On his travels to wartime Ukraine, where even the feeling of relaxation is dangerous, Mitja Velikonja observed thousands of images of the culture of war in what he saw on the street and every day life, from bakeries, road signs, billboards and murals, to unsanctioned graffiti. This street iconography, invested with a patriotic vocabulary, was also informed by his conversations with people, the scenes of destruction, misery, and above all, the strong will to resist, from which everyday heroism emerges. The author went twice to the war zones of Ukraine and took more than 3,000 photographs of the street iconography of the state of war. Although all nationalists are equally foreign to him, when he talks to people, he asks himself how he would feel in their shoes, how he would react. When war creeps up to our front door, it affects everyone: leftists and right-wingers, nationalists and pacifists, patriots and those who don't care what flag they live under. "Thus, while driving or waiting anywhere, I took a small test: how long does it take to come across images of war, warrior iconography, vocabulary of emphatic patriotism, the sound of a national awakening song, footage from battlefields. Mostly it was a matter of seconds."Through these pieces of the culture and a people holding themselves together against an invader through a self-defensive nationalism, Velikonja sees that nationalism hides poverty - the more severe, the bigger the flags. In Ukrainian Vignettes, Velikonja compiles the images, words, impressions and voices of everyday life in war, to help us understand how clearly politics and ideology are displayed directly on the street. His philosophical approach of essays as vignettes allows him to have a critical eye even as he struggles to understand tragic events, and despite his affection for those closest to him. The author remains critical of both sides in his analysis, despite his sympathy for those closer to him.
As seen on 60 Minutes with Anderson Cooper and in the Emmy-award-winning New York Times documentary, the gripping true story of a Jewish teenager who became "The Forger of Paris" for the French Resistance, saving thousands of lives during Nazi occupation and later with humanitarian causes throughout the world. At the age of seventeen Adolfo Kaminsky had narrowly escaped deportation to Auschwitz and was recruited to join the Jewish underground. Due to his expert knowledge of dyes and an artistic ability to reproduce official documents, he soon became the primary forger for the Resistance in Paris, creating papers that would save an estimated 14,000 men, women and children from certain death. Upon the Liberation and for the next twenty-five years Kaminsky worked as a professional photographer. But, recognizing the fight for freedom had not ended with the defeat of the Nazis, and driven by his own harrowing experiences, he continued to secretly forge documents for refugees, anti-fascists, student activists, freedom fighters, and pacifists."An engrossing literary debut." —Kirkus Reviews"... has a thriller dimension that outshines even the best undercover fiction." —Jewish Book Council "A thrilling, novelesque account ... [and] triumphant wartime biography, full of heroism and near-alchemistic craftiness." —Foreword Reviews
Artist, critic and poet Eve Wood has a ribald sense of humor and for decades has had a distinctive presence in the Southern California art world. This is her first monograph, featuring a collection of off-beat, imaginative color studies populated with birds, animals and irreverent, sometimes naughty personae. Short, laugh-out-loud prose accompanies each of the portraits and vivid scenes. Her dog sleeps on a Ukranian-gold and blue rug; her raven vacuums the house; absurd characters from movies and art stand in for obnoxious or dreamy colors; and the birds – so many birds – sing of freedom.
An eye-witness account of the Russian/European conflict at the heart of WWII, relevant today as war rages again along similar battle lines in Ukraine, Crimea and the Caucasus. In a corner of 20th-century history almost unknown to the English-speaking public, anti-Stalinist Georgians and anti-Hitlerite Germans worked as an arm of the German Resistance, disavowing Hitler's inhuman "East Policy" mandates and seeking to liberate Caucasian nations from Stalin. Allies Against Two Evils: Georgian P.O.W.s in WWII's Bergmann Units and the Quest to Liberate the Caucasus from Russian Imperialism by exiled Georgian M.D. Givi Gabliani vividly recalls this time, the hopes of the Georgians who fought in World War II, their solidarity, their tribulations, their devotion to the Jewish people, and why they made the alliances they did. Gabliani's memoir, written in English and published several years ago in Georgia, contrasts the vision of an ascendant Russian Empire and a decaying West with historical European-Georgian cooperation and the centuries-long quest of the Georgian people for self-determination. The preface by Georgian-German scholar and former head of the Georgian National Library, Alexander Kartozia examines the legacy of Givi Gabliani and the Gabliani family from the highland province of Svaneti, keepers of 12th century artifacts from Georgia's Golden Age and leaders of the 1920s resistance insurgency against Soviet invasion. Gabliani envisions a future Europe supporting a trans-Caucasian alliance with mixed races and religions living together equally in tolerance and prosperous harmony, as they had for millennia in Georgia. As a spokesman for the POWs, he coordinates with the Georgian exile government in occupied Paris and Berlin, finding a secret effort afoot in occupied France to save Georgian and other Eastern European Jews. Today, Gabliani's war memoir centers our attention on an active fault line. Across the great conflicts of the twentieth century that undergird and still define the region between Russia, with its imperialist ambitions, and the Black Sea, Georgia and the Georgian people appear as some of the most likely partners for international efforts toward peace.
