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One windy day in the mid-1990s, less than ten years after leaving the Soviet Union for life in the West, a husband-and-wife artist team grab a video camera and descend from their studio into the mostly deserted streets of Chelsea. In a neighborhood where taxi garages still outnumber art galleries, they begin filming pieces of litter and random objects as they are blown around the streets and sidewalks of the West 20s. Rather than being a documentary record of urban neglect, the resulting video is full of pathos and comedy. Through their eyes scraps of trash become living beings. A plastic spoon flips over like a restless sleeper. A small paper bag puffs up like blowfish. A coiled length of rope does acrobatic tricks. A tiny piece of Styrofoam plays tag with a black plastic bag. A McDonald’s box assaults a to-go coffee cup. A white glove performs a set of somersaults, only to be outdone by a neatly tied up plastic bag that can’t stop tumbling. A cardboard box slides down the street like a skateboarder. A toilet paper roll sets off on a journey into the unknown. A plastic bag takes flight, or at least attempts to do so. Never stated in the video is its relationship to their own lives, blown by the “winds of history” into exile from a nation that would soon cease to exist, buffeted continually by the turbulence that comes with being artists in New York City, always at risk of being tossed aside by the vagaries of the art market, or by the vagaries of life itself.
(Igor and Svetlana Kopystiansky)
Contributor
Raphael Rubinstein
Raphael Rubinstein is the author of The Miraculous (Paper Monument, 2014) and A Geniza (Granary Books, 2015).
brooklynrail.org/2020/09/miraculous/18-Chelsea
From the archive of "Incidents"(1996/7)
kopystianskyincidents.tumblr.com/
We worked at "Incidents" in a period of two years: 1996-97. After the work was accomplished in 1997 it was exhibited:
1997 “L'Autre. 4e Biennale de Lyon, Art Contemporain," Lyon, France. Curated by Harald Szeemann, (cat.).
1997 "2nd Johannesburg Biennale,” South Africa. Curated by Okwui Enwezor (cat.).
1997 “In Medias Res,” Dolmabahce Palace, Istanbul. Curated by René Block (cat.).
1999 “Szenewechsel” (Change of Scene) Museum of Modern Art, Frankfurt/Main. Curated by Jean-Christophe Ammann and Mario Kramer.
1999 “Trace” Liverpool Biennial of Contemporary Art, Tate Gallery Liverpool. Curated by Anthony Bond, (cat.).
1999 “Wait,” Kunst-Werke, Berlin. Curated by Klaus Biesenbach
2000 Folkwang Museum in Essen, Germany. Curated by Klaus Biesenbach
2000 “Moment,” Dundee Contemporary Arts, Great Britain. Curated by Katrina Brown
2000 “Incidents,” Vor und Zurück. Curated by Sylvia Martin. Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf, Germany.
2000 “Igor and Svetlana Kopystiansky” Museum Sztuki, Lodz, Poland
2000 “Incidents” Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. Curated by Anthony Bond.
2004 “9th Triennal of Small Sculpture” Fellbach, Germany. Curated by Jean-Christophe Ammann.
2005 “Igor & Svetlana Kopystiansky,” Kunsthalle Fridericianum, Kassel, Germany. Curated by René Block.
2005 “Igor & Svetlana Kopystiansky,” Fine Arts Center of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA. Curators Loretta Yarlow/Gregory Salzmann
2005 “From the permanent collection. Kopystiansky, Roth, Orozco, Cahn, Muniz.“ AGNSW, Sydney. Curated by Anthony Bond.
2007 “Igor & Svetlana Kopystiansky,” ESPOO Museum of Modern Art (EMMA), Espoo, Finland. Curated by Timo Valjakka (cat.)
2008 "From the permanent collection.” AGNSW, Sydney. Curated by Anthony Bond.
2009 “Igor and Svetlana Kopystiansky” Cinema 2, April 22. Musée National d'Art Moderne Center Pompidou, Paris, France. Curated by Philippe-Alain Michaud.
2009 "False Twins” S.M.A.K., Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst, Ghent, Belgium, Curated by Guillaume Désanges.
2009 “From the permanent collection. Roman Opalka, Brice Marden Igor and Svetlana Kopystiansky and Rachel Whiteread,“ AGNSW, Sydney. Curated by Anthony Bond.
2009 KunstFilmBiennale, "From the collection of the Center Pompidou Paris.” Medienkunstraum der Bundeskunsthalle Bonn, Germany. Curated by Philippe-Alain Michaud.
2010 “Radical Conceptual. Positions in the MMK Collection.” MMK Frankfurt/Main, Germany. Curated by Susanne Gaensheimer.
