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Юрий Порфириевич Захарчук (1890 – 1944) е руски дворянин и офицер, емигрирал в България, оглавил и издигнал противопожарната служба на София до една от най-добрите в Европа.

Удостоен е с над 20 български и чужди ордена; за него Цар Борис дори прави специално изключение – двукратно е награден с орден "Свети Александър". Командирът обаче най-много се гордеел с отличието "Българска признателност", присъдено само на 4 души.

Ранни години
Роден е в Киев на 26 ноември 1890 г. в дворянско семейство от Херсонска област. Завършва Юридическия факултет в родния си град и Първоразредното киевско военно училище. Става офицер в руската армия, където достига до чин капитан, награден е с ред отличия и заема високи военни постове. От събранието на офицерите е избран за член на Съда на честта. Започва да се занимава с пожарно дело при Имперските доброволци още 16 годишен. Организира и ръководи пожарните команди в градовете Ананиев, Житомир и Тузла (в Украйна). След 1917 г. офицерът се включва в белогвардейските части и се сражава под командването на ген. Пьотър Врангел. Жена му с 5-годишната им дъщеря попадат в териториите, завзети от червените, и са подложени на тежки изпитания. При евакуацията на врангеловата армия от Крим пристига в Цариград, където в 1921 г. организира пожарната команда в Боюкдере, издейства доставката на пожарни коли от Франция и дори поставянето на улични номера на къщите, нещо напълно непознато в Турция дотогава. Но ориенталският манталитет на служителите и населението правят всичките му усилия неефективни и щом посреща семейството си, успяло с помощта на еврейски търговец да напусне Крим, всички се преселват в София.

Тук на 10 февруари 1923 г. офицерът дворянин попада на постановка в Народния театър, при която избухва унищожителен пожар. Полицията и войската, които са около театъра след скорошния атентат в него срещу Стамболийски, са затворили вратите на сградата от съображения за сигурност, докато трае спектакълът. В залата са столичният кмет Крум Попов и много граждани. Хората са в капан сред лумналите пламъци, формените сили отвън са дезорганизирани и безпомощни да им помогнат, угасва и електричеството, настава паника, заплашваща да бъде последвана от голяма трагедия. В този критичен момент се намесват пристигналият веднага на място цар Борис III и руският офицер, който в залата с гръмовен глас отправя заповеди и наставления към гражданите. По нареждане на царя, който сам се промъква сред пламъците и дава нареждания за спасяване, се донасят стълби, маркучи и дюшеци от двореца. Така те овладяват положението и заедно с артистите на театъра организират евакуация през ниските тераси на сградата, като всички освен двама са спасени.

Дейност в България
Качествата, проявени при пожара в Народния театър, са оценени по достойнство и скоро отварят вратите на Захарчук в България. Оценен е от царя и от министъра на вътрешните работи и народното здраве генерал Иван Русев, от който капитан Захарчук лично в 1923 г. получава назначението си на командир на столична пожарна. В 1934 г. друг министър на същото министерство – ген. Петър Мидилев, го назначава за главен пожарен инструктор на министерството, което е равнозначно на началник на пожарната служба в Царството, какъвто пост тогава още няма. На тези две длъжности доблестният офицер остава неотклонно до смъртта си в 1944 г.

Службата не е лека, 3 – 4 денонощия дежурство и едно денонощие почивка, офицерът въвежда в нея строг военен ред и дисциплина, последователна бойна и строева подготовка на пожарникарския състав. Отговорен поданик, баща и християнин, той редовно посещава руската църква "Св. Николай" до Военния клуб, патрулира из София – в началото на бял кон, а после в пожарната кола. Обзавежда на 2-рия етаж в казармата на пожарникарите на ул. Екзарх Йосиф 46 (която и днес е централна пожарна служба) прилично жилище, в което живее със семейството си, за да е близо до подчинените и гражданите и да е в постоянна готовност при пожар.

Поставя в пожарната изрично условие – никой да не членува в политически партии! Обучава и налага дисциплина, лична отговорност, високи умения, осигурява отлично обмундирване и най-съвременна техника на състава и издига високо обществения му престиж. Извоюва увеличаване щата на пожарната от няколкостотин до близо 8000 души. Издейства им дори по-ранно пенсиониране с високите тогава пенсии от 600 лв. за редовия и до 1500 лв. за командния състав. Лично води хората си, многократно рискува живота си в погасяването на опасните пожари, разработва и оттренира предварителни технико-тактически планове на операциите по потушаването им, така че службата му става изключително ефективна и образцова.

Често повтаря, че пожарникарят не блести със своята каска, а със своя дух и професионализъм! Всички пожарникари са снабдени с модерните газови маски, а командата разполага и с два пълни боекомплекта азбестови костюми за гасене вътре в пожарищата. Разяснява, че хуманността на професията пожарникар е не просто самопожертвователността, а умението да победиш огъня, за да спасиш ближния си. Знаейки, че в медицината и в пожарната най-важен за спасяването е факторът време, още преди да се снабди с автомобили, в службата обучава конете ѝ при сигнал за тревога веднага да застават между тегличите на каруците, всеки до своето буре с вода. Издейства и организира закупуването на първите пожарни коли от заводите "Рено" след това и 26 м висока пожарникарска автостълба "Magirus", лично работи в "Рено" цял месец като монтьор, за да опознае новата техника. Превъоръжаването на пожарните команди става възможно благодарение на основания през 1924 г. обществен фонд "Пожарно дело". За да сведе до минимум времето за реакция, създава клонове на службите, които дислоцира в отдалечени от центъра на столицата места.

Така в кратко време организира и издига противопожарната служба в София до една от най-добрите в Европа, в много отношения дори по-добра като ефикасност и дисциплина от тези на водещите страни. Възпитаните и обучени от него кадри правят същото в останалите български градове. През 1926 г. организира доброволните пожарникарски отряди в действена национална структура. Насърчава поставянето на автоматични електрически пожароизвестителни устройства. През 1927 г. е приет Правилник на столичната общинска пожарна команда, утвърден от тогавашния кмет генерал Владимир Вазов. Захарчук е обединителната фигура на професията и от момента на назначаването му подпомага дейността на останалите пожарни командири в страната. През 1929 г. британски кралски специалисти наблюдават действията на пожарникарите и впечатлени пишат: "Софийската пожарна команда под ръководството на г-н Захарчук е с великолепни качества и е може би най-добрата в света". Цар Борис неведнъж споделя: "Дайте ми още 20-ина като Захарчук и аз ще преобразя България!" В 1931 г. в столичната пожарна команда създава първия екип за спешна помощ, като осигурява първата линейка със съдействието на Българския червен кръст. Създава "Спасителна станция" – първообраз на "Бърза помощ", с линейка лазарет, на която дежурят лекари доброволци. Създава и газово отделение с 14 маски за работа срещу задушване от дим и газове. В 1932 г. за пожарникарите благодарение усилията му е осигурено правото на пенсия при 15 години трудов стаж и обезщетение в случай на смърт или злополука при изпълнение на служебните им задължения. Същата 1932 г. Столичната пожарна команда печели състезанието по бързина и дееспособност в Европа, като побеждава дори немците, става първа и е призната за най-добра.

Неговата пожарна е включена в дипломатическия протокол. През 1934 г. Захарчук е назначен за Главен инструктор (инспектор) в Министерството на вътрешните работи и народното здраве, фактически пост на началник на Пожарната служба в Царство България, пряко подчинен на министъра на вътрешните работи и народното здраве. В 1934 г. с неговите усилия е разработен и приет Правилникът за устройството на противопожарната охрана, обн. ДВ бр. 84. Той възлага на огнеборците спасяването и подпомагането на населението при всички обществени бедствия – пожари, земетресения и наводнения, дори и при нападения от скакалци. С новия общодържавен нормативен акт към Министерството на вътрешните работи и народното здраве (МВРНЗ) е разкрита длъжността главен инспектор по пожарно дело. За първи път е създадено централно ръководство на противопожарната охрана в държавата. То е поверено на незаменимия Захарчук, който оставайки командир на софийската пожарна е назначен и за главен инструктор и противопожарен инспектор в Министерството на вътрешните работи и народното здраве. От казармата му на ул. Екзарх Йосиф 46 командва не само столицата, но ръководи организирането на пожарното дело в цялата страна, подчинени са му областните пожарни командири, а "Столичната пожарна команда" е определена за главна база на инвентара на Отделението за Обществени грижи. Инвентарът се състои от санитарни коли, триосни товарни камиони, лодки, спасителни пояси, канджи, легла, дюшеци, палатки и други, които се разпращат, съответно нуждите на пострадалото население, при големи обществени бедствия и катастрофи. С това започналата централизация на пожарното дело в България запазвайки общинските правомощия е издигната на нивото на държавна грижа. Последователно са приети и Наредба-закон за селските общини (обн. ДВ, бр. 100/1934 г.) и Наредба-закон за градските общини (ДВ, бр. 114/1934 г.), с които се въвежда 10% налог върху плащаните премии на застрахователни дружества от направените от тях застраховки против пожар в землищата на общините. Налогът се плаща от застрахователните дружества и на всеки шест месеца се внася в Българска народна банка по сметки на съответните общини.

В техническо и строево отношение столичната пожарна команда се изравнява, а в редица отношения изпреварва редица европейски столици и се ползва с авторитета на една от най-ефективните на Стария континент. Захарчук не само лично ръководи и пряко участва в акциите, но с обаяние води и разяснителна и образователна дейност сред обществеността. Изнася сказки с противопожарна тематика и по Радио София.

Наричат го с уважение "Рицар на огнеборската чест". Захарчук е поканен лично и присъства като почетен гост на коронацията в Лондон на английския крал и император на Британската империя Джордж VI, а кралят на Белгия Леополд III му връчва ордена на Белгийската корона, императорът на Етиопия го моли да организира пожарна на Адис Абеба, но офицерът учтиво отказва.

