Conflict Kitchen is a take-out restaurant that only serves cuisine from countries that the United States is in conflict with. The food is served out of a take-out style storefront, which rotates identities every 6 months to highlight another country. Each Conflict Kitchen iteration is augmented by events, performances, and discussion about the culture, politics, and issues at stake with each county we focus on. We are currently presenting the third iteration of Conflict Kitchen via La Cocina Arepas, an Venezuelan take-out restaurant that serves homemade arepas, grilled corncakes served to order with a variety of fresh fillings. Developed in collaboration with members of the Venezuelan community, our arepas come packaged in a custom-designed wrapper that includes interviews with Venezuelans both in Venezuelan and the United States on subjects ranging from Venezuelan food and culture to issues of geopolitics.

Conflict Kitchen is located at 124 s. Highland Ave, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

CONFLICT KITCHEN is open for winter on Saturdays and Sundays from 11:30am to 2:30pm, reopening  7 days a week on April 1st, 2012.

http://www.conflictkitchen.org

He achieved international recognition with the Singing Lesson (I) at the 2002 Frankfurt Manifesta and with Repetition at the 2005 Venice Biennale, a powerful metaphor of our regressive democracies in which the state of exception has become the rule, according to Benjamin’s terms, which Agamben has made famous. Artur Żmijewski is curating the 7th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art which is to open soon (April 27 – July 1, 2012).

Artur Żmijewski continues the artist-talk series HUMBOLDT MEETINGS, to which Christoph Hochhäusler (12 December 2011), Angela Schanelec (10 January 2012), Anne Tismer (31 January 2012), Harun Farocki (NEW DATE:  7 February 2012), and Thomas Ostermeier (15 February 2012) have been invited to open discussions at the Department of Art and Visual History at the Humboldt University of Berlin.

The dialogue series is organized by Régis Michel (Rudolf Arnheim Visiting Professor 2011/12) and Katharina Lee Chichester

HUMBOLDT MEETINGS III
Invitation to an open discussion with Artur Żmijewski
Podium guests: Charlotte Klonk and Piotr Piotrowski
Tonight, January 23, 2012, 8 pm
Humboldt-University of Berlin
Dorotheenstraße 24, Room 1.101

With the kind support of Carolin Behrmann and the students of the seminars

HUMBOLDT MEETINGS is realized by the Department of Art and Visual History at the Humboldt-University of Berlin.

Which reminds me of a little happy encounter with Another Country bookstore in Kreuzberg, where I wanted to depose of some English books. The owner, a rather eccentric Englishman, separated them studiously into different piles, with Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho making one pile of its own. The owner told me what he would pay me for each pile, then said, ‘And for this, you will have to pay me one euro,’ pointing at Psycho. ‘Some books are so evil that I cannot sell them at my store, so I burn them in my backyard. This is one of them and it will cost you one euro.’ I thought it was a fair price. This is the reason why you should always go to local stores, since they are still run by humans, not corporations. Talking about politically correct.

Mr Homayoun Sanati was an extraordinary man: having started his career as a trader in his hometown of Kerman in central Iran, he started translating American school books into Farsi, which eventually not only made him the owner of the largest publishing house in Iran, but also earned him five years in prison after the revolution on charges of espionage for the US.

In the meantime, Sanati had inherited acres of barren land nearby, which even without any knowledge of agriculture he was determined to use for finding an alternative to the ubiquitous farming of opium – poppy seeds being one of the few plants to grow in the harsh climate. Eventually, Sanati began growing hybrid roses to strict biodynamic standards and to great success: 20 years later, after initial resistance of the neughbouring farmers, Sanati’s Zahra Rosewater Company has turned around the entire valley from growing opium to harvesting roses, which are then on site distilled into rose essence for use in cosmetics, food and spices. Mr Homayoun Sanati died in 2009, leaving behind his hometown of Kerman a significantly better place than before.

Photography by Kai von Rabenau

The novel takes upon the story of John Holten, the author, and Djordje Bojić, a Serbian artist, whose effort in writing a possible history of LGB Group, leads the narrative. LGB — a neo avant-garde eastern european collective formed in Belgrade in the middle 90s — which sought to escape, through art, the post war nationalism that dominated Serbia during those years, works as a story within the story, the particular narrative on which the general narrative centers itself in.

Different moments, points of view, dialogues and tones build up this novel, making it confusing sometimes, noisy or overcrowded, but perfectly translating the contexts where its characters move, their motivations and energy — or lack of it, at times. Politics, art and literature get together on a perfect mix of novel, documental text and art catalogue.

Bojić’s manuscript, that actually integrates the final part of the book, tells both the story of the artist and the group. A story that closely follows war’s history and its experience (which is also the urge and the foundation behind LGB’s artistic gesture). John Holten’s writing is therefore combined with LGB’s artwork, found texts and 1st person testimonies. The edition, beautifully designed by F.U.K Laboratories, elevates this novel to a piece of art in itself.

And in case you missed, like me, the book launch at Motto earlier this Fall, cheer up! Broken Dimanche Press, the publishing effort behind ‘The Readymades’, will be present at this year’s edition of MISS READ, taking place, as usual, at KW Berlin, between 25th and 27th November.

Two decades ago, the rapper Chuck D (Public Enemy), described rap music as the “the black CNN”. Rappers in London found their own way to describe the political and social background that led to the English riots in the past week. Here’s an excellent and in-depth article about the subject by writer Dan Hancox in yesterday’s Guardian. Another comment about the riots worth reading is eccentric comedian Russell Brand’s from this Thursday. His approach is not so much theoretical but more on the outspoken side.

This week saw the German release of Canadian masterpiece Incéndies (in Germany released as Die Frau die Singt) which was nominated for Best Foreign Film at this year’s Oscars Awards. Set in the turmoil of the Middle Eastern conflict, it’s one of the most relentlessly crushing and impressive films I’ve seen in a long time. Highly recommended.