The Artist is Presented

It’s voting season. And this year in the US, it will be important to vote. But that’s not what I’m pushing here.  You need to go here and vote for Igor Tosevski for Wooloo’s artist of the month.

The Piano Has Been Drinkin' (Not Him)

When I lived in Macedonia, I met one Igor Tosevski through a series of mutual acquaintances. After long periods in rustic and rural places, going for a coffee or a meal with Igor and his longtime parter, Tanya, was always a breath of life. Conversation was never limited. Their horizons seemed to be continually broadening at a time when mental space in Skopje was continually shrinking. No mean feat, that.

In addition, I got an education in situational art beyond the passing acquaintance I’d had with pompous and effete fops in the US.   Sure, guerrilla art has been the provenance of a certain urban class of elites since its inception. But what does it mean to do this in the former Yugoslavia and in Macedonia, especially during the nineties, when it was prudent to keep one’s views to oneself? What does it mean to do this during times of nationalism and small-mindedness? The stakes are much higher than what they might be in Milan or New York.

In 2004, I had the good luck to see Process at a time when the Macedonian government’s inability to regulate or commodifiy any kind of production — much less art production — was making the lives of most people a bureaucratic hell. The use of a rubber stamp to create a giant self-portrait in a room festooned with the actual legal text stipulating that artists must register as ‘traders’ was a biting commentary on the attempts of post-socialist bureaucrats to privatize virtually everything.

In the same year, I had the even better luck to go with Igor on some of his missions to paint occupied Territories at various sites around the country.  Macedonia had just narrowly avoided the kind of senseless violence and partition that still plagues places like Kosovo and Bosnia today, so the act of painting arbitrary (or, sometimes not-so-arbitrary) lines in the people’s common spaces, delimiting them for obscure motives, was even more trenchant.  The looks on people’s faces ranged from apathy to disgust to — rarely — joy.  It was a project that bound the absurd with the deadly serious in an active, physical, even fun way.

Igor’s art is compelling and actually makes one question what is going on in one’s surroundings. It accomplishes that very rare thing of succeeding where so many others have failed miserably.  (In that way it reminds me of another artist from the same country that once upon a time, there was.)  It is timely; never hectoring, always thoughtful, with a keen eye to the political but not overtly so. It’s good art. That’s uncommon.

And after two and half decades of work he’s finally getting some recognition, so go over to Wooloo and vote for him. With any luck, you may be seeing him somewhere familiar soon.

Of Chetniks and Padanians

Beppe Grillo hilariously sums up the commonalities between Southern Europe’s most toxic nationalist-separatist groups. Wow, takes me back to the early nineties when deeply mistaken writers were comparing Serb separatists to those sane, cozy Northern Italian separatists.

Sorry kids, it’s in Italian — it’s been a long week.

“Football”

"This is for you, mom!"

FINAL UPDATE: I can’t really say it any better than the Guardian does here.

Belgrade’s Vreme ran this story today.  There was a rather choice photo of masked Ivan Bogdanov burning an Albanian flag; it’s since been replaced so I leave you with this video that tells the story even better.

Clearly burning the Albanian flag has everything to do with winning a match against Italy.  The message is hardly hidden, though — the t-shirt reads “Northern Chetniks” — which I’d wager refers more to the looting murderers of the 1990s wars than to the WW2-era Royalists.  And this Ultra would probably be proud to tell you that, if he weren’t currently in jail in Genoa and pathetically blaming this ugly nationalism on his sick mother.  Please.

To all those naive enough to say, “politics aside, what a cool Ultra!”, I say, you are deeply mistaken if you think you can de-politicize this.  These “Ultras” hung up signs comparing Kosovo to Palestine, and Bogdanov is a member of a group named after the year that the Serbs lost the Battle of Kosovo — ushering in over 600 years of victimhood that opportunistic leaders in their recent past have used to fuel toxic nationalism that, guess what, led to the first wars on the European continent since the Second World War.   If you want to be boneheaded enough to glamorize pointless violence and destruction, and forcing the cancellation of a normal sporting event, be my guest.  But please don’t suggest that there is an apolitical dimension to this.  There isn’t; suggesting otherwise is an unwelcome parade of ignorance.

Genoa

Why is Genoa always a place for spectacular violence? There is much to be said about the violence of Serbian football fans in Genoa yesterday, but alas, I have to be away from the computer all day today. Mainly what I want to say is that Vuk Jeremic can apologize in the media all he wants, but his irrational policies about Kosovo stoke this kind of gangsterism, and I’ve no doubt — none whatsoever — that this violence and the violence at the gay pride parade were nurtured by politicians. You will hear lots of blame given to gangster overlords like Darko Saric, but the informed reader would do well to keep Jeremic’s clean-cut image, excellent English, and “Western” credentials in mind when trying to understand these extremely non-spontaneous events. It has a stench of the Milosevic years.

Violence at Cinecitta’ Station

"What if it was your mother? Your wife? Your sister?"

