Xu Bing
Thursday 8 May 2008 21:45-22:30 (Radio 3)
Rana Mitter talks to Xu Bing, one of China's leading artists - who recently sold a piece for one million dollars - about his new work and the emerging Chinese art scene. A former 'sent down youth', Xu was relocated to the countryside for two years during the Cultural Revolution and has recently been invited back to China after years of living in New York. He often takes calligraphy as a starting point for his work, recombining elements drawn from genuine Chinese characters to invent new ones, and combining English words to create a sort of 'Chinglish'.
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Morgan Spurlock
Morgan Spurlock caused a sensation with his 2004 movie SuperSize Me, in which he ate nothing but burgers for a month. Spurlock's new film, 'Where In The World Is Osama Bin Laden?, was prompted by the imminent birth of his first child, and his conviction that he'd be born into a world where US foreign policy would always be at odds with Islam. Spurlock's quest to understand why some Muslims wanted to blow Americans up - and why most of them don't - took him on a tour around the half the globe, including Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, and the West Bank, as well as Britain and France.
Morgan Spurlock joins Rana Mitter to discuss his new film.
'Where In The World Is Osama Bin Laden?' is released nationwide May 9.
Italy
In the last week, the ever-unpredictable course of Italian politics has taken a fresh turn, with the appointment by prime minister Berlusconi of a cabinet with a significant number of ministers from the radical right. For decades, Italy's capital was a stronghold of the left, but in the latest elections the city elected a new mayor, Gianni Alemanno, a member of the Alleanza Nazionale, the party led by the self-declared 'post-fascist' Gianfranco Fini. But does this political turn of the tide mark a significant change for Italian culture?
To discuss what this means in practice, I'm joined by Tobias Jones, author of the Dark Heart of Italy and Joe Farrell, professor of Italian at Strathclyde University.
Xu Bing
Rana Mitter discusses a new exhibition of work by Xu Bing, one of China's leading artists - who recently sold a piece for one million dollars. He often takes calligraphy as a starting point for his work, recombining elements drawn from genuine Chinese characters to invent new ones, and combining English words to create a sort of 'Chinglish'.
Nixi Cura, an art historian of China based at Christie's, joins Rana to review the exhibition.
The exhibition of Xu Bing's work is at the Albion Gallery in London until 23June.
Independent Prize for Foreign Fiction
Today, the result of this year's Independent Foreign Fiction Prize was announced, and the winner is the Belgian writer Paul Verhaeghen for his novel Omega Minor. Verhaeghen has a day job as a research scientist working on cognitive memory.
Rana Mitter talks to Paul Verhaeghen about the explosive combination of explicit sex, magical realism, and the Holocaust contained in his book.
Omega Minor by Paul Verhaeghen is published by Dalkey Archive.