През 1935 г. въз основа на Закона за общественото подпомагане към МВРНЗ е създаден Централен отряд за първа и бърза помощ с началник Юрий Захарчук. Той се чувства отговорен и се грижи за пожарното дело в цяла България, прави инспекция по покана на Пловдивската община и изготвя доклад-анализ за необходимите действия, които залягат в общинския план, прави и всичко по възможностите си да съдейства на всички български градове. В края на 1935 г. общо в страната пожарникарите достигат внушителния брой от 7638 шлема, колкото сухопътна армейска дивизия. За пръв път се провежда системно тактическо изучаване на обектите и се усъвършенства системата за подаване на команди със звукови сигнали. Сигналите подавани от тръбач при пожар – най-полезното, както и във войската, средство за командна комуникация тогава са регламентирани на около 200. В столицата и в големите градове започва монтирането към градската водопроводна мрежа на пожарни хидранти, чиято охрана е поверена на стражарите. Пресата подробно отразява дейността на пожарникарите и напредъка на пожарното дело. Пожарната охрана се сочи като един от най-добре организираните държавни ресори.

В 1937 г. изискваната от него непартийност на подчинените му е уредена със закон, с който на жените се дават избирателни права, но на абсолютно всички служещи на държавата под пагон – армия, жандармерия, пожарна, полиция и на учениците е забранено да гласуват. Захарчук оглавява и редакционните съвети на сп. "Пожарна охрана" (излиза 1934 – 1940) и на в. "Противо аеропланна и газова защита" (излиза 1943 и 1944 г. през бомбардировките за обучение на гражданското население). В годините на Втората световна войната службата става още по-напрегната, но началникът ѝ е все така неуморен, той спасява София от подпалени от бомбите ешелони на Военна рампа, пълни с експлозиви и муниции, за което незабавно пристигналият на място цар Борис, пренебрегвайки правилата, още там го награждава за втори път с орден "Св. Александър". Царят отдавна и често му гостува, както и останалите от царския дом. Захарчук посреща с най-тържествен парад, изразявайки почитта на българите към новабрачната българска царица Йоана. За да се научат отрано на ред и дисциплина, престолонаследникът Симеон II и сестра му Мария-Луиза са чести гости на Захарчук. За тях столичните пожарникари измайсторяват работещ прототип на мотопомпа и умалени тренировъчни гимнастически уреди. За 21 години ръководство на пожарната служба над него се сменят много правителства, министри и кметове, но не и командирът на столичната и българската пожарна, неизменната респектираща фигура на бял унгарски жребец на парадите на пожарната и войската. Той бързо се превръща в легендарен за гражданите и обичан от подчинените си водач на българската пожарна команда, на когото всички разчитат – от царя до надничаря. По повод Захарчук в-к "Слово" обобщава:"В днешното тежко време всички сме загрижени за бъдещето на нашия народ… Моят отговор е следният: от българина всичко става, зависи от това в какви ръце ще попадне. Всичко става от българина – и най-добро, и най-лошо: зависи от водача. Помислете какво би било, ако начело на главните ресори на нашата държавна машина стоеха хора като инструктора на столичната пожарна команда, класирана като първа в Европа?"

На 8 септември 1944 г. според плана на антихитлеристката коалиция съветски войски нахлуват в България и я окупират, българското правителство обявило същия ден война на Германия е свалено с преврат от просъветски фактори, на другия ден след деветосептемврийския преврат, на 10 септември Захарчук е предупреден от верен войник, че от превратаджиите са пратени въоръжени паравоенни да го арестуват по абсурдната причина, че бил буржоазен пожарникар на починалия български цар. Той аристократично и мъжествено отвръща: "Спокойно! Докато пистолетът е с мен, няма страшно!" Отказвайки малодушно да бяга и да се крие, което противоречи на благородническата му офицерска чест, и добре познавайки на какви издевателства и варварство са способни съветската власт и слугите, поставени от нея, потресен от за втори път застигащия го комунистически терор, той хладнокръвно се застрелва. В предсмъртното си писмо, воден от чистата си съвест, пише: "20 години служих честно на България. В никакви политически работи не съм участвал. Обичам Русия и България. Поздрав на моите другари пожарникарите." Погребан е с голямо преклонение в руския парцел № 91 на Софийските централни гробища в парадна униформа с всичките си ордени и отличия. Двамата му заместници по-късно са разстреляни от комунистите.

Памет
През 1946 г. става факт заветната му мечта – Народното събрание приема готвения още от 1942 г. Закон за противопожарната защита, с който се създават фонд "Противопожарна защита" и Държавно противопожарно училище. През 1951 г. обаче е скалъпен съдебен процес срещу "вражеската група в ППЗ" обвинени, че саботирали властта като гасели пожари, разправата завършва с разстрел на обучените от Захарчук негови другари и бивши заместници – началника на отдел "Противопожарна защита" при МВР Бою Божков, на Иван Дипчиков – първия началник на Държавното пожарно училище и на Иван Удрев – технически директор на предприятие "Щит" за противопожарна техника при МВР, а още шестима пожарникари са осъдени на лишаване от свобода между 12 и 20 години, което добре подсказва и каква би била съдбата на Захарчук, ако бе попаднал в ръцете на режима, установен в 1944 г. след преврата над България, обявен за престъпен от Народното събрание след 1989 г. В 2005 г. Столичната община с Решение № 503 от 14 юли наименува пространството до Дирекцията на пожарната "Площад Юрий Захарчук" и постановява да му се издигне там паметник. На него и делото му са посветени редица публикации, а в 2003 за него е създаден документалният филм "Огън и плам" на режисьора Иван Трайков, номиниран от Съюза на българските филмови дейци за най-добър документален филм за 2000 – 2002 г. В 1999 г. служителите на НСПБЗН – МВР го избират за Пожарникар № 1 на ХХ век и всяка година на Илинден и в деня на пожарникаря 14 септември те, заедно с официални лица, правят тържествено поклонение на гроба му.

Потомство
Неговата дъщеря Алла Захарчук-Герова е утвърден български либретист и съпруга на композитора Найден Геров, който е пряк потомък на именития възрожденец Найден Геров и на братята Евлоги и Христо Георгиеви. Техният син, внукът на Захарчук, е видният български учен в областта на информатиката и математиката от Института по математика и информатика на БАН доц. д-р Александър Геров. Алла Захарчук също така има син от предишен брак – с Леонид Есауленко, чиято втора и четвърта жена е актрисата Таня Масалитинова. Владимир Есауленко (Геров) завършва специалност "Технология на машиностроенето" във ВМЕИ София, но голямата му любов е ветроходството. Национален състезател в клас Фин, в последствие става национален и международен съдия по ветроходство.

Литература
 ЖЕЛЯЗКОВА, Стела. Рицарят // 112, 2004, № 1, с. 21 – 22
 КРУПЕВА, Росица. Кавалер на всички царски отличия // Б ъ л г. корона, № 43, 18 октомври 1996, с. 3
 СТАМЕНОВ, Митре. Захарчук изкачи Софийската пожарна на европейски връх// Дневен труд, 12 септември 2002, № 252, прил. Софиянец, с. 4
 ЦЕНКОВА, Искра. Рицарят на огъня // Тема, V, 2005. № 26, с. 72 – 73

Източници

Български пожарникари
Руски пожарникари
Руски офицери
Родени в Киев
Починали в София
Български самоубийци


text:
Sexual Assault Survivors of UM Doctor Call for Culture Change With New President
Eric Lloyd
UM ANDERSON VSV 1-18-22.00_00_26_11.Still001... (Eric Lloyd)
For nearly two years, survivors and advocates have been calling on the University of Michigan to act and admit to sexual assaults committed by a top doctor at the school, Dr. Robert Anderson.
With the university set to hire a new president, survivors are hoping this is the time for some accountability.
"This is a Dr. Frankenstein and these are the kinds of things that went on that you don't know about because this university will not commit to transparency," said Robert Stone, a survivor, "And the victims are so ashamed and so damaged that they can't talk about them."
Stone was the first to come out against Anderson nearly two years ago. He, like dozens since, claims Anderson sexually abused him. Many of Anderson's survivors were athletes, others like Stone and Keith Moree, were gay students.
"Robert Anderson was a chronic serial sexual predator who exploited any power differential he could find," said Moree, "Many of Anderson's earliest victims at the University of Michigan were gay men, at a time when being outed could have grave consequences."
They say they are still just the tip of the iceberg.
"So many people have come forward and told their stories but many people have not," said Moree, "I know of people who still have not spoken out because of shame and embarrassment."
They say that shame and embarrassment will keep people from speaking up because the university is yet to do anything about it. With the recent scandal and termination of the university's president, Mark Schlissel, Stone and Moree are increasing their pleas.
"It's transparently clear, to anyone who wants to pay attention, that there's no commitment to change," said Stone, "Because the president of the university couldn't stop himself from having his own affair that was against their written rules."
A new president could bring a new insight and new compassion these alums are seeking.
"I think this is an opportunity for the university to really do the right thing," said Moree.
Sexual Assault Survivors of UM Doctor Call for Culture Change With New President Sexual Assault Survivors of UM Doctor Call for Culture Change With New President (Eric Lloyd)
Adult and Teen Killed In Rollover Crash On M-115
Elk Rapids Remembers Longtime Movie Theater Owner
Officials Looking for Missing Woman Last Seen in Prescott Area
Former Gaylord Man Arrested for Multiple Child Sex Crimes

