Einstein’s ‘God letter’ sold for $3m
A handwritten missive by Albert Einstein known as the ‘God letter’ fetched almost $3m at auction recently. Christie’s auction house in New York stated that the letter, including the buyer’s premium, fetched $2.89m under the hammer. That was almost twice the expected amount. The one-and-a-half-page letter, written in 1954 in German and addressed to the philosopher Eric Gutkind, contains reflections on God, the Bible and Judaism. Einstein says: “The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive, legends which are nevertheless pretty childish.”
The sentence has been hailed as evidence that the physicist, one of the 20th Century’s most esteemed thinkers, was an atheist. But Einstein at times said he was not an atheist, and resented being labelled as one.
In the letter — auctioned at Christie’s in New York — Einstein, a Jew, also articulates his disenchantment with Judaism. “For me, the Jewish religion like all others is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions. And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people,” he wrote.
“As far as my experience goes, they are no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything ‘chosen’ about them.”
Kevin Hart set to host 2019 Oscars
Comedian Kevin Hart will host the next Academy Awards ceremony in February 2019, the Ride Along actor said in an Instagram post. “I am so happy to say that the day has finally come for me to host the Oscars,” Hart wrote. The Academy Awards are the film industry’s highest honours. The announcement came hours after trade publication, The Hollywood Reporter, posted a story calling the Oscars host position “the least wanted job in Hollywood”.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which organises the Oscars and normally announces the host, followed up with a tweet welcoming Hart “to the family”. Hart, 39, who also starred in 2017 film Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, follows talk show host Jimmy Kimmel who took on the gig in 2018 and 2017.
“I am blown away simply because this has been a goal on my list for a long time,” Hart wrote on his Instagram page. The job of hosting the Oscars is one of the most prestigious but also the most difficult in show business as hosts have to navigate the expectations of the A-list audience in the theatre and millions tuning in on television, with a combination of topical and insider jokes.
Hart, who is African American, is one of just a handful of black Oscar hosts over the past 90 years, including Chris Rock, Whoopi Goldberg, and Sammy Davis Jr.
iPhone filmmaker wins Turner prize
A series of short clips filmed on an iPhone featuring the Scottish countryside from a train window, a T-shirt on a radiator and a cat pawing at a lamp has helped Charlotte Prodger win the 2018 Turner prize.
Prodger was named the winner of the £25,000 prize by the novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie at a ceremony in London recently.
The Glasgow-based artist has been making moving-image works for 20 years and is on many contemporary art radars. But she is far from being well known and the jury said her recent work represented a breakthrough into a new, more expansive way of working.
Speaking after her win, Prodger said: “I feel very honoured, blown away really. It’s quite surreal. It feels lovely.” The artist said she used an iPhone for her work because she was on her own a lot and the phone felt like an extension of her: “Because of that ease of use and the way you can use it while you are going about the world. For me, everything is in there.” Asked what she might do with the prize money, Prodger said: “I’ll live on it. I’ll pay my rent and my studio rent and some bills. Maybe there’ll be a little treat … probably a nice jacket. Don’t hold me to that!”
