in this Newsletter n° 01 of 2012, we are delighted to be able

• to present some recent publications and especially "I Love Shanghai" by Aryan Mirfendereski, our MagBooks Award Winner 2011.
  400 Pages, with a video consisting of 10.000 pictures, with both the photos and the video being of outstanding expressivity and quality.
• "Camp Vogelsang" with an update coming along with a TV feature from "WestArt" containing an interview with me and some notes about German fascism.
• to announce new particularly exciting titles.
• and the MagBooks - Award of 2012.

Kind regards
Andreas Magdanz

„I love Shanghai“
Aryan Mirfendereski
in iTunes
Price 3,99€

My name is Aryan Mirfendereski. My friends call me “Ary”. In the summer of 2010, I was offered the chance for a time out, for which I am deeply indebted to my employer for. I was to oversee the technological infrastructure of the Shanghai Expo pavilion. Thanks to the preliminary work done by technicians, there was not much work to be done. The technology would work faultlessly. I only had to be available on call. And that’s how, after a long phase of dreaming of a place where I could not understand anyone and no one understood me, for the first time in my life, I started packing – in a borrowed suitcase, not a travel bag – and flew to Shanghai. At the airport, I was welcomed via loudspeaker. The polite electronic voice of a woman. For the purpose of saying goodbye to my home country, I bought a double-whopper and a Tsing Tao (Tsing Tao being brewed in a former German colony, and according the German purity law), sat down in one of the fastest Maglevs in the world,

and drove to the eastern edge of downtown into the cleanest train station that I had seen in my life until then. I smoked my first cigarette since Frankfurt and almost bought my first Rolex. The watch retailer giggled on seeing my sweat drenched body. The temperature was 46 degrees Celsius on the 4­th of September. I took a taxi (not one of those which tourists take for a fixed tourist price, but an official one, controlled by a police officer at the head of a taxi queue) and showed the driver a DIN A 4 sheet with my new address in Chinese. In turn, the driver showed it to the officer and the two consulted. After calling two other colleagues, real Shanghai experts, the driver then approximately knew where I wanted to go. We communicated by using our hands and making faces. He found it funny to see me sweat. The 10-lane motorway turned into a five-tier inner-city expressway, which, at different levels, ...

„India from a kite“
Nicolas Chorier
in iTunes
Price 3,99€

„Westbank“
Grischa Schmitz
in iTunes
Price 3,99€

This application will depict for you a selection of world heritage sites, spectacular landscapes, and most important: humans.

You’ll fly above the Taj Mahal, close to its dome, and cruise on the small boat, upstream the Ganga at Varanasi, the holiest city in the world. You’ll share a meal with a group of camels in Rajasthan, and fly above legendary palaces. You’ll imagine yourself at the Kumba Mela at Allahabad, the largest human gathering on earth. Nicolas Chorier is waiting for you there… You will see the Kalari fighters on the beach, and their shadow even more, like no one did before, only the birds. You’ll visit Kerala and its enchanting beaches, discover Hampi and its rocks. And more. Have a nice flight!

A short journey from East Jerusalem to Bil‘in. May 2006.

The initial reason for my trip to Israel and Palestine was a love story. Not one that was actually existing but artistically conceived: a love story between an Israeli woman and a Palestinian man, which should be the base of a video installation for the opera „Zaide / Adama“ at the Salzburg Festival.

Together with the video artist and filmmaker Kai Ehlers I finally arrived in Tel Aviv to meet our actress Dovrat. Unlike other Israeli artists she was willing to work with us on our idea, ...

„Camp Vogelsang“
Andreas Magdanz
in iTunes
Price 3,99€

TV MOVIE INCLUDED, ANDREAS MAGDANZ, WITH AN INTERVIEW
AND A STATEMENT AGAINST FASCISM IN GERMANY,
accompanied during his work and the exhibition in Vogelsang.

Also recommended the video of the exhibition in the Musée
Royal de l´Armée in Brussels and the visit of King Albert II...
you can see on the homepage
www.andreasmagdanz.de

...When Andreas Magdanz learned of the planned closure of the Camp Vogelsang troop training area in 2003, he sent a request to the supervising commander´s office to be allowed to document “the Belgian period” of this place in pictures. Asked about his experience, he reported that the nearly unlimited permission to move about the military terrain, even duringmilitary exercises, gradually provided him with the insight that the “reality” of Vogelsang should be comprehendedas being much more than its relation to the Third Reich. This work is therefore also the result of an alternative exploration of the site, which attempts to unlock the complex nature of the area in three dimensions. These may be considered a triad: Architecture, Military and Nature. In their mutual permeation, they form a visual matrix which does far more justice to the reality of Vogelsang than a tunnel view on the National Socialist period...

Haunting. Expressive. Personal. In Harald Hoffmann´s staged works, one sees not only the persons, but recognizes the personality - loud or quiet, strong or vulnerable, shrill or contemplative. Harald Hoffmann´s portraits captivate due to their „Closeness and by a glamorous sobriety and authenticity“ (WDRWestart). Be it artists like Anne Sophie Mutter, Thomas D, Herbert Knebel, the Missfits, Hildegard Knef, Harald Schmidt, Götz Alsmann, or politicians such as Wolfgang Clement and Klaus Wowereit.

The Spanish Mediterranean coast or to be more precise, the Costa Blanca at the tail end of the season in September - impressions along the N-332 coast road between the tourist resorts of Benidorm and Mar Menor... Attracted by the climate of Southern Spain, many Northern European pensioners, mainly from Britain, spend part of the year on this area of the coast. They stay in large hotel complexes in the resorts or in private villas in „Urbanistas“ in the countryside....

In the Cursed Mountains of Northern Albania, said to have been created by the devil himself, the tradition of the sworn virgins, the last man-women of Europe, is still alive to this day. The Kannun, a collection of laws from the Middle Ages passed on for generations by word-of-mouth, permits families to replace the male head of the household with a woman in the case of the patriarch´s death. The sworn virgins adapt their roles so perfectly that, over time, they are no longer recognized as women outside of their family.

„Vertikale Versionen“ „AZIS“
Claudius Daum Rosa Maria Rühling

04 MagBooks Award 2012

After the successful MagBooks Award winner Aryan Mirfendereski with „I Love Shanghai“ in 2011, MagBooks announced the second MagBooks Award. Entries for the MagBooks Award 2012 will be accepted from 01­st of May till 31­rd of May. We will announce the access data on our homepage a few days before the registration.

05 Lectures by Andreas Magdanz

Darmstädter Tage der Fotografie, April 20­-22­nd, 2012
lectures by Andreas Magdanz and representation of MagBooks
http://www.dtdf.de


RWTH Aachen, upcoming semester 2012
lectures by Andreas Magdanz at the seminar for Photography
with the topic "Borschemich", a ghost-town in the coal mining
area of North-Rhine Westphalia which will be destroyed soon.

„In the fertile lowland, north of the Eifel, where the three cities of Aachen, Cologne and Düsseldorf form a triangle, colossal excavators can be seen digging up the earth and piling it up into long-stretching hills that look like designs straight from the drawing board, toy mountains over powering the landscape, lined up with trees as if sown by machine. From the depth of the dug out basins, as large as lakes, the brown coal is taken to be used in the nearby powerstations. From their cooling towers condensation clouds resembling white flags are blown across the sky, ever present cloud-making machines above a low horizon...“ Prof. Walter Grasskamp
http://big.arch.rwth-aachen.de

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