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Art Blog (All Posts)
What Is Installation Art? Description, History, and Prominent Artists
The Cultural Significance of Manga and Anime
Comparing Abstract Expressionism And Pop Art
What Is Street Art? Its History, Definition, Purpose, and Importance
How Georgia O'Keeffe Changed The World
Otaku Subculture History
Nobuyoshi Araki and his Unremitting Lens
Japonisme – The Influence Of Japanese Art On Western Artists
My Top 10 Contemporary Photographers
Lee Jeffries – Portraits of the Homeless
Timothy Hogan – Commercial Photography, or When Art and Commerce Collide
Boogie – Showing The Dark Side of Street Life
Annie Leibovitz – History In The Making
Réhahn Croquevielle – Making It Personal
Joe McNally – Creating Connection
Steve McCurry – Revealing The World's True Colours
Kenzo Tange – Osaka's Pride Shapes The World
Yugoslav Monuments – An Essay on Art and the Rhetoric of Power
The Bauhaus
Le Corbusier – The Picasso of Architecture and his Radiant Cities
Antoni Gaudi – Famous Spanish Architects
Trailblazers & Hellraisers
Groundbreaking Female Artists Through History
The Impressive Doris Salcedo
Amrita Sher Gil – The James Dean Effect
Cindy Sherman – Essay On Her Famous Works
Still Lifes of Suzanne Valadon – Where No "Decent" Woman Would Tread
Niki de Saint Phalle – Ready To Kill
Marina Abramovic – Death Toll Rising
Helen Levitt – Streets of New York
The Enigmatically Intense Lives of Frida Kahlo
Mary Cassatt – Famous Women Artists In History
Louise Bourgeois – Famous Women Artists In History
Artemisia Gentileschi – Famous Women Artists In History
The Life & Art of Judy Chicago
Yayoi Kusama – Polka Dot Madness
Groundbreaking Male Artists Through History
The Dadaistic Life of Max Ernst
We The Degenerates – The Work of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
Henri Cartier-Bresson – Decisive Moments
Gustav Klimt – Appetite for Seduction
Sava Šumanović – A Tragic Painter In A White Suit
Yves Klein – Master of the Color Blue
The Portraits Of Arcimboldo – Strange Amusements Of The Hapsburg Court
Takashi Murakami – Everything's Melting
François-Auguste-René Rodin – Father of Modern Sculpture
Mersad Berber – The Famous Bosnian Artist and his Sacred Themes
Modigliani and La Vie de Bohème
Concerning The Spiritual In Art With Vassily Kandinsky
What Destiny Holds For Painter Ferdinand Hodler
Art Movements & Subcultures
The Rise of Modern Art
The Superflat Art Movement And Its Purposeful Absence Of Depth
Death to Drab – The Wall Murals and Street Art of Belgrade
Naive Art – The Art Of A Brighter Reality
Impressionism – Paving the Way for Modern Art
Petr Pavlensky – Extreme Performance Art
Denouement – Dali Vs Drunken Dirty Hipsters
Postmodernism – An Movement of Cynics
Dark Surrealist Art
Arte Povera – The Movement, The Message
Dadaism – The Negation Of Art At Its Finest
Category: Performance Art
Posted on December 23, 2020 by Ieva Cicirkaite — Leave a comment
Fluxus – When Art Got Cancelled
Fluxus is a global, anti-high-art interdisciplinary art movement that all started in New York in 1960, and was founded by George Maciunas (Jurgis Mačiūnas), who was born in Kaunas, Lithuania, and emigrated with his family to the USA because of the Soviet occupation.
Maciunas has described Fluxus as "a fusion of Spike Jones, gags, games, Vaudeville, Cage, and Duchamp."
"Fluxus", as a word, came from the Latin meaning "floating", giving an impression of something changing and moving, not chained to one spot.
In his manifesto for Fluxus, Maciunas mentions a "purge the world of bourgeois sickness", referring to all that is "intellectual" and lofty in art.
In essence, Fluxus was designed to shake up the art world, since it was determined by its adherents that art had become part of "the Institution" or "the elite", and therefore needed an injection of reality, or "NON ART REALITY" into the mix.
Preceded by Dada and Futurist art movements, Fluxus cast its net even wider, in terms of what it sought out to accomplish, having an even more profound effect on the world.
And, although many high-minded artistes had not, and still to this day perhaps have not accepted or acknowledged the existence of Fluxus as legitimate movement, Fluxus did what it set out to do and more.
Here's a quick video that will introduce you to George, and Fluxus…
Who was a part of the Fluxus movement? You may know some of these names: Yoko Ono, Jonas Mekas, George Brecht, Nam Jun Paik, Wolf Vostell, Dick Higgins, Alison Knowles, Ben Vautier, among others.
According to art historians and those-who-pay-attention, one of the main influencers of the Fluxus movement was a French-American artist Marcel Duchamp. He was known as a conceptual artist and the avant-garde Dada wave in the first half of the 20th century.
He is known by many art students as "the urinal guy", as he was the one that famously called a urinal "Fountain" and signed it with a pseudonym.
How does Duchamp tie in with Fluxus? Well, Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp was a French-American painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, and conceptual art. When he made "Fountain" in 1917, he was on the front lines of avant-garde art, pushing boundaries and enraging critics. But also notice the number of disciplines that Duchamp was involved in, which were many.
This idea of the interdisciplinary avante-garde artist is part of what defined Fluxus artists, decades later. It is true to say that Fluxus artists were all very versatile in terms of their talents, and interests. This is in contrast to artists in days of old, who were usually known to be skilled at one thing and one thing only. To the Fluxus artist, they did not restrict themselves to one medium, and, in fact, many of their works were across multiple disciplines.
New York Avant-Garde Pre-Fluxus
At the beginning of the 1960's, before Fluxus was officially created or defined in any way as a movement, the art world of New York was popping with various avant-garde performances, Chambers Street loft concerts, readings, or happenings.
Here such artists as Japanese Toshi Ichiyanagi and Yoko Ono or Mac Low and Dick Higgins, as well as George Maciunas himself had performed on various events that had a strong influence on Fluxus later on, borrowing from the Dadaists of the '20's and '30's.
Next to these performances, artists created their art in physical forms that were becoming increasingly unique, and one of the most known examples of it was "Fluxus boxes".
It was a real box filled with different things such as game cards, matches, letters, etc.
One of the main ideas that Fluxus was representing, is that the artists combined different materials and media and wanted to see what you can create, making the observer now become part of the art, and, in effect, become an artist themselves.
Also, it's worth mentioning that the humor factor was very important to Fluxus artists, and looking at the art itself with a little bit of sarcasm was a must. Humor was always considered a quality that art should not portray, but with Fluxus, humor was definitely a part of the "game".
Next stop: Europe
Meanwhile, as avant-garde events took place in New York, George Maciunas took a job as a graphic designer for the US Air Force base in Wiesbaden, Germany because he was running out of money. Ah, that artist life!
And, although the creator of Fluxus had flown the coop, so to speak, Fluxus itself did not die in New York, nor did it arrive D.O.A. in Europe.
Maciunas created the first Fluxus festival in Germany, during which various performances and concerts were happening to grow the Fluxus movement.
One of the most scandalous performances was when Maciunas together with his friends Emmett Williams, Dick Higgins, and others created an interpretation of famous American musician, Philip Corner's piano by totally destroying it.
It became so popular in Germany and Europe, that it got a lot of media attention and helped to spread the name of Fluxus around the world.
Coming Home and Getting Married
George Maciunas was definitely one of the most iconic figures of Fluxus. His weird, expressive, and unique ideas sparked the avant-garde art wave and gave a new way to look at what art is and what it is used for.
Even though he died at a young age, right before his death, he had created probably one of the most spectacular events not only of Fluxus, but his own life too.
He married the poet Billie Hutching, who also was his close friend, on February 25, 1978, in SoHo, New York.
The wedding was done in Fluxus style, because, after the official ceremony, they made an official Fluxus ceremony which was filmed by their friend and video artist Dimitri Devyatkin.
During this performance, the couple exchanged their wedding clothes. This act showed that even something as sacred as a marriage can be turned on its head, and it was probably one of Maciunas's victories against traditionalism itself.
More About Fluxus Avant-Garde Movement
Categories: Art History, Avant Garde, Installation Art, Performance Art
Posted on May 13, 2020 May 13, 2020 by Ieva Cicirkaite — Leave a comment
What is a Flashmob? History and Meaning Behind the Movement
Historically speaking, the word "mob" has been associated with acts of violence, or at the very least, social upheaval.
You've probably heard of an "angry mob" before, in reference to a group of angry people toting pitchforks and torches, usually motivated to march based on some socio-political injustice or another, perceived or real.
A "flashmob" is essentially a reclamation of the term "mob" by putting a much more positive spin on it in the form of performance art.
Generally speaking, a "flashmob" is a gathering of a certain number of people that takes place in a public space that happens seemingly mysteriously and lasts for ten minutes or perhaps less, with the intention of surprising, delighting, and sometimes confusing onlookers.
These gatherings came to be popular as the age of social media and smart technology grew, allowing for people to more easily connect, and more easily organize such a spontaneous and exciting event as a flashmob by way of Facebook group, or a flurry of texts.
During flashmobs, people dance, sing or just freeze in place, not moving for a couple of minutes. As such, flash mobs do have some connection to the idea of musical theatre, in their exuberance and choreography.
This gives the general impression to anyone watching that these flash-mobbers showed up out of nowhere, almost like magic, and then disappear without any trace.
Flash mobs can be for artistic sake, for fun, or they can be for the purpose of advertising some event or product. They can even be political.
Generally, however, flashmobs capture the spirit of fun in any populated location and change the whole atmosphere of that place, which may otherwise be mundane, into something exciting and unifying.
Here is an example of a flashmob in action.
Officially, the first known flashmob happened in 2003, when a senior editor of Harper's Magazine – Bill Wasik – anonymously organized one in Manhattan, New York.
Here is Bill speaking on his idea of what flashmobs are all about.
That first Manhattan flashmob turned out to be a well-executed event, that attracted participants to come before any action occurred to a few different bars, located near the place where the flashmob occurred, where they got more information about what to do just before the start of an event.
Around 130 people spread through the Macy's store by looking for a "love rug" for their suburban commune.
According to Wasik, he just wanted to create a type of social experiment that lampooned the next "hot new thing", in a very American way of always looking for the next big event or cultural change.
As a result, flashmobs became a rather powerful for people in the US because the tradition of public space in the country was seeming to be lost, and, if nothing else, flashmobs expressed a way to reclaim public space, if only for a short time. In some ways, this could seen as a "fight the power", "stick it to the man", anti-corporate move.
Here is a popular flashmob production that has made the rounds on Youtube – maybe you've seen this.
While this flashmob happened outside, and has been inspiring people since it was performed and uploaded, many flashmobs occur indoors.
As you know if you are from an urban area, cities are known for their many shopping malls, where modern consumer people spend their leisure time. To some, this is fine, and acceptable, while others take some issue with the concept of malls in one way or another, with one major reason being that a mall is a "public space" that is not actually public, and very limited in terms of how one might express themselves there. It is typically not a place to be "free".
For example if you were to try to express yourself in that public space, you would realize very quickly how non-public that space actually is. In fact, it is completely corporate and under strict control.
Yet, at the same time as a mall is a very controlled place, it in and of itself has the perfect characteristics to become a stage for performers to perform in. The only problem is that malls typically do not allow for performances of dancing and music to just suddenly appear. This is where flashmobs come into play.
Back in 2003, Bill Wasik was interested in what you can and can not do in regular public spaces in this day and age. He organized eight flashmobs that summer and what was astonished to find that by the end of that summer, the idea of flashmobs spread not only through the whole country, but abroad too!
Bill Wasik's initiative evolved into something that he couldn't control anymore – the cat was out of the bag, so to speak! – and so then transformed him into an observer of subsequent flashmobs.
Flashmobs in Advertising
After that fateful summer of 2003, the idea of flashmobs via the internet has spread throughout the whole world, becoming a true viral sensation.
What began partly as a bit of a prank and partly as a social experiment in New York City had now become part of popular culture, and the idea was being related via the internet and word of mouth, becoming a "thing", as it were.
