People from the xetex-usersgroup helped me. The problem was that I had some older versions of graphics.sty lying around in /usr/local/...
After removing them the compilation succeeded. Moral of the story: rmove the stuff in /usr/local/ that duplicates what is installed using texlive. Regards. Johann -- Because experiencing your loyal love is better than life itself, my lips will praise you. (Psalm 63:3)
