The present issue of ART IN SOCIETY offers two main "subjects."
The first concerns documentary film, a genre that many of us learned to love while watching works on the isle of Aran, Vietnam, the "Fifth Side of the Pentagon" or "Route 1." 
The article by Pavel Branko does not concentrate on any one work but on the development if not decline of a genre that finds its way into television programs as never before while losing many of its distinct features. A few brief comments are added to this, in a short article that is more of an "appendix." (Originally, the text - slightly revised now -  was a letter sent  to Pavel by e-mail). Underlining the importance of Pavel Branko's assessment, it is shown how his article implicitly questions "structural" contradictions between the technological possibilities of the documentary and the conditions of production (and distribution?) that seem to inhibit many filmmakers to truly make use of the options technologically at hand now. 

Pavel Branko, a film critic and translator, was born April 27, 1921 in Czechoslovakia. A member of the antifascist Resistance and, after his arrest, a political prisoner, he welcomed the liberation of Czechoslovakia by the Red Army in 1945.  Always a humanist with a strong awareness of the social dimensions of art, he was soon disillusioned by the day-to-day reality
of "real socialism".
 

The second part of this issue features the work of Canadian expatriate artist Angelo Evelyn. 
This section honors the 60th birthday of the artist who on this occasion had a beautiful retrospective exhibition of his oeuvre at the museum in Kranenburg, thanks to the late Hans van der Grinten, the renowned Beuys collector. Angelo Evelyn's work, consisting of many fine drawings, paintings, lithographies and examples of his collage and mixed media technique (often, a combination of enlarged xerox copies turned into silkscreens, plus painting, or of woodcut or etchings plus lithography), has been focused on by Christian Krausch, an art historian working  in a museum context  in Moenchen-Gladbach, as well as the artist himself,  the art critic Gene Markopoulos, and the poet (and writer of these lines), Andreas Weiland. It is Christian Krausch who points out the vital relationship between PLACES, that is to say, locations that mattered, in the life of the artists and  his WORKS, which means, for one thing, his  SUJETS or subject matter, but perhaps also other, more strictly formal aspects.
 

A third part is comprised of merely one article that focuses on the German artists Gerhard Betterman and Klaus Boettger as well as the Czechoslovak artist Ernest Špitz. Time and place, immersion in the artistic, cultural, and even political climate affecting different generations, are factors reflected when attempting to throw light on the diverse "realist" approaches of these artists. Each asks us to be regarded in his own individual terms, and each also seems to be part of a specific socio-culture.

Finally, there is a small article recalling the work of Anton Woelki, a painter who did a remarkable fresco in the trade union headquarters in Duesseldorf in the 1950s.

A final word concerning the fact that a bi-lingual issue has been produced. We are not too happy with the dominance of (American) English as the lingua franca of the day, in many parts of the world.  But seeking to communicate beyond national frontiers and linguistic barriers, a lingua franca can be helpful of course, whatever the drawbacks of cultural hegemonism. In introducing a second language, the editor of ART IN SOCIETY seeks to reflect the fact that this internet journal is produced in Germany. It is possible to include other languages, as well, but in order to reach readers from diverse countries and continents, English will continue to play a 'bridging' role. Apologies are offered for not including English summaries with the German texts.