2010 “Image by Image. Film and Contemporary art from the collection of the Centre Pompidou,” Museum Ostwall, Dortmund, Germany. Curated by Philippe-Alain Michaud and Olivier Michelon.
2010 “Igor and Svetlana Kopystiansky, ” Musée d’Art Moderne de Saint-Etienne Métropole. 6th of February – 18th of April, France. (cat.)
2011 “Energy and Process. Igor and Svetlana Kopystiansky. Presentation of the collection. TATE Modern London. Curated by Stuart Comer.
2011 “Wunder,” Deichttorhallen Hamburg and Siemens Stiftung. Curated by Hürlimann | Lepp | Tyradellis (cat.)
2011 “From Trash to Treasure,” Kunsthalle zu Kiel, Germany. Curated by Anette Hüsch, (cat.)
2012 “Wunder,” Kunsthalle Krems, Austria. March 4th to July 1st Curated by Hürlimann | Lepp | Tyradellis.
2012 “Igor and Svetlana Kopystiansky: Incidents (1996/7),” From the permanent collection. MoMA, New York.
2013 “Incidents,” in works from the collection selected by Rineke Dijkstra for The Krazy House. February 23-May 26. MMK Frankfurt. Catalogue.
2013-2014 “Everyday Epiphanies. Photography and Daily Life Since 1969.” Curator Douglas Eklund. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. June 25, 2013–January 26, 2014.
2014. Collection Display. MMK Frankfurt, Germany.
A marble sculpture near the main (west) door of St Giles.
It forms a memorial of sensitivity, melancholy and pathos, having been gently achieved by John, later Sir John Steell of Edinburgh in memory of the 669 soldiers and families of the 78th Highland Regiment who died of cholera.
Later and after the Childers reorganisation of the British Army in 1881, the 78th became the Seaforth Highlanders.
The 78th (the Ross-shire Buffs) with some other regiments were summoned urgently from Britain as the news of the disasters in Afghanistan reached London in 1842. This refers to the annihilation of the HEIC and British Army of occupation in Kabul, which caused the recall of the Gov General of India, Ist and last Earl of Auckland, George Eden, who appears distantly on my family tree. The only military survivor to escape, from the entire British Army in retreat, was Assistant Surgeon William Brydon. A few hundred prisoners- soldiers and wives were later released from captivity. Brydon was famously painted into history by Lady Elizabeth Butler, he is buried in Rosemarkie.
Lady Butler also painted the Charge of the Royal Scots Greys at Waterloo, known as “Scotland forever”.
In 2013 the retreat from Kabul was termed, "the worst British military disaster until the fall of Singapore exactly a century later."
Also of continuing interest to me is Lt Col James MacBean, 78th Regt, who is buried in the St Cuthbert's cemetery in Edinburgh who was sometime commanding officer of one of the battalions. He was born Inverness in 1785, died at 27 Inverleith Row, Edinburgh, on 23 Oct 1845. The dates suggest he had already retired when the cholera catastrophe virtually destroyed the 1st battalion and their families in Sindh Provence.
On arrival in India the 78th were sent to the newly coveted province of Sindh and ordered to march up the banks of the Indus to the small town of Sukkur. Although they arrived in good health, illness soon overtook them. According to Captain Keogh of the regiment, - “a most virulent fever broke out, which continued, without cessation, throughout the stay of the regiment. Some lingered for weeks, some for days. It was not infrequent to hear of the death of a man to whom one had spoken but half an hour previously. The hospital was probably overwhelmed, some of the barrack-rooms were converted into wards, and at one time there were upwards of 800 under treatment.”
It was decided to send the survivors downriver to Hyderabad and it proved to be a ghastly journey. Keogh continues; “at last, on the 21st and 25th of December 1844, we embarked, or rather the men crawled, on board common country boats, which conveyed us to Hyderabad. The sun struck through the thatching by day, and the very heavy dews penetrated it by night, when it was extremely cold... When we moored in the evening we used to bury our dead, and I sewed up many of the poor fellows in their blankets and rugs, the only substitutes for a coffin we had. We dug the graves deep, and with the bodies buried the boxes and everything else that had belonged to them. We put layers of thorns inside, round, and on the top of the graves, in hopes of preserving the remains of our poor comrades from the attacks of the troops of jackals swarming in the neighbourhood.”
The analysis of the reasons for the disaster show how little was known about the cause of the disease. It was at first thought to be malaria.
