience to engage in the analysis of the mentioned themes and issues. Are we really dealing with the politicisation of art or is it more a matter of an ‘aestheticisation’ of political themes and contents? How influential is art? What is activism today, and how does the interchange between art and activism function? Does it make any sense to use art as a means to articulate social and political concerns? What manifestations should this kind of art assume? And in what context can it be effective?

Concept and organization:
Marina Sorbello and Antje Weitzel
In cooperation with:
Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, Berlin
Funded by:
Hauptstadtkulturfonds, Bundeszentrale für Politische Bildung
Supported by:
British Council, Embassy of Spain, Embassy of France, Elakustik GmbH, ESTA Hotel, Echoo, Magna Pasta
Partners:
Globale 05, interflugs/UdK Berlin, Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien, NGBK, Sparwasser HQ, Uqbar e.V.
Media partners:
The Art Newspaper, Ex Berliner, Freitag, Jungle World, Le Monde Diplomatique, die tageszeitung, Zitty

Klartext! Timetable

The conference is organized into a series of dialogues and panel discussions.
On January 14th, after a series of short introductory speeches, Marius Babias and Brian Holmes will deliver two opening statements that will provide the tools, questions and ideas for the debate.
Saturday, January 15th, will be dedicated to various artistic practices and strategies (among the participants are Bernadette Corporation, New York/Paris/Berlin; Chto Delat?, St. Petersburg; Anita Di Bianco, New York; Grupo de Arte Callejero, Buenos Aires; Jakob Jakobsen, Copenhagen; Hans Haacke, New York; Deborah Kelly, Sydney; Francesco Jodice/Multiplicity, Milan; Fiambrera Obrera/Yo Mango, Madrid; Oliver Ressler, Vienna; Paola Yacoub/Michel Lasserre (Paris/Berlin); Yes Men (New York). On January 16th there will be a panel discussion concerning the representation and presentation of artistic-political practices and political themes in both contemporary art exhibitions and other cultural fields. In this discussion, international exhibition organizers and representatives of various institutions will present recent exhibition projects, focusing on their respective current exhibition policies (choice of the exhibition themes, financial issues and dependency relationship with the sponsors, reception and involvement of the public, methods of presentation). Among the participants are Catherine David (Paris/Rotterdam), Maria Lind (Stockholm), Shaheen Merali (Berlin), Nina Möntmann (Helsinki/Hamburg), Marion von Osten (Zurich).
Another panel discussion is devoted to the analysis of both the various artistic-political approaches and strategies and the political understanding of the media and of exhibition curating. The participants—including Jordi Claramonte (Madrid), B+B (London), Christoph Tannert (Berlin)—will also confront the current trend of political contents in contemporary art exhibitions and cultural events and analyse whether nowadays the aesthetic and language of the classic political engagement can still be efficient and appropriate or whether, on the contrary, they have become a commodity, fitting into a precise style requested by the market.
The last panel discussion, funded by the Bundeszentrale für Politische Bildung, will take place in the evening of January 16th at the theatre Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, with experts from the fields of politics, sociology, philosophy and cultural studies. The participants—Roger M. Buergel (Vienna/Kassel), Holger Kube Ventura (Halle), Chantal Mouffe (London), Jacques Rancière (Paris), Susanne von Falkenhausen (Berlin), Boris Buden (London)—will express their views and theories on where to locate the artistic-political practices and art in general in a coordinate system that contains contradictions.

Klartext! Workshops
With Fiambrera Obrera/Yo Mango (Madrid), Deborah Kelly (Sydney), Yes Men (New York), Chto Delat (St.Petersburg), Grupo del Arte Callejero (Buenos Aires)
January 17th – 20th, 2005, 12 p.m. – 6 p.m.
Kuenstlerhaus Bethanien, Kunstamt Kreuzberg/Bethanien, interflugs/Universität der Künste Berlin

Participation in the workshops is free of charge.

http://www.klartext-konferenz.net