March in Leipzig means Book Fair. One of the oldest and most important in Europe the 2009 Leipzig Book Fair ran between March 12 and 15. And attracted over 147,000 vistors. The Leipzig Book Fair prides itself on being more than just an industry meeting point, and during the Fair over 500 public readings took place as part of the “Leipzig liest” festival. And we at smow joined the fun. On the evening 14.03.09 our Leipzig (smow)room once again hosted a reading with subsequent discussion. Guest was art historian, philosopher and design lecturer Dr. Helmut Orpel with his new novel “Die Lichter dieser Welt”. In his novel Orpel describes the art scene in Germany in the late 80s and early 90s – so in the period as the Berlin Wall fell and the two Germanys fused. The accurate and emotion description of the effect of this period and the consequent German unification on painters, sculptors and galleries comes naturally to Orpel – he was himself at this point in history a gallery owner. The book is however – as Dr. Helmut Orpel stressed in a conversation with the (smow)blog team – intended for readers who don’t live in and for the German art scene. We must however point out that it is however currently only intended for readers with a good level of German – being currently only available in German. That aside we would like to thank Dr Orpel for the reading and particularly the discussion afterwards and wish him all the best with the book and his future projects. And we are already looking forward to further reading during next years Book Fair.
