6 hours TOWER OF BABEL online

The German radio “Hessischer Rundfunk” just published Robert Wilson’s radio play “TOWER OF BABEL” in an extended, 6-hour version. Listen to all 12 half-hour episodes online in the HR’s “audiotheque”: https://www.ardaudiothek.de/episode/tower-of-babel-ii-von-robert-wilson/robert-wilson-tower-of-babel-ii-1-12-oder-klangcollage/hr2-kultur/93543818

With the voices and talents of: Fiona Shaw, Inge Keller, Edith Clever, Christopher Knowles, Christopher Nell, Daniel Libeskind, Ilie Gheorghe, Traute Hoess, Daniel Hope (violin), Stefan Kurt, Jürgen Holtz, Robert Wilson, Lisa Genze, Jonathan Meese, Cécile Brune, Sarah Bernhardt, Ursula Ruppel, Lydia Koniordou, Lou Reed, Ishan Othman, Kinan Azmeh (clarinet), Dickie Landry (saxophone), Christina Drechsler, Angela Winkler, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Willem Dafoe, Brigitte Meese, Lady Gaga, Anna Graenzer, Alexander Moissi, Isabelle Huppert, Gertrude Stein, Markus Hilgert, Rosa Enskat, Christian Friedel, Ezra Pound, Robson Catalunha, Tom Waits, Ruth Glöss, Thomas Holtzmann, Alan Cumming, Liesl Karlstadt, Karl Valentin, Nikitas Tsakiroglou, Bernice Johnson Reagon, Harry Nilsson

OEDIPUS in Budapest - A Statement by Robert Wilson

“I am very proud to have shown my theater production of OEDIPUS (Pompeii, 2018) in Budapest and shared this experience with the people of this beautiful city. In the spirit of ancient Greek theater, and its early roots in the agora, the center of social, political and also artistic life in the city, I cannot ignore the overall context in which this guest performance has taken place.

It is with much regret and sorrow that I have been watching the freedom of artistic expression and education be restricted by the current national government of Hungary. The so-called ‘model change’ at the SZFE University, which was carried out last year, was an undemocratic attack on the University's autonomy. The new board of trustees that was implemented there by the government was led by Attila Vidnyánszky, who is also the director of the MITEM Festival and many other cultural institutions in the country.

While I am happy that my work could be seen by the people of Budapest, I consider it my civic duty to state that I do not agree to the gutting of educational and artistic independence and freedom, nor to the unhealthy concentration of too much power and influence in the hands of a few. I will therefore donate half of my artist fee, received from the National MITEM Festival to the FreeSZFE initiative, which is continuing their independent educational work without support or even acknowledgment from the current government. Moreover, I will join a conversation with FreeSZFE students in the coming weeks. I sincerely hope that FreeSZFE will keep receiving support from all over the world, and most importantly, soon be reinstated as a public university by the Hungarian government.”

Robert Wilson; Paris, September 17, 2021

NOW ONLINE: Sotheby's Presents a Benefit Auction for The Watermill Center →

Sotheby’s is excited to announce a curated grouping of artworks to benefit the Watermill Center. The Watermill Center is a laboratory for the arts and humanities, established in 1990 in Water Mill, New York, by theater artist Robert Wilson. For 30 years, Watermill has been a site for artist residencies, exhibitions, and education, with a focus on emerging international artists. In 2016, The Watermill Center initiated the Inga Maren Otto Fellowship, which includes among its alumni: Carrie Mae Weems, Tania Bruguera, Shaun Gladwell, Anne Carson, and Barthelemy Toguo. The Watermill Center welcomes over 200 artists for residencies each year, and offers free educational programming to students from the local communities of Long Island. The Center's research library, art collection, and gardens are free and open to the public.

Robert Wilson reads Arthur Rimbaud's "A Season in Hell"

Robert Wilson curated an exhibition on photographs by Robert Mapplethorpe in Berlin at the Galerie Thomas Schulte just before the lockdown hit Europe.

For this exhibition, Robert Wilson, a friend of Robert Mapplethorpe, uses his own voice recording of Rimbaud’s enigmatic and mesmerizing text as acoustic backdrop in his presentation of Mapplethorpe’s work at the gallery.

You can listen to the recording here.