A second-generation Holocaust survivor weaves together fragments of her familys history and witness testimony in narrative and collage, using her art as transformation and remembrance.Chocolates from Tangieris a bold and innovative ensemble piece that comes straight from the heart. With illustrations by way of words, letters, poems and her own impressive images, artist Jana Zimmer brings her parents Holocaust story to life in a moving and meaningful way. Beautiful.Wendy Holden, author ofBorn Survivors:Three Young Mothers and Their Extraordinary Story of Courage, Defiance, and HopeNever, never, never ask Daddy about her. For fifty years, Jana Zimmer obeyed her mothers directive, until her mother died, leaving behind a trove of family photos and documents, mostly in Czech, with just a few cryptic notes as explanation, for her only child to knit the familys past together. Late in her own life, Zimmer became a visual artist. The words and images in this book convey her journey to understand her parents and their experiences in the Holocaust, filtered through her own discoveries decades after returning to her birthplace, Prague, and to Terezn, where her family was first interned.Exhibitions of Zimmers artwork in 2007, both in Prague and at the Terezn Ghetto Museum, were mainly inspired by her half-sister, Ritta, who perished in Auschwitz before Zimmer was born, and by her fathers grief over that loss. Rittas drawings made in Terezn, now in the Prague Jewish Museums collection of childrens artwork from the ghetto, populate Zimmers book as well as spare photographs and mementos that reflect Zimmers internal world that of a Holocaust replacement child.In 2015, an exhibition in Germany allowed Zimmer to explore her relationship to her mothers experiences as survivor of Terezn, Auschwitz, and Mauthausen, and as a Jewish slave laborer in a Nazi aircraft factory in Freiberg, Saxony, in 1944. In both exhibits, and now, in putting together the visual story, their life stories, and her text, Zimmers task has been the seemingly impossible to remember where she had never been, for her parents, who had wanted only to forget, and to find her place between them.The world attacks us directly, tears us apart through the experience of the most incredible events, and assembles and reassembles us again. Collage is the most appropriate medium to illustrate this reality. J. Kol (Czech, 19142002)
A conversation about creation, change, and loss in the California border-landscape with a gardener who has nurtured it for decades.
Jazz in Nazi-era and postwar Germany, as lived by a Jewish prodigy who survived the horrors of Theresienstadt and Auschwitz.
A surprising and revealing memoir populated with art historians, art influencers, and the former lover and lifelong friend of Marcel Duchamp, Beatrice Wood.
A biracial son of a subcontinental, migrant family searches for his estranged father¿s story and ultimately rewrites his own.
Adds a new name to the history of modern architecture: Architect Jean Welz, a lost artistic genius, lived a hidden life among many famous names: Le Corbusier, Adolf Loos, Robert Mallet-Stevens, Gabriel Guevrekian, Tristan Tzara (founder of Dada), and photographer Andréeacute; Kertész. Jean Welz could not register as an architect in France and worked "under the table," so credit to him has had to be sleuthed out through letters, interviews, signed photographs, a portfolio, family archives, plans, and rare documents.Endorsements by lead architectural scholars from universities in the UK, US and Europe, including Tim Benton, a Le Corbusier expert and Christopher Long, who has published at least a dozen books on Viennese modern architecture and Adolf Loos. A must acquisition for libraries and of interest to students.Tale of discovery, intriguing for the everyday reader: A treasure hunt in the rich and radical artistic interwar period of the 1920s and 1930s in Paris that then travels across three countries and two continents over a decade of research. The book feels like a race against crumbling history told by a filmmaker in vivid detail as he uncovers Welz's past, his musical and artistic abilities, and his greatest designs.First use of exterior béton brut identified: Welz's Maison Zilveli (Paris 1933) with its airborne main floor, views of Sacre Coeur and the Eiffel Tower, and the lost, perilous balcony, are bold ideas that will light up readers' imaginations in this race against crumbling history. The concrete balcony balanced on a thin blade only 6 cm thick, is the first use of exterior béton brut identified.Illustrations and book design: spot color washes, tints, and highlighted text using period fonts, color plates. 3-D renderings and axonometric schemes visually bring the architecture to life. Plans and sketches of unbuilt projects, treatises on art published in South Africa, and period magazine articles provide important context. Fine examples of Welz's paintings included, linking his abstract works to his philosophy of architecture.Controversies provide press hooks: South Africa's leading modern architect Rex Martiennsen took unacknowledged cues from a Welz Paris house to create his best-known design, though at least one of Martiennsen's colleagues publicly questioned his influences. Jean Welz's estranged brother Friedrich Welz was an infamously unscrupulous art dealer in Vienna and an SS officer, made famous in the 1997 Holocaust restitution case over a set of stolen Egon Schiele works. Major Aryanization art-theft scandals of the late 1990s involving Friedrich erupted in the New York Times and U.S. District Court.Jewish interest story: Jean Welz was a radical who moved from conservative, fusty Vienna and changed his name from Hans to Jean when he discovered his "French soul." His first wife was a Jewish fashion model. An artist with contrasting passions to those of his dealer brother, Jean's contributions include a gravestone for Marx's daughter, destroyed by Nazis the day after Paris was occupied in 1940, and freely giving his skills for a Black South African school under Apartheid. Jean died never knowing about his estranged brother's Nazi-dealings.