A regimental history observed that; “The regiment marched into Sukkur apparently in excellent health, but disease must have been contracted on the way up, when passing through swampy tracts where the heat of the sun had engendered malaria. The excitement of the march kept the scourge from showing itself...[however]...the medical men attributed the sickness in a great degree to the improper time at which the regiment was moved, and the malaria engendered by the heat of the sun on the swampy plains which had been overflowed by the Indus.”
The casualties to the 78th were on a scale which caused serious discontent. The accusation that the problem had been exacerbated by excessive drinking and intemperance led the 78th to accuse General Napier of having obliged the regiment to march to Sukkur too late in the year, at the start of the hot season.
The Asiatic Journal and Monthly Miscellany reported, - "With reference to the exaggerated and unjust statements respecting this unfortunate regiment, a letter has appeared in a London newspaper (The Times March 24th 1845) from Sir William Napier vindicating his brother from the imputation cast upon him of being “the murderer” of the soldiers and showing that due precautions had been taken by him to secure... the 78th Regiment which was ordered up the river from Karachi to Sukkur... Although the 78th arrived at Sukkur in excellent health... the disease burst out suddenly with unusual violence and enraged till the end of the year “the sickness” he adds “has astounded the medical men who call it an extraordinary epidemic for which they cannot account, this then furnishes further evidence of the fatal as well as the deceitful character of the Sindh climate especially to Europeans. . . . We understand that the officers, NCOs and privates of HM 78th Highlanders have subscribed upwards of 1000 rupees or 100 pounds for the purpose of erecting a monument in one of the public churches of Edinburgh to the memory of their comrades who died in Sindh... This cenotaph will be raised to commemorate the victims of the noisome pestilence, the unhappy beings whose deaths at Sukkur put the last sad seal to the iniquity of the Sindh invasion.” (p 561).
John Steell was also the sculptor responsible for Alexander taming Bucephalus outside the Edinburgh City Chambers, Wellington outside Registry House, Robert Burns in both Manhattan and Auckland, Walter Scott under the Scott Monument on Prices Street, Allan Ramsay in Princes Street Gardens, and Prince Albert the Prince Consort in Charlotte Square.
Steell was born in Aberdeen, but his family moved to 5 Calton Hill in Edinburgh in 1806. He was one of the thirteen children of John Steell senior (1779–1849), a carver and gilder, and his wife, Margaret Gourlay, the daughter of William Gourlay, a Dundee shipbuilder. As the family grew they moved to a larger house at 20 Calton Hill. Due to his father's own fame as a sculptor, for much of his early working career he is referred to as John Steel Junior.
Steell initially followed his father, training to be a carver himself, being apprenticed in 1818. In 1819 his father was declared bankrupt by the Trades of Calton, bringing much shame on the family. However, John Junior showed artistic talent, and despite this, the family sent him to study art at the Trustees Academy in Edinburgh, under Andrew Wilson.
Working with his father from studios at 6 Hanover Street, his first major step came in 1827 when the North British Fire Insurance Company, at 1 Hanover Street, commissioned a huge timber statue of St Andrew to be placed on the outside of their office. Now housed within the Lodge Room premises of Lodge Dalkeith Kilwinning in Dalkeith.
The work appears closely based on a sketch of a statue of St Andrew in Rome by François Duquesnoy. As the office stood immediately opposite the Royal Scottish Academy it was quickly noticed by Edinburgh's artistic society, and acknowledged as a fine work. In 1829, spurred on by the success of this work, he travelled to Rome to study sculpture more intensely.
The first work to attract international attention was Alexander taming Bucephalus carved in 1832–33 (cast in bronze in 1883, and now standing in the quadrangle of Edinburgh City Chambers). Around 1838 he was appointed as Sculptor to Her Majesty the Queen, a post which was later recognised as part of the Royal Household in Scotland. In 1840 he opened Scotland's first foundry on Grove Street in Edinburgh, dedicated to sculpture, to cast his statue of Wellington himself.
In 1854 he commissioned a new house for himself at 24 Greenhill Gardens and lived there for the rest of his life. His fame by then was international, receiving commissions from the United States, Canada and New Zealand. Prior to this he had lived at 3 Randolph Place on the edge of the Moray Estate in Edinburgh's West End.
He exhibited at the Royal Scottish Academy and the Royal Academy, and was knighted in 1876 following the unveiling, by Queen Victoria, of his statue The Prince Consort, which stands in the centre of Charlotte Square in Edinburgh.
Steell died at home, 24 Greenhill Gardens in Edinburgh's southern suburbs, on 15 September 1891 and is buried in an unmarked grave in Edinburgh's Old Calton Cemetery. This grave was purchased by his father John Steell senior and many members of the Steell and Gourlay families are also interred there.