From school performances to political protests to advertising and promotional events – flashmobs as a creative way to express people's ideas have become popular all around the globe.
One of the main reasons why flashmobs become popular around the world is that they are unexpected and catchy. It affects the viewer in a positive way – he becomes not only an observer but also a participant too.
Because of the flashmob's tendency to be quite memorable due to their surprising nature, they are a great way to promote something in advertising.
T-Mobile, a german communications company supported a flashmob that took place in Liverpool Street Station in 2009.
Suddenly people from the crowd started to dance to popular music hits by involving more and more people. It brought joy for people and was a unique way to promote a company's brand.
Train stations are also very suitable places for flashmobs because they are spacious and always have an audience. Another huge flashmob was created the same year, 2009, this time in Antwerp, Belgium central station when 200 people danced according to legendary musical "The Sound of Music" song "Do Re Mi". This performance succeeded and became very popular on the internet.
In 2013 April in a shopping mall of Breda, Netherlands the famous painting of Rembrandt The Night Watch was recreated of a theatrical action of people dressed in 17th-century clothes. The main idea was to announce that Rijksmuseum, a Dutch national museum in Amsterdam is reopening after 10 years of renovation.
What started as a social experiment later become an important tool to express social, political, and cultural ideas, and gave an opportunity to everyone who is interested to participate in this vital global movement.
Flashmob as a political act
Since flash mobs had spread through different countries, various initiatives took the idea and used it for their purposes.
In 2013 Members of the European Parliament together with an activist Eve Ensler initiated a flash mob, which was dedicated to ending violence against women. This particular flashmob encouraged others to organize flash mobs not only in Brussels but in other places too.
Another famous flashmob also appeared in 2015 in Kyiv, when a crowd of Ukrainian people together at the same moment fall down and lay on the ground for one minute.
The idea was to show how many people suffer and died during the Ukraine-Russia conflict. Both countries are still participating in the military actions against each other, so peaceful reflection of those events could send a very powerful message to the world.
In 2019, during the protests in Hong Kong, demonstrators used a flashmob technique – they popped in different locations in small groups because that allowed them to disappear quickly when police came to act against the protesters. They also made flashmobs during which they sang symbolic resistance songs.
Thank you for reading this article about flashmobs. If you have seen or been a part of any flashmobs and you'd like to share your experience, please mention it in the comments below.
What is Yarn Bombing? About the Guerrilla Knitting Art Movement
Categories: Modern Art, Multimedia Artists, Performance Art, Post Expressionism
Posted on January 10, 2018 September 8, 2018 by theartist — Leave a comment
"I think that would have discredited everything I'd done before, if at the first sign of danger I'd gone into hiding. So I decided to take a position of strength, because there is nothing to be afraid of.
You can be afraid if you feel you are guilty of something and I don't. Anything the authorities do against me means discrediting themselves. The more they do with me, the worse they make it for themselves."
Saint Petersburg native Petr Pavlensky has already made a name for himself as one of the most intriguing figures on the contemporary Russian art scene, and, at the same time, as one of the most well-known performance artists in the world.
Pavlensky fuses risque performance with a deep disdain for the current political environment in Russia, attracting international attention.
His works have a real social impact; he definitely played a significant role in addressing the cases of human rights violation in contemporary Russia.
What remains controversial is the way the artist explores the boundaries of the body and its resistance to pain in his works.
Concerning Pavlensky's private life, there are not too many pieces of information that are available to the public or the artist himself desires to make his work speak for him.
Pyotr Pavlenskiy was born on the 8th of March 1984 in Leningrad in Russia. He attended at Saint Petersburg Art and Industry Academy for studying monumental art, which he described as a 'disciplinary institution that aims to make servants out of artists'.
He also took training at St Petersburg Pro Arte Foundation for Culture and Art during his fourth year at the Academy.
In 2012, Pavlensky and his colleague Oksana Shalygina founded Political Propaganda, an independent online newspaper which dedicates its efforts to analyzing contemporary art in political contexts 'overcoming cultural chauvinism, implemented by government' , gender equality and feminism.
In 2013, the publication is awarded the Alternative Prize for Russian Activist Art.
Aside from exposing control and repression in Russia, Petr Pavlensky also talks about more universal issues: how the body is simultaneously socialized and objectified and whose biological survival is completely dependent on others.
Since 2012, he has carried out several public actions, now well- known in the world.
Petr Pavlensky became noticed for sewing his mouth shut as a sign of protest against the imprisonment of the Pussy Riot, a Russian feminist punk rock band.
It was the artist's first extreme performance came in 2012 on July 23. Pavlensky appeared at Kazan Sabor in St.Petersburg, holding a banner that stated: 'Action of Pussy Riot was a replica of the famous action of Jesus Christ' (Mattew: 21:12-13)'; his lips was sewed up.
Pavlensky's photo taken during this protest for Pussy Riot took the world by the storm. He became a symbol of fighting against political repression.
However, it was a troublesome situation with police and Pavlensky was taken to a mental institution for a psychiatric examination.
Ultimately deemed as sane person, he was released soon after 'the public incident'. The focal point of the radical protest was highlighting the lack of regard for artist in Russia.
According to Pavlensky's own words, his intention was not to surprise anyone or came up with something unusual, but he felt that he had to make a gesture that would accurately reflect his situation.
To The Extreme
One of the most extreme performances that Petr put into action is The Carcass from 2013 (May 3).
It was another political protest against repressive government policies. In this very performance, he had assistants who brought him naked and wrapped in a cocoon of barbed wire, placing him in front of the Legislative Assembly of Saint Petersburg's main entrance.
Lying still in a half-bent position, the artist remained silent; he did not react to anything around him remaining in that state until the police came and freed him from the barbed wire's grasp.
Petr Pavlensky later explained the meaning behind The Carcass: the human body is naked like carcass; there is nothing on it except the barbed wire which was invented for protection of livestock.
These laws, like the wire, keep people in individual pens; the metaphor of the action had its immediate realization in the reality: as soon as the barbed wire was cut off, and the artist was freed from it, the same wire wrapped him back in with police, ambulances and numerous field investigators.
All this has been done in order to turn people into gutless and securely guarded cattle, which can only consume, work and reproduce.
The arguably most notorious performance piece by Pavlensky came on November 10, 2013.
While sitting naked on the stone pavement in front of the Lenin's Mausoleum on the Red Square, the artist hammered a large nail through his scrotum affixing it to the street. The timing was intentionally decided- the protest coincided with the Russian Police Day.
The idea for this very action came when the artist was briefly held in a cell after the Carcass stunt. A fellow prisoner regaled him with stories of the Gulag, where prisoners had sometimes nailed their scrotums to trees in an act of protest at the inhumane conditions and miserable existence.
The artist said his action titled Fixation was a metaphor for the apathy, political indifference and fatalism of modern Russian society. Pavlensky had a blanket thrown over him by the confused police officers and was eventually detached from the stones and taken to hospital.
He was discharged that evening, and released by the police without charge- only for them to open case of 'hooliganism motivated by hatred of a particular social, ethnic or religious group' a few days later.
It is the same article of the law that was used against Pussy Riot and can carry a jail sentence of several years.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giFkin-0hPI
The Segregation, Freedom, Burning Door
The Segregation from October, 19, 2014, the same year was directed against political use of mental illnesses and against putting political prisoners into mental institutions.
While sitting totally naked on the roof of the infamous Serbian Center, where various experiments on political prisoners falsely diagnosed with mental illness took place, Pavlensky cut off his earlobe with a chef's knife.
On February 23, 2014, the artist organized protest supporting the Ukrainian Revolution; the action was named Freedom.
Pavlensky along with his friend built an imitation barricade on Tripartite Bridge in Saint Petersburg and burned it down, beat drums and shouting Maidan slogans.
The performance was interrupted by Saint Petersburg police and the group was arrested; they were held for two days until the administrative case against Pavlensky and his assistants was dropped.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSwNo4gqL3w
On the night of November, 9, 2015, The Lubyanka's Burning Door was happened; artist doused the front door of the Lubyanka Building with gasoline and set fire to it with a cigarette lighter.
The Lubyanka Building is known as the headquarters of the Russian Federal Security Service. The Lubyanka's Burning Door was the reason behind Pavlensky's arrest and the most serious charge he ever stood against.
He was charged with vandalism and debauchery. Simultaneously, a video appeared on the Internet with an explanation of the meaning of the event: Pavlensky chose Lubyanka as a symbol of political oppression in Russia.
It was a place where victims of the Stalinist purges were tortured in the 1930s, among other things.
The next day, the artist asked to reclassify his crime as an act of terrorism, which was opposed by his defendant who claimed that as a lawyer she could not ask for a more severe punishment for her client.
Pavlensky was charged with a half million Ruble fine, officially for destroying 'the national heritage' which was nonsense considering the doors were new. Once again, he exposed the court and authorities' helplessness against political crimes and manifestations which they fear most.
Marat Guelman, an influential critic and gallery owner called Pavlensky's act 'the artistic equivalent of setting yourself on fire'. He said it was a gesture of hopelessness and desperation.
We all more or less share this position; people have been forced into a corner- the choice is between leaving, going to prison or joining up with those in power.
In Pavlensky's mind, his actions are less a helpless cry of anguish than an aggressive statement of defiance. His performances are not only a protest against the system, but also a protest against people's apathy.
Escaping the long arm of Russian justice by going on the run was never an option for Pavlensky.
The same impulse informs his art. Whenever he does a performance, he never leaves a place. The authorities are in a dead-end situation and don't know what to do; they can't do anything with a man inside barbed wire.
Eventually, Pavlensky was made to go into exile in France due to the still unproven rape allegation.
Protest Art
Petr Pavlensky takes inspiration from a long line of Russian protests, especially the 'Moscow activism' school of the 1990s and the protest group Voina, who were known for their outrageous activist art.
Voina's performances included staging a mass orgy inside Moscow's biological museum the day before the election of Dmitry Medvedev as president in 2008, under a banner: 'Fuck for the teddy bear heir'.
Two of the original Voina artists formed the punk collective Pussy Riot who with their art, activism and mix of music also chose Red Square for one of their first performances, in 2011.
Afterwards, Pussy Riot would stage their fateful action in the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, which would see three of them stand trial for 'hooliganism motivated by religious hatred'.
According to his words, this trial affected Pavlensky more than many things in his own life and he began understanding the need for a more radical approach to art.
Pavlensky's unusually painful brand of art comes from an imperative impulse toward radicalism.
The very important step for him was to understand what happens when a person becomes an artist, when a person becomes stronger than their indifference and overcomes their inertia.
He states an artist has no right to take a stand; the artist cannot exist just be isolated and contemplative.
Could we ever draw a line between productive artistic aggression and simply going too far? How extreme is too extreme?
Pavlensky's methods can be objected to due to their drastic form, but it can be denied that they touch political problems in a unique way, paying attention to an individual body's specific vulnerability to power.
These are the arrests, court trials and imprisonments which are the artist's target, and the bodily harm is mostly means to an end, not an end in itself.
The artist explores why symbolic self-harm in public is so feared by the authorities who on everyday basis tolerate much more disturbing examples of pathology and cruelty.
