Umberto Eco writes about beauty and death. The Italian novelist and scholar has published two extensive works this autumn. Like his previous publications, these two books deal with very important subjects.
In the lavishly illustrated volume ,History of Beauty', Eco lets images and works of art speak for themselves. He has compiled a wealth of ideal concepts of beauty from antiquity to the present. A series of large illustrations provides examples from the fields of painting, sculpture, architecture, film, photography and the new media. He refrains from expressing his own views about the works, preferring to offer commentaries quoted from literature and philosophy as well as from autobiographical texts by the artists concerned.
Umberto Eco, who is appearing as a guest of the House of World Cultures, will be reading from his book ,The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana' – the second of his works to be published this year. The reading, held within the framework of the Studio LCB series, takes place at 8 p.m. on 15 November.
After the reading, he will sign his book ,History of Beauty'.
By virtue of its subject matter, the reading also provides a preview of the project On Beauty, which the House of World Cultures is staging from March to May 2005. This programme will present a variety of current positions on the concept of beauty: in a major exhibition of contemporary art; an international conference with lectures and workshops; and films and contributions from the performing arts. Special attention will be given to productions from China and East Asia, focusing on the practice of art, the development of ideas within everyday culture, academic discourse and the sciences, and their philosophical, ethical and political implications.
Host: Denis Scheck
Discussion partners: Luzia Braun, Burkhart Kroeber and Dirk Schümer
Staged by Deutschlandfunk, Literarisches Colloquium Berlin, Hanser Verlag, The House of World Cultures, KulturKaufhaus Dussmann.
Umberto Eco is not available for interviews. Christine Regus
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