ust a game? This intriguing visual title looks deep into the underbelly of football (soccer) fandom, featuring a vast photographic archive of fans'' graffiti and street art captured by a pioneering ''graffitologist''. At the intersection of the street and sport we find themes of the day: how racial, ethnic, and class tensions play out in visual culture.On the fringe of sports culture are the Ultras, the football fans whose pyrotechnics, chants, wildly creative stunts, and hooliganism are infamous. Using selections from his archive containing hundreds of photographs of Ultras'' street art and graffiti, including everything from elaborate murals to stickers to "scratchitto" incisions and spray-paint duels, award-winning author Mitja Velikonja introduces readers to the visual iconography of a fascinating underworld.The Ultra subculture is built by "no-bodys," the anonymous (primarily) men whose attachments to their teams, specifically in Europe and post-socialist states, sometimes cross the lines into nationalist sentiments and militaristic "Blood and Soil" extremism. After examining general themes and trends in street art and tifo club graffiti, Velikonja embarks on a case study of fans from his native Slovenia and touches on the roles of neighboring football fans in the Balkan Wars. He continues with an analysis of political and socially progressive graffiti, local trends and circumstances, as well as its role in the United States. As he peels back layers of misinformation and misrepresentation, he cues our understanding of factional mindsets within histories of political instability, arguing for dissensus being a critical element to democracies. In the end, we understand that while always under siege, the ultra-fans require nothing less than fidelity and devotion, but precisely to what can be determined - it''s anyone''s game to call.
An illustrated survey of artist hoaxes, including impersonations, fabula, cryptoscience, and forgeries, researched and written by an expert "e;fictive-art"e; practitioner.In her groundbreaking book, internationally recognized multimedia artist and writer Antoinette LaFarge reflects on the most urgent question of today: where does truth lie, and how is it verified? Encouraging readers to critically question the role art plays in shaping reality, Sting in the Tale: Art, Hoax, and Provocation defines a new genre of art that fabricates evidence to support a central fiction. Interweaving contemporary "e;fictive art"e; practice with a lineage of hoaxes and impostures dating from the 17th century, LaFarge offers the first comprehensive survey of this practice.The shift from the early information age to our "e;infocalypse"e; era of rampant misinformation has made fictive art an especially radical form as it straddles the lines between fact, fiction, and wild imagination. Artists deploy a wide range of practices to substantiate their fictions, manufacturing artefacts, altering photographs, and posing as experts from many different fields. A fictive-art practitioner herself, LaFarge explores and underscores the myriad ways art can ground or destabilize one's lived reality, forcing us to question our subjective experience and our understanding of what counts as evidence.Many examples of these curious and sometimes notorious fabrications are included - from nonexistent artists and peculiar museums to cryptoscientific objects like fake skeletons and staged archaeological evidence. From the intriguing Cottingley fairy photographs "e;captured"e; in 1917 by teenage sisters, to the Museum of Jurassic Technology; from the work of artists like Iris Hussler, Joan Fontcuberta, and Eva and Franco Mattes to the enigmatic encyclopedia known as the Codex Seraphinianus, fictive art continues to reframe assumptions made by its contemporaneous culture. With all the attendant consequences of mistrust, outrage, and rejection, fictive art practitioners both past and present play upon the fragile trust that establishes societies, underlining the crucial roles played by perception and doubt.
The gripping true story of a life-long forger working for the French Resistance and clandestine organizations, told to his daughter.
An engaging collection of essays and imagery tracing the development of modernism in Hungarian Art and reflecting on socio-political currents.
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