Posted on September 12, 2017 September 9, 2018 by theartist — Leave a comment
"Once, Picasso was asked what his painting meant. He said, 'Do you ever know what the birds are singing? You don't. But you listen to them anyway.' So, sometimes with art, it is important just to look."
Towards the late 1950's, Abstract expressionism began losing impetus, and many artists across the world, especially in America and Europe, embraced performance art. In that context, Marina Abramovic's work is typical of the ritualistic strain in the 1960's performance art, and very often involves putting herself in grave danger and performing lengthy, harmful routine that result in her being burnt or cut, or enduring some privation.
Her work might be interpreted as having displaced art from traditional media, as she moved it straight onto her body.
Marina Abramovic was born on November, 30, 1946 in Belgrade, the capital of what was than Yugoslavia to an affluent family with politically active parents. Vojin and Danica Abramovic were Yugoslav partisans during World War II, and continue their engagement in General Tito's communist party.
They were awarded high positions in the public sector for their contribution during the war; her mother became head of the Museum of Art and the Revolution in Belgrade, and her father worked with state security and was in the Marshal's elite guard.
Marina's relations with her mother were always fought. Her mother took strict control of eighteens-years-old Marina and her younger brother Velimir; under her mother's strict supervision, she experienced life as difficult and cold. Although her mother was traditional, difficult and sometimes violent, she supported her daughter's interest in art, encouraging her to express herself creatively through drawing and painting and at twelve was given her own studio at home.
Marina, Age 5, Belgrade
Body Art & The Rhythm Series
Marina studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Belgrade, from 1965 to 1970; during this period her earlier figurative expressions became increasingly abstract. During her further studies at Krsto Hegedusic's studio and at Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb, from 1970 to 1973, she began to use her body as a tool in her art, creating performative art pieces, creating sound installations, but moving towards works that directly involved the body.
In this period Abramovic spent most of her time at the SKC, Studentski Kulturni Centar, a cultural center in Belgrade, where she met young conceptual artists such as Rasa Popovic, Nesa Paripovic and Rasa Teodosijevic.
In 1973, Abramovic met the artist Joseph Beuys in Edinburgh and later that year at the Cultural Center in Belgrade. His happenings made a strong impression on Marina and greatly influenced her work. The same year, she enacted the performance piece Rhythm 10 at Vila Borghese, Museo d'Arte Contemporanea in Rome.
This piece is the first of the five performances in The Rhythm Series, in which she explored the limits of her body and consciousness.
On the Rhythm 10, she used a series of 20 knives to stab at the spaces between her outstretched fingers. In the process, every time she pierced her skin, she used another knife from those carefully laid out in front of her.
Halfway through, she began to play a recording of the first-half of the hour long performance, using the rhythmic beat of the knives striking the floor, and her hand, to repeat the movements, cutting herself at the same time.
She understood that drawing on the audience's energy drove her performance, which was marked in this piece, and this aspect became an important concept informing much of her later work.
Viewing both performance and art as reaching beyond the realm of awareness, Marina has created performances in which she sleeps or becomes drugged into unconsciousness to examine this aspect of life; she used performance to push her mental and physical limits beyond consciousness.
For instance, in Rhythm 5, 1974, she created a star shape with wood shavings covered in gasoline and lit the wood on fire. After cutting her hair and nails and than dropping them into the fire, she lay down within the burning star, a symbol of Communism in Yugoslavia, as well as a symbol of the occult.
During this performance, audience members realized her clothes were on fire and she had lost her consciousness due to the lack of oxygen they pulled her out, and the performance was ended.
Pushing the limits further, in the performance piece entitled Rhythm 0, with a description reading 'During this period I take full responsibility' and 'I am the object' Marina invited participants to use any of 72 objects on her body in any way, they desired, completely giving up control.
Those 72 objects included a feather, pen, saw, lipsticks, book, band-aid, rose, salt, gun, paint, bullet, scissors etc. The audience divided itself into those who tried to protect her wiping away her tears, and those who sought to harm Abramovic, holding the loaded gun to her head, and.
Eventually, after she stood motionless for six hours, the protective audience participants insisted the performance be stopped, seeing that others were becoming extremely violent.
This piece was an example of Abramovic's belief that confronting exhaustion and physical pain was important in making a person absolutely present and aware of her/his self. The work is also reflected her intention to include the spectators in the process; her interest in performance art was to transform both the performer and the audience, as the participants in the show.
She said that the inspiration for such work came from both her experience of growing up under Tito's Communist dictatorship, and of her relationship with her mother. Her work in Yugoslavia was much about rebellion, not against just the family structure but the social structure and the structure of the system there; she was trying to overcome these kinds of limits.
1975 and on
These pioneering works were created at the time when performance art was still a new emerging art form in Europe, and she had little knowledge of performance being outside Yugoslavia.
In 1975, in Amsterdam, Abramovic met the German-born artist Frank Uwe Laysiepen, known as Ulay. He was a son of a Nazi soldier, born in 1943, in a bomb shelter in Solingen, an industrial city in Westphalia, Germany.
By fifteen, he had been orphaned, and was fending for himself. Marina met him on November, 30th in 1975 in Amsterdam and their chemistry was immediate. According to her words, when she back to Belgrade, she got so lovesick that she couldn't move or talk.
At the time, she was married to a former fellow-student from the Belgrade Academy of Fine Arts, but it was an oddly slack union; both spouses still lived with their parents. A few months later, Marina ran away in Amsterdam, at twenty-nine, to rejoin Ulay, her soul mate.
Ulay and Abramovic made art for twelve nomadic years, from 1976 to 1988, the two were artistic collaborations and lovers. Amsterdam was their base, but their home on the road, on Europe was a black Citroën van, which figured in their symbiotic work in performance of ideal couplehood.
They also lived in India's Tibetan Buddhist monasteries, and with Australian Aborigines, and spending some time in Sahara, Gobi and Thar deserts.
They performed their works in gallery spaces, mostly in Europe; some of their best known works included Imponderabilia, from 1977; it included a naked couple planted like caryatids on either side of a narrow doorway at the entrance to a gallery, they backs to a frame.
Everyone who entered had to sidle past them, deciding which body to face.
Also, Breathing in/ Breathing out, 1977, in which they inhaled and exhaled from each other mouths until they almost suffocated. The performance named Rest Energy, from 1980, a highly intense piece that revealed the fragility of the line between death and life; it was only four minutes and ten seconds long.
Ulay and Abramovic faced each other, aiming an arrow a tense bow, just inches from her heart. They placed small microphones on their chests in order to make audible their increasingly rapid heartbeats in response to the growing danger.
Opposite Directions
When Marina and Ulay decided to end their relationship, they embarked on their last performance on March, 30, 1988, The Lovers; the walking along the Great Wall of China. Abramovic walked from the Shanhai Pass at the wall's east end, Ulay walked in a opposite direction, from the wall's western end near the Gobi Desert. After ninety days, they met and reunion marked a definitive end to their romantic relationship, as well as the twelve-year long artistic collaboration.
Their union was much battered and repaired, though it ultimately couldn't survive the demands of such intense proximity or a discrepancy in ambition.
Since that point, they have had very little contact with each other, both proceeding independently with their own artistic career.
Marina returned to independent work and making it both solo as well as with artistic collaborators. In this period, she worked increasingly with video and sculpture; Transitory Objects for Human and Non-Human Use, which comprise objects meant to incite audience interaction and participation.
Blood and Bones
During the 1990s as a respectable performance artist Marina Abramovic taught at the Academie des Beaux-Arts in Paris, the Hochschule der Kunste in Berlin, as well as Hochschule fur Bildende Kunste in Hamburg and at the Hochschule fur Bildende Kunste in Braunschweig in Germany.
In 1997, Abramovic was invited to represent Serbia and Montenegro at the Yugoslavian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. But, she broke off the collaboration after a conflict with the Montenegrin minister of culture. However, the performance piece Balkan Baroque was shown instead at the Italian pavilion, where it caused a stir.
She was awarded the Golden Lion prize for Best Artist of the Biennale.
The Balkan Baroque piece was created in response to the innumerable deaths that had taken place in the former Yugoslavia. In this performance, Marina spent four days, six hours a day, sitting on top of 1,500 cow bones in a white dress, washing each of these bloody bones, surrounded by projected images of her parents and herself.
The accompanying sound included her recorded description of methods used in Balkans for killing rats and her singing of her native folksongs. The performance progression was made visceral due to the fetid smell and unbearable heat of the basement room.
For the artist, it was not enough to simply recount the number of people lost in modern-day wars in Balkans. She aimed to remember the lives, hopes and efforts of individuals killed by carefully touching and cleaning 'their' physical blood and bones.
The comparison between the inability to scrub all the blood and the inability to erase the shame of was is a concept that Abramovic viewed as having universal reach.
Butcher Knives Ladder
In the early 1970s, while many artists made very little effort to capture, or document, their performances on video. They felt that the true performance could never be repeated.Marina Abramovic has since argued for the importance of continuing the life of performance art works through re-performance; the only real way to document a performance art piece is to re-perform the piece itself.
In 2002, in The House with the Ocean View, Abramovic spent twelve days in the Sean Kelly Gallery without speaking, eating and writing. Contained within three so called rooms built six feet off the ground, she slept, urinated, drank water, showered and gazed at the spectators wearing a differently colored outfit each day.
She could walk between the rooms, but the ladders leading to the floor had rungs made of butcher knives. In this performance, Marina ritualized the activities of daily life, focusing on the self and simplicity while eliminating all aspects of dialogue and narrative.
She stated that she saw this piece as an act of purification- for her, but also for any viewer who entered the space. Additionally, the piece was a shift from the masochism of her earlier works to performances that focus on ideas of presence and interaction, although there is still the element of danger (present in the butcher knives ladder).
One of the key figures of performance art, Marina Abramovic was part of the earliest experiments in this media, and nowadays, she is one of the few pioneers of the generation still creating and working in this field.
She has been, and continues to be, an essential influence for performance artists and contemporary art in general, making work over the last several decades, especially for works that challenge the mind and the limits of the body.
Abramovic's feminism has always been a mythical rather than a political; her confrontation with the physical and self and the primary role given to the body, a female body have helped shape the direction of Feminist art in the second half of the 20th century, especially in the 1990's.
In 2010 the MoMa in New York City held a wide-ranging retrospective of Abramovic's work, The Artist is Present. From opening time to closing, eight to ten hours a day, and for seventy-seven days, she sat immobile at a bare wooden table, gazing into space. Members of the audience participated by sitting in a chair opposite Abramovic's; her intention was emotional connection with anyone who wanted to look at her however long.
It was an experiment that had never been tried before; The Artist is Present is the longest durational work ever mounted in a museum.
In order to give new life to older performance work, both, hers and the works of others artists, Abramovic create the Marina Abramovic Institute for Preservation of Performance Art, opened in 2012, in Hudson, New York.
As a non-profit organization, the Institute supports teaching, preserving and founding performance art, ensuring legacy for performance art and for the ephemeral art itself.
Categories: Abstract Art, Expressionism, Famous Women Artists In History, Multimedia Artists, Multimedia Works, Performance Art, Pop Art, Postmodernism, Sculpture
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© David Charles Fox 2021


