Art Of The Day Weekly

Letter from Paris

Following the dramatic events occurred on November 13 it may seem futile to talk of art. Is it not a luxury when others are mourning their dead? Actually, culture is not a simple hobby. The victims would surely agree with this. Culture is the ultimate expression of our freedom to think and to create, it is man’s most universal contribution. It is everything the fundamentalists would like to see disappear. As far as we know, there are no museums, no exhibitions, no movie festivals, no free publications in the world of the fundamentalists. They don’t even have the right to sing the songs they -may?- like: the movie Timbuktu showed very clearly how narrow-minded, how brutal and overpowering their censure is. When French culture Minister Fleur Pellerin announced on Sunday evening that cultural institutions would open after two days of mourning, she reminded everyone that these venues are indispensable for us to discover, to get together and to exchange. These oases are regularly threatened … “Death to intelligence!” Millán Astray, the head of the pro-Franco Legion said at the end of a critical speech by Unamuno at the University of Salamanca on 12 October 1936. We must all be aware of the fact that the joy we can find in walking freely among works of art of people all over the world, in choosing a book, a movie or a concert is not a gift but rather a victory dearly paid for. We must defend this as one of the strongest symbols of our democracy.