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The Shanghai skyline as seen from the top of the Pearl Tower. The resulting photographs were an interesting mistake of camera shake while zooming in on sections of the heavily smog filled city. They gave me a sense of a long forsaken metropolis so I named this series – Vestige.
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Hmm, not much to say about this one. Let me see ... it is your standard brick corner complete with arches, located at one of the most prestigious Universities in the US. It comes complete with long hallways leading to equally good educational prospects. While you are considering which direction to take, you can enjoy a refreshing drink at the nice little water fountain. Come by and join me for a pensive good time at the Stanford University corner.
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I just got back from two weeks of exhausting travel through China and I am pretty sure that I am REM-ing as I type this with one eye open and the other shut … and drooping a little …
I took this picture of San Francisco’s Legion of Honor a few weeks ago during a late-night photo run with a friend. This fine art museum is situated on a fantastic vista point overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge. On a good day you can see the sailboats dotting the water through the treeline. On a bad day you just stand there hugging yourself in the cold, staring at a fog bank.
We spent a while there freezing our butts off and trying to squeeze through the security gates in vain. The clouds had a cool wispy look from the wind and there was a single blue star in the top of the frame. The lights caused a bit of lens flare but I liked the effect so I left it in there. Just inside the gate is a large courtyard housing a replica of Rodin’s “The Thinker”. The guy is the epitome of concentration because he is sitting butt naked in good old San Francisco weather in the middle of the night without even flinching. I sure hope he figures out what he is trying to solve so he can put on his clothes and get home before his wife wonders where he has been. Hmm … how did he manage to squeeze through the security gate to get inside?
818 Mil Mi-35P Hind-F/ Panther (023369) Cyprus Air Force -
Andreas Papandreou Airbase , Pathos International Airport Cyprus 08-11-2019
One of those post WWI memorials, dripping of pathos.
"Unseren im Kriege 1914-18 gefallenen Helden zum ehrenden Gedächtniss.
Und wer den Tod im heiligen Kampfe fand, ruht auch in fremder Erde im Vaterland."
This translates roughly to
To the honouring memory of our fallen heroes of the war 1914-18. Those who died in holy battle, in foreign soil in fatherland lie."
I loved the contrast between the hard stone and blocky letters with the friendly dandelion.
Cemetary in Kiel-Dietrichsdorf
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I got a chance to meet some of the best landscape photographers (Jay Patel, Varina Patel, Patrick Smith) on a photo walk this weekend. We met up at San Gregorio Beach near my house and had a great time trying not to be swept away by the ridiculously strong winds. I got sand in places I don't need sand and just barely managed to not get frost bite, but it fun. This was one of my last shots of the day before I said my goodbyes, jumped in my car and held myself for a while in silence while trying to warm up.
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I wish I visited the zoo more often. I mean, it is full of furry beasts that could take you apart without any warning, but they are so much more agreeable than humans. Take this pile of flamingos for example; unlike humans, who often get testy about being photographed, these sweet sweet birds just stood there as I took pictures of them. Not a single wry look or confrontational gesture. The baboons were a little less accommodating, but all you need to do it throw some fruit in their general direction and they chill out. Anyway, animals are way cooler than humans.
"'Asta Nielsen' means the power to speak of pathos, to see pain, and to find the middle path between Baudelaire's flower of evil and the sick rose of which Blake sang." -M. S. Fonseca in 'The International Dictionary of Films And Filmmakers: Actors and Actresses', 1988.
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I wanted to get a picture of the iconic Golden Gate Bridge at night to show off it's sheer sexiness, so one night my friend and I drove out to the city. It was well past midnight when we parked next to a dark construction site at the end of Crissy Fields. It's usually not a good idea to hang out at a place where a seedy character can jump you with a 2x4 and dump your body in the ocean without going out of his way, but I had Mr. Wang for protection, so all was good. The entire place was pitch dark but I had my pocket flashlight which gave us about ten feet of visibility. We got to the end of the construction site and ducked under a barrier to finally get to this vantage point. Our spidey-senses were at their max because we could not see anyone coming down the path and there was a huge hill overlooking us.
As I carefully setup for the shot, I looked back and saw Mr. Wang waving his extended tripod in a semicircle to ward off any attacks. As I was taking my final long exposure (about 30 seconds), we heard voices coming up from the construction site. When they were about twenty feet away we saw two huge shapes walking towards us but we could not make out if they were friend or foe. I had already mentally played out a scenario in my mind where Mr. Wang, Nikki (my beloved camera) and I ran away in terror but the two big shapes turned out to be a couple taking a romantic walk ... who the hell takes a romantic walk through a construction site in the dark past midnight?! Well, after that we just got a few more quick shots and made our way back to safety.