text:
(3152) Jones (1983 LF) – planetoida z pasa głównego asteroid okrążająca Słońce w ciągu 4,26 lat w średniej odległości 2,63 au. Odkryta 7 czerwca 1983 roku.

Zobacz też
 lista planetoid 3001–4000
 lista ponumerowanych planetoid

Linki zewnętrzne

Planetoidy pasa głównego
Nazwane planetoidy
Obiekty astronomiczne odkryte w 1983

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


hardtobelieve.me 9 out of 10 based on 666 ratings. 3,879 user reviews.
Mobile users click here for diagram. Removall. Remove the engine cooling fan and the shroud. Rotate the tensioner pulley clockwise and remove belt.Inspect all of the pulleys and make sure non of them are damaged and are free of any debris.
Pregnancy and delivery periods offer an opportunity for counselling women to improve behavioural risk and prevent complications, including non communicable diseases (NCDs).


When used in conjunction with original BAUER filter cartridges, the P 61 filter system with additional oil and water separator and pressure retention check valve can be relied upon for breathing air treatment conforming to DIN EN 12021¹. A type-tested and sealed final pressure safety valve enables particularly high levels of operational safety to be achieved. 2400 m³ of air can be treated.


text:
Shindig returns to Thompson House after 125 years
Locations: News Published Aug. 6, 2014
Historic tours, music, BBQ and more
By Lynn Burton
Sopris Sun Staff Writer
Here is how an 1889 Aspen Weekly Times article covered what might have been Carbondale's last official "shindig." The headline read "An Old Time Shindig," with a "Special correspondence" byline and "Carbondale, Jan. 26" dateline. The article read:
Last night the social hop given at their pleasant home by Mr. and Mrs. Oscar Holland proved to be one of the most successful social events of the season. The dancing hall was beautifully wreathed in evergreens. The entertaining couple proved to be adepts (sic). The supper was superb, with all the delicacies from home and abroad. Davis Harris's string band furnished the music. Dancing continued until six in the morning, when breakfast was served, after which the finishing dances were had.
Among those in attendance were:
Mr. and Mrs. Chas. Fravert, Mr. and Mrs. Alex Thompson, Mr. and Mrs. E.D. Hill, Mr. and Mrs. Chas. Sewell, Mr. and Mrs. Oscar Holland, Mr. and Mrs. Wm. Campbell, Mr. and Mrs. Geo. Alcorn, Mr. and Mrs. M.H. Dean, Mrs. Rogers and Mrs. Harris; Young ladies: Nellie Alexander, Cora Camp, Edna Denmark, Bertha Perham, Jennie Wald, Lottie Thompson, Norise Moriarity, Nevad Alexander, Lura Tucker, Mabel Nurnberg, Lizzie Woodward, Anna Wald, Verne Cox, Sadie Nicols, Allie Barber.
Although not acknowledged in the article, Hattie's great-nephew, Lew Ron Thompson, is confident that young men also attended the party. "She (Hattie) was a matchmaker," Thompson told The Sopris Sun last Saturday, while he and Mt. Sopris Historical Society Director Beth White spruced up the 129-year-old brick house for this Saturday's official Shindig. "That's one reason they had these parties."
The Mt. Sopris Historical Society's inaugural Shindig takes place at the Thompson House Museum from 6 to 9 p.m. on Aug. 9.
A partier from 1889 would probably feel comfortable at the 2014 Shindig. Thompson will start a fire early on Saturday in a brick-lined pit on the grounds, then load in plenty of beef, cover the pit with its heavy steel top, then spread sand on top – just like pit barbecue was cooked in the Old West. With the sand sealing the pit, the fire soon goes out but the heat is retained, which cooks the beef (or whatever else is in here) "just right."
The Thompson House lawn, kept alive and thriving with untreated irrigation ditch water, is thick and green, and probably looks much like it would have when Oscar, Hattie, their family and friends walked on it 125 years ago. At Saturday's Shindig, there'll be lawn games and tents in case it rains. Much of the property's original wrought iron fence still rings the property. The stage will be set up in the northwest corner of the lawn, just this side of the fence, with tables in front of that. The musical lineup features Steve Skinner & the Thompson Dividers, the Carbondale Rhythm Collective, Valle Musico, Sharon Young and Dory Light, and Jack Lanning.
Throughout the evening, Bill Kight will stroll the grounds as Jasper Ward, a Colorado pioneer who moved to the state as a freighter, then went on to become a town marshal in Tincup, saloon owner and preacher, and in there somewhere became the first settler in what is now the New Castle area. On stage at 8 p.m., Kight will tell Ward's story the way that Ward himself would tell it.
Throughout the evening, the MSHS will conduct guided tours of the downstairs and upstairs of the historic Thompson House. The home's furnishings are original to the house and many date back to the time of its construction. On the back porch, there's even what was back then a new-fangled device – a washing machine.
After Oscar's death in 1920, Hattie continued to run Pleasant View Ranch, which covered more than 1,000 acres of what is now River Valley Ranch and parts of south Carbondale. She also traveled the world and brought home many treasures. To honor Hattie and Carbondale-area women, the MSHS will also present its inaugural Hattie Thompson award to a recipient who embodies her spirit.
The Thompson House Museum is technically located at 633 North Bridge Dr. at the north end of River Valley Ranch. The driveway is located immediately west of the River Valley Ranch tennis courts parking lot.
What: The Shindig
When: 6 to 9 p.m. on Aug. 9
Where: Thompson House Museum
How much: tickets are $75 each at 963-7041 or at the Pour House on Main Street.


