Paul Werner

Eine mysteri se Yacht im Nachlass ihres k rzlich verstorbenen Vaters f hrt die n chtern-sachliche hamburger Unternehmertochter Laura F rster in die verr ckte Welt "jenseits des Spiegels" namens Karibik, in der die Gesetze der Logik nichts gelten und Menschenleben nichts z hlen. Kaum auf Guadeloupe, dem Liegeplatz der Yacht, gelandet, wird sie von einem Quartett ebenso hartgesottener wie skurriler Drogens ldner in einen m rderischen Tanz verwickelt, in dessen Turbulenzen Laura sowohl ihren Verstand, als auch die Grundfeste ihrer gesichert geglaubten Existenz einzub en droht. Charismatische Anf hrerin der Gruppe ist die raubeinige Solitaire, deren Spontaneit t und Skrupellosigkeit Laura verabscheut und bewundert. Vom Vergeltung f r erlittene Schmach benden t rkischen Drogenbaron Hakan "dem Leisen" quer durch die Kleinen Antillen gejagt, wachsen die beiden gleichaltrigen Frauen trotz ihrer charakterlichen Gegens tze zu einem unwiderstehlichen "Duo infernale" zusammen, das am Ende erkennt, dass es in der Tat mehr als Seelenverwandtschaft verbindet. Alle F den des halluzinierenden Reigens im Schatten eines vernichtenden atlantischen Hurrikans scheinen in den H nden der unsichtbar allgegenw rtigen Yellow Dancer zusammenzulaufen ...

Laura Forster decides to shirk the responsibility of following in her late father's footsteps as the managing director of a successful Hamburg-based logistics company. In order to come up for air, she rushes aboard the next best plane to the Caribbean, where her father's yacht, the Yellow Dancer, is berthed. What she doesn't know yet: she is unwittingly letting herself into a nightmarish journey to the other side of the Carrollian mirror, where life runs upside down and comforting certainties are as rare as a needle in a haystack. Will Laura succumb to the harrowing spectres of evil or will she prevail and return a duplicate of the tough, unforgiving amazon that is her newly-found sister Solitaire? One way or another, the hurricane-harried West Indies have never been a place for the meek and faint-hearted...

Has corporate business overtaken the art world? It's no secret that art and business have always mixed, but their relationship today sparks more questions than ever. "Museum, Inc." describes the new art conglomerates from an insider's perspective, probing how their roots run deep into corporate culture. Paul Werner draws on his nine years at the Guggenheim Museum to reveal that contemporary art museums have not broken radically with the past, as often claimed. Rather, Werner observes, they are the logical outcome of the evolution of cultural institutions rooted in the Enlightenment, the colonial expansion of the liberal nation-state, and the rhetoric of democracy. In a witty and argumentative style, Werner critically analyzes today's art institutions and reframes the public's accepted view of them, exposing how their apparent success belies the troubling forces operating within them. He ultimately argues that the art museum we know and love may have already run its course. An engaging discourse structured as an informal gallery talk, "Museum, Inc." is a thought-provoking and passionate polemic that offers ideas for a new, more democratic museum.