Instruction #46: "Make a picture that is funny and sad at the same time. A photograph that simultaneously evokes pathos, irony and humour." - Jeff Mermelstein
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I like photography because it has so much to do with chance. I was thinking of this little castle in the clouds I saw from the top of Kumbum Stupa in Gyantse. The clouds were perfect, there was a bit of blue and the light was just right to give it a fantastical effect. How was it that I was there at that precise moment when all the elements came together? I think back on that day and all the random little detours and choices that were necessary to get me there. I love floating around with my camera, ready to capture whatever life has planed out for me.
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I am not really into portraits, but every so often, I find someone who looks interesting enough for me to stop them, pay them some RMB and ask them to stand still for a tick so that I may capture their awesomeness. I was hiking around the little mountain villages in the Longsheng rice terraces area of China, when I happened across this fine gentleman. We did not share a common language so I proceeded to pantomime my intentions to take his picture. He tilted his head and raised one bushy eyebrow in consideration before he accepted my offer. I released my inner paparazzi on him for a few seconds and when he was done, he simply turned around and whent about his day as if nothing had happened. I wonder what he thought of the whole experience?
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This collection of photographs was the result of a happy mistake while walking through the Hakone Garden's bamboo forest in Saratoga. I was messing around with my camera on manual mode, trying different angles and motions when I noticed the resulting images resembled impressionist paintings. I liked how the bamboo forest was implied though color, light and movement, so I sat there for a while and tried different things until I got the look I wanted. All of these photographs are single shots with very minor adjustments in Photoshop.
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Not so long ago, I decided to send out my beloved Nikki (Nikon D90 given to me by my wife as an engagement gift) to get modified to only capture infrared light. This decision caused me much distress, but my curiosity won out in the end and I eagerly awaited her return. Would she come back an unrecognizable franken-camera? Would she resent me for adjusting her delicate sensor? When I finally got her back, she didn’t look or feel any different but when I took the first picture I realized she was no longer the Nikki I had learned to shoot with. She was now a highly refined instrument of beauty.
It took me a while to figure out how to work with the raw image, but this is my first infrared photo taken in front of Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. It took me much much longer to process partly because of the new software needed to correct the white balance, and partly because I decided to make my first infrared experiment a night HDR (I am a masochist). Alas, now that I have infrared capabilities you will be seeing more of my crazy experiments in the near future.
Quello che vedo non è mio. Mentre quello che sento in ciò che vedo è mio: la sensazione, il sentimento, l'emozione, l'armonia, il pathos, la ragione, il racconto, l'attimo. Dunque, ciò che fotografo non è mio, mentre è mio ciò che sento in quello che fotografo. È questo "sentire" che voglio comunicare agli altri, condividere, e sarebbe assurdo rinchiuderlo in qualche stupida rivendicazione di proprietà, materiale, commerciale o intellettuale che sia. Con le mie foto non sto vendendo, lucrando, guadagnando; sto parlando, per essere ascoltato e non per essere comprato. E il mio parlare non ha copyright. Buona visione. E buon ascolto
Questi sono alcuni degli scatti realizzati al mercato nei pressi del Castello medievale di Bran, comune della storia regione della Transilvania, dimora dimora, secondo la leggenda, del sanguinario conte Dracula, personaggio ispirato alla figura del principe Vlad III che nel XV secolo fece parlare di sè per la ferocia e la crudeltà del suo animo .
La fortezza tuttavia, non è il vero maniero appartenuto all'imperatore Vlad ma era utilizzato dal sovrano come residenza di caccia. Curioso è l'aver appreso che i rumeni sono venuti a conoscenza di Dracula e di tutta la leggenda ad esso annessa ai primi anni '90, dopo che l'ex dittatore comunista Ceacescu è stato destituito dei suoi poteri.
Sapere questo ha suscitato curiosità prima e riflessione poi: mi trovavo li, in mezzo alla popolazione locale portatrice di tradizioni in parte costruite e piegate al consumismo frenetico, recitando la mia parte da turista occidentale, inconsciamente privo del reale contatto con quel mondo di genti diverse . Ero in Transilvania per vedere il castello di un vampiro? Ero in Transilvania per poi raccontare di esserci stato?
Come il pezzo di una carovana di passanti ciechi e sordi che si autocompiace perchè viaggia e conosce, che prende tutto per oro colato, che non si pone un perchè, un percome. Ecco come mi son sentito. Volutamente cieco.
La Romania non è una leggenda. Non è un vampiro.
Sono persone.
Che non conoscevo e non conosco.