text:
Bashkim Shehu (Tirana, Albània, 1955) és un escriptor i traductor albanès. Ha escrit més d'una dotzena de llibres de narrativa llarga i breu. Alguns d'aquests llibres estan traduïts de l'albanès (llengua materna, en la qual aquest autor escriu) a diversos idiomes. En català està traduïda la seva novel·la L'últim viatge d'Ago Ymeri (Barcelona: Editorial Meteora, 2001), en paral·lel amb la publicació en castellà.
El seu treball en diverses claus estilístiques com a escriptor l'ha ajudat en la feina de traducció literària (ficció narrativa), a la qual s'ha dedicat cada vegada més els últims anys, després d'una experiència de traducció de llibres de filosofia, ciència social i ciència política. A part del català, és traductor d'anglès, francès i castellà. Ha traduït recentment a l'albanès la novel·la Senyoria, de Jaume Cabré, i actualment està treballant en la traducció de Maletes perdudes, de Jordi Puntí.
Ha rebut diversos premis a Albània per la seva obra literària, i un premi per la millor traducció de l'any en albanès, del llibre de Karl Wittfogel Oriental Despotism (2001). La seva novel·la Angelus Novus va ser finalista del premi Balcans pel llibre de l'any dels Balcans el 2008.
Viu a Catalunya des de 1997, quan va ser acollit per la ciutat de Barcelona en el marc del programa Ciutats Refugi, del Parlament Internacional d'Escriptors. Va treballar per al PIE entre 1998 i 2000. Des del 2001 treballa com a assessor del director del CCCB.

Referències

Traductors del català
Alumnes de la Universitat de Tirana
Persones de Tirana


text:
Q: I just found an awesome bug! When previewing a newsletter, the links at the very bottom point to something epic:

I get that it's a placeholder link, but the "visiting your subscriptions page" and "unsubscribe from all stackexchange.com emails" links can probably be set straight.
That is, of course, unless this is what is actually being emailed out — that'd take it to a whole new level of epic!

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Jamal is working on HI-AWARE Research Component 3 which focuses on the monitoring and assessment of climate change adaptation practices. His research is titled, "Hydrological Response to Climate Change on the Hunza River Basin, and Adaptation Strategies".
Jamal completed his Bachelor's degree from Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan, Pakistan. During this time he received a certificate in ArcGIS and hydrological modelling from the Pakistan Meteorological Department, Islamabad. He has attended several international training workshops related to his research interest: water security and climate change.
Maria Javed, MSc in Water Resources Engineering and Management, NUST Institute of Civil Engineering, National University of Sciences and Technology, Islamabad, Pakistan.
Pokharel wants to focus her research on HI-AWARE's Research Component 3, which is related to the monitoring and assessment of climate change adaptation practices. She wants to work at the community level, analysing socio-economic aspects and the livelihoods of people through the perspective of gender. Her research interests are climate change vulnerability, mitigation and adaptation, and water-induced disasters.
She recently conducted case studies on: 1) water demand, availability and water related issues in Goljung VDC, Rasuwa, and 2) an overview of agriculture in Goljung. She is a core committee member of Community for Environment Conservation, and has participated in "Awareness on Improved Cooking Stove Installation", in Baigundhura VDC and Tophgachi VDC of Eastern Nepal. Her hobbies include reading books, writing articles and poems, photography, visiting new places and hiking.
Pradhan completed her Bachelor's in Environmental Science. She has keen interests in water issues, adaptation and resilience. To date, she has carried out two case studies: 1) shift in agricultural practices in Damauli, Western Nepal, and 2) economic portfolio analysis of the people of Rasuwa. A year ago, she assisted WWF projects with Elephant Conflict Management in Bahundagi and Sainik villages in Eastern Nepal.
Kanetkar's research will focus on HI-AWARE's Research Component 3, which involves the assessment of climate change adaptation practices.
He holds a Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering from Visvesvaraya Technological University, Belgaum. There, his final year project was on solar energy. Titled the "Evacuated Tube Solar Cooker", the project looked at ways in which the actual cooking time involved in solar cooking can be reduced. He worked with Bosch Limited in Bengaluru from 2011 to 2015 as Senior Engineer in the Starter Motors Design and Development Department. His interest is in renewable energy technologies.


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Is it really be that difficult? Thinking about starting October 1st. Maybe people just like commiserating, but sheesh, you can still have In n Out and Chipotle! Suppose I'll answer my own question in a week or two.


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London Borough of Bromley
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Bromley's support to keep adults independent rated 'good' by CQC
Published Wednesday, 6 June 2018
Bromley's 'Re-ablement' Service has been given an overall 'good' rating by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) – the independent regulator of health and social care in England.
The service is a short term programme which offers rehabilitation to Bromley residents for up to six weeks following illness, injury or admission into hospital. It rebuilds people's confidence and offers practical support to help people live independently again in their own homes.
Cllr Diane Smith Executive Member for Adult Care and Health said: "We are delighted that the quality of this service has been recognised by the CQC. One of our stated priorities is to ensure that people can live as full and independent lives as possible in their own homes. This service supports people where there has been an interruption to this through illness or a stay in hospital. With the right support after a setback most people quickly get their confidence back and can continue living their lives as fully as possible."
The CQC inspection was conducted on 2 May with just two days' notice given to the council. The inspector spoke to the registered manager as well as senior officers, members of staff and also visited people in their homes to get their views as well as talking to relatives about the service. Overall the inspector found the service, safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led and recorded a judgement of 'good' for all these areas.
People told the inspector that staff 'knew them well and knew what they needed help with', which led them to believe that the staff were well trained. People were consulted about the support provided and they 'received care that met their needs'. Medicines were managed appropriately and people received these as prescribed by health professionals. The service had safeguarding procedures in place and staff clearly understood these procedures.
Other feedback given to the inspector by those receiving this service included: "I am very grateful for what they do for me", "the staff come when they are supposed to" and "they can be flexible too when I need them to be."
Cllr Diane Smith added: "Whilst the whole team is naturally delighted with the CQC's assessment of 'good', we aspire to provide an 'outstanding' service, despite the extremely challenging financial climate councils are forced to manage within.
"That remains the focus and objective of everybody who works in Bromley's Re-ablement Service by the time of our next assessment."
For media enquiries, please contact Susie Clark on 020 8461 7911 or email susie.clark@bromley.gov.uk
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Welcome to, Love & Honey Photography! I'm glad you stopped by. I love to show off my work, because it's all about you. The beautiful moments captured, edited to show just the right colors and highlights, created to give a feeling of emotion to the viewer. This is my passion, it's what I love. I am a photographer, because I love to help people see how beautiful they are, how special and cherished their family is and how beautiful and lovely they are as a couple. Your beauty shines from with in you, all I want is to help you see what God sees. His beautiful creation.
The images on this page are my little piece of paradise. I am blessed with a handsome bearded husband, six beautiful children and a growing number of grand babies, whom I adore. That's me in the black and white kissing my little Carter man. Oh he has such wonderful soft cheeks. I'm also in an image with my daughters holding my little Pomeranian, did I mention I love dogs. We are an active family. We love sports, hiking, boating, snowboarding and hanging out together. Ok we love our quiet tv watching evenings too, all cuddled up on the couch with blankets. I am learning life is worth savoring. I'm trying to slow down and enjoy the moments. I love capturing my family in images, so I can look back and remember the moments. I'm thankful for the blessing they are, and the gift of life we have received. Jesus is a big part of our family too. Really one of the most important parts. He is the glue that holds us all together. He fills our hearts with love and our lives with joy. I'm thankful for this gift of life we have. I'm thankful for yours too!
I'm looking forward to meeting you, whether you are a bride or groom to be, a senior, a tween, a family or a mommy with a newborn. I can't wait to work together to create a beautiful, fun session, a moment frozen in time, that will make you smile every time you see it.


-v. 12, no. 102 (Apr. 30, 1858).
Available online and on microfilm from the Library of Congress, Photoduplication Service.
Description based on: Vol. 1, no. 10 (Feb. 16, 1852).
Page 4 of each issue is in French and English <1852>-Oct. 29, 1853.
Publishers: Geiger & Washington, <1853>; B.B. Redding & Co.
Weekly eds.: Weekly Democratic state journal; Democratic state journal (Sacramento, Calif.); Weekly state journal (Sacramento, Calif.).
Weekly Democratic state journal. (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1852-18??


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Violet and Silver - The Deep Sea
Whistler Paintings and Drawings at the Art Institute of Chicago
An in-depth exploration of the Art Institute's important collection of James McNeill Whistler's work, tracing the artist's dramatic reception in Chicago.
Scratching the Surface: A Close Look at Cross Sections
After years of painting seascapes on a significantly smaller scale, James McNeill Whistler returned briefly to the large-format canvas to capture the effects of a hot summer day on the water near Brittany, France. According to the Chicago collector Arthur Jerome Eddy (portrait nearby), the artist painted this seascape while boating off the coast as a crewman steadied their vessel. This could account for the unusually broad handling of paint and thick touches of pigment apparent throughout the composition, particularly in the clouds and gently cresting waves. Even toward the end of his life, Whistler demonstrated his enduring passion for the myriad relationships of color offered by the ever-changing sea.
Inscribed in ink on backing, upper right: "Violet & Silver. The Deep Sea."; butterfly monogram Also on verso: Exhibited in salon of the / Champ de Mars. 1894 / & / bought in my Studio, Paris/ in October of that year by / John A. Lynch, of Chicago./ J. McNeill Whistler.
Gift of Clara Margaret Lynch in memory of John A. Lynch
Judith A. Barter et al., The Age of American Impressionism: Masterpieces from the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago/Yale University Press, 2011), no. 18.
Margaret F. MacDonald, Grischka Petri, "Violet and Silver: A Deep Sea," The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler: A Catalogue Raisonné, University of Glasgow, accessed June 3, 2020, https://whistlerpaintings.gla.ac.uk/catalogue/display/?mid=y411, as Violet and Silver: A Deep Sea (ill.).
Jay A. Clarke and Sarah Kelly Oehler, eds., Whistler Paintings and Drawings at the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2020), cat. 34 (ill.), http://artic.edu/digitalwhistler.
London, Tate Gallery, James McNeill Whistler, Nov 12, 1994–Jan 8, 1995; Paris, Musee d'Orsay, Feb 6–Apr 30, 1995, Washington DC, National Gallery of Art, May 29–Aug 20, 1995.
James McNeill Whistler, London and Paris, 1893; sold to John A. Lynch (1853–1938), Chicago, 1894 [inscribed on verso of painting: "Exhibited in salon of the / Champ de Mars. 1894 / & / bought in my Studio, Paris / in October of that year by / John A. Lynch, of Chicago. / J. McNeill Whistler."]; bequeathed to his wife, Clara Margaret Lynch (1872–1954), Chicago, 1938; Estate of Clara Margaret Lynch, Chicago, 1954; given to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1955.
Cat. 34 Violet and Silver—The Deep Sea, 1893
American arts
Oil paint (paint)
Organic material


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The dietary supplement genistein can undermine breast cancer treatment
Sep 23, 2008 9:00 am by Diana Yates | Life Sciences Editor | 217-333-5802Life SciencesHealth
Food science and human nutrition professor William Helferich led a team that found that genistein supplements can interfere with a common breast cancer treatment.
Photo by L. Brian Stauffer
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Women taking aromatase inhibitors to treat breast cancer or prevent its recurrence should think twice before also taking a soy-based dietary supplement, researchers report.
Genistein, a soy isoflavone that mimics the effects of estrogen in the body, can negate the effectiveness of aromatase inhibitors, which are designed to reduce the levels of estrogens that can promote tumor growth in some types of breast cancer.
The new study, which included researchers from the University of Illinois, Virginia Polytechnic and State University and the National Center for Toxicological Research, appears in the journal Carcinogenesis.
Aromatase inhibitors are a mainstay of breast cancer treatment in post-menopausal women. These drugs work by interfering with the enzyme aromatase, which catalyzes a crucial step in converting precursor molecules to estradiol, the main estrogen in the body.
About two-thirds of all cases of breast cancer diagnosed in the U.S. are estrogen dependent or estrogen sensitive, which means that the tumors grow more rapidly in the presence of estrogen.
Most women diagnosed with breast cancer are post-menopausal, so their ovaries are no longer producing normal levels of estrogen. Other tissues, however, produce a steroid hormone, androstenedione (AD), which - with the help of aromatases - is converted to testosterone and estrogens. The estrogens produced from AD can stimulate the growth of some types of breast cancer tumors.
The researchers conducted several trials in a mouse model of estrogen-dependent post-menopausal breast cancer. First, they gave the mice AD, which was converted to estrogen and created a high estrogen environment.
Many supplements sold without a prescription and marketed to post-menopausal women include plant compounds, such as genistein, that can block the effectiveness of Letrozole, a breast cancer drug.
This helped the researchers determine the maximum growth rate of the breast cancer tumors.
Next, they added Letrozole, an aromatase inhibitor widely prescribed to post-menopausal women with estrogen-dependent breast cancer. This treatment (Letrozole) effectively blocked the effects of AD and the breast cancer tumors stopped growing.
But when they added genistein (a plant estrogen or "phytoestrogen" present in many dietary supplements) to the mix, the researchers observed a dose-dependent reduction in the effectiveness of the breast cancer drug. Specifically, the tumors began to grow again. They grew fastest at the highest dietary doses of genistein.
"To think that a dietary supplement could actually reverse the effects of a very effective drug is contrary to much of the perceived benefits of soy isoflavones, and unsettling," said William Helferich a professor of food science and human nutrition at Illinois and principal investigator on the study. "You have women who are taking these supplements to ameliorate post-menopausal symptoms and assuming that they are as safe as consuming a calcium pill or a B vitamin."
Many women take genistein supplements to control hot flashes and other symptoms of menopause. The researchers found that the doses commonly available in dietary supplements were potent enough to negate the effectiveness of aromatase inhibitors.
"These compounds have complex biological activities that are not fully understood," Helferich said. "Dietary supplements containing soy-based phytoestrogens provide high enough dosages that it could be a significant issue to breast cancer patients and survivors."
Plant estrogens from soy are not the only ones of concern, Helferich said. In a recent study, he and his colleagues found that certain mixtures of estrogenic botanical components and extracts marketed as supplements to assist "female libido enhancement" and sold without a prescription appeared to spur breast cancer tumor growth at low doses, while having no effect on tumors at high doses.
That study appeared last year in Food and Chemical Toxicology.
"We are just starting to understand the complex effects of the dietary supplements that contain phytoestrogens," Helferich said. "There is an ongoing human experiment in which the outcome is unknown. These findings raise serious concerns about the potential interaction of the estrogenic dietary supplements with current breast cancer therapies."
Editor's note: To reach William Helferich, call 217-244-5414; e-mail: helferic@illinois.edu.


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'Love And Other Poems' Promises That Love Will Find Us
Books, Arts
by Jeevika Verma
10:00am Feb 09, 2021
Alex Dimitrov
Sylvie Rosokoff
If hope were an object, it would be poet Alex Dimitrov's new book Love and Other Poems.
In its entirety, the book itself is one long love poem — to New York City, to the moon, to the many "scenes from our world" — but it's mostly about what it means to have hope, even when we feel like we're all alone.
The book is guided by the structure of time. We go full circle from June through to May; summer through to spring. There is a poem for each month, just as there is a poem for each feeling. Pleasure, annoyance, boredom, spiritual awakening — we feel it all. And as the poems travel through time, the poet's vulnerability and loneliness are palpable enough to, perhaps deliberately, make the reader feel less alone.
And by traveling through time, I mean travelling through time in New York. The city is the collection's central character, as is expected from Dimitrov's dedication to it at the beginning. "This book is for our city of New York," he writes. Here, the collective possession of the city — the "our" — is what sets up the warmth and familiarity of the place.
We start off at "Sunset on 14th Street." As the very first poem in the book, its first lines are a preamble to the fluctuations the reader is about to experience: "I don't want to sound unreasonable / but I need to be in love immediately," Dimitrov writes. So we dive in.
On our journey to love, a rush of thoughts gives way to paradox. The poem goes on, "You can be sad / and still look so good. You can / say New York is beautiful / and it wouldn't be a headline / and it wouldn't be a lie." Indeed, cliches are cliches for a reason. They are neither unique nor surprising. But they are true, just as it's true that we can feel lost, yet determined to go on. The poem ends,
The way to get there
clearly wasn't written down.
Don't let that stop you though.
Look at the sky. Kiss everyone
you can for sure.
What do we find when we look to the sky? Only the true embodiment of loneliness — the moon. In the poem "New Moon," Dimitrov writes,
It's motherless up there. Then quiet.
And our names — the names
we tried so hard to live with —
are no longer ours.
Again, in the poem "Full Moon," he says,
There's no contract up there
But anonymity and movement
The cold orbiting the new.
The poet is asking us to give into the vastness. If the moon is to carry the burden of loneliness, perhaps we can find love by sharing the bit of love we already have. So he wanders through the city looking for someone to share it with.
In the poem "June," he is "Walking alone / through Union Square ... carrying flowers." In "July," he "swim[s] through the heat on Broadway ... and disappears in the Strand." And then in "August," — relief:
So this is love. When it slows
the rain touches everyone on their way home.
Alas, it is simply because we are part of the world, then, that we are never truly alone. Dimitrov underlines this feeling of natural belonging in the book's title poem-slash-listicle "Love."
"I love people," he writes. "I love people and my time away from them the most." Alone, he can turn his love towards moments — "I love how February is the shortest month," "I love midnights," "I love July and its slowness." Then there is love, of course, for moments specific to the city — "I love how no matter where on the island, at any hour, there's / at least one lit square at the top or bottom of a building in / Manhattan." He writes, "I love New York City. // I love New York City a lot."
What is it about looking for love and spending time in this city that makes Dimitrov's book a symbol of hope? This too is answered in the poem when he writes, "I love writing this and not knowing what I'll love next."
So perhaps we don't need to search love out after all. In going to "dinner alone," or buying "flowers for no one," the poet is replicating in himself the trust that the months — that time — will always go on, giving love another chance.
And at the end of the book, Dimitrov notes that the poem "Love" is endless, in that it literally continues to exist on Twitter under the handle @apoemcalledlove. He writes it in real time by adding one tweet — one line — each day. On the last day of 2020, a year so many of us lost so much, he wrote: "I love how time explains nothing."
Love and Other Poems promises that every now and then, love will find us. And if it doesn't, the moon — and New York City — will always be right there.
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