Nasty violence at Cinecitta’ station at the end of Rome’s Line A metro yesterday, in full daylight: after an argument in the line over whose turn it was, a 20-year old Roman struck a 32-year old Romanian nurse in the face. She went down and fractured her skull; he walked off and was later arrested. The security camera video up on the Corriere‘s website shows every detail, from the woman giving the man a push first to him calmly picking up his — ticket? — change? — off the ground, and then the extremely slow reaction time of the crowd. The man already had charges brought against him; for what the paper doesn’t say. I can’t but help thinking that national origin played a much larger role in this than age or gender. Would have he done the same to a 32-year old Italian? American? How much attention would this have gotten if it were Romanian-on-Romanian violence? One wonders.

Several years ago a Forza Nuova poster tried to stoke primitive fears with a provocative poster, intimating that the hordes from the east would be coming in to rape Italian women soon.  As we see, no nation necessarily has a premium on violence against women.

UPDATE: Life “hanging by a thread,” says Corriere.

The Importance of Being Serbian

A Serious Matter for Serious People

Belgrade’s Gay Pride parade has been an opportunity for the its nationalistic and regressive right-wing youth to rebel against European values for as long as Serbia has been trying to rehabilitate itself after the Milosevic regime, i.e., the last decade.   Although the mobs of the right succeeding in actually stopping it last year, this year they didn’t quite get so far, and the parade was successfully run, for the first time.  The hooligans put on such a performance that they made the media nonetheless. This should serve as a reminder, as the riots after Kosovo’s independence over two and a half years ago did, that the same elements that fed the gangsteristic nihilism of the Milosevic years are still hard at work.

The implications of these sentiments reach far beyond Belgrade and deep into the region, particularly in Bosnia’s Republika Srpska.  There’s more — much more — to be said on this, but for now, let me point you to this excellent piece by Marko Hoare.

Sarpi on Sunday

Capitalism in a sack

This is just a first impression.  And first impressions tend to mislead.  But a Sunday stroll on via Sarpi finds an amazing bustle of activity.  Fashionable, well-dressed people shop for shoes and crowd into grocery stores, arms full of fresh meat and vegetables.  Every shop is open.  A gaze into some shows that, beyond the storefront where wares are displayed, that there are many more rooms deep inside, extending all the way back into a courtyard.  Men rush into these courtyards with handtrucks stacked with heavy plastic bags packed with merchandise.  Window shopping aside, this is, of course, more or less how the neighborhood is  every weeknight.  Consumption and production thrive.

The point to take away is that every one of these shops is Chinese.  Every single Italian shop is closed, which is totally normal for a Sunday, but the contrast is sharper given the amazing activity of the Chinese.  And I should point out that although the Italian shops are closed, plenty of Italian shoppers are around, looking at the shoes, cautiously examining vegetables at the market, getting take-out pasta or roast chicken from the deli that also sells barbecue ribs and fried squid.

The first article of the Italian constitution is that it is a “democratic republic, founded on work.”  The presence of a via Sarpi shows what kind of future Italy is being created today.  Those who ignore it will not be able to do so for much longer.

Sunday Style Note

Italy your Italy: good prose is like a windowpane

Let me point something out for aspiring writers on Italy who wish to dress up their language. Italian is a fairly colorful language, so there are several good metonyms for the country. Il bel paese (“the beautiful country”) has the finest pedigree, having been used by both Petrarch and Dante. If you want to point out the defining geographical feature, you can use lo stivale (“the boot”); this is rife with opportunities for word play such as Napoleon’s famous maxim that you must enter a boot from the top. If you want to be official you can say Italian Republic, an exact translation of the name of the county that has existed since the referendum held on June 2, 1946.

Now: in Italian you may come across la Penisola, the peninsula, from time to time.  And that’s ok.  Italians know only one peninsula and so there’s a context.  But it doesn’t work as hip shorthand in American English.  “What a great cup of coffee I had on the Peninsula!” is simply confusing; “I went up to Turin on a recent trip to the Peninsula” is just pretentious.  There are several peninsulas in Europe; notably the nearby Iberian and Balkan ones, and Italy shares substantial history with both.  If you really want to be a pedant, you could consider all of Europe a peninsula of the Eurasian subcontinent.  To add to the confusion is the fact that “peninsular” in English often refers to Spain, not Italy; i.e.,  Peninsular Spanish or Peninsular War.  There are other, better terms. Most importantly:

“Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.”

And if you don’t know who said that I’ll leave it to you to google, but if you’re interested in good, clear prose style and you don’t know, then you’re in trouble.

The Bird is the Most Popular Finger

Giving or receiving?

Riding my bike home from work I decided to go through Piazza Affari to check out the Borsa. I was left gape-mouthed by a gigantic middle finger. I wasn’t sure if it was an accident or not. It’s not. By Cattelan, and mild by his standards — recall the infamous Hitler piece of a few years ago, and his hanging children. I’m all for eye-turning pulbic art, but one must wonder — who’s getting the gesture here, and who is giving it? Or is that the tantalizing ambiguity? I’ll ponder…

Immigration is Not Zero-Sum

Elisabetta Burba had a story in this week’s Panorama on Italy’s Chinese population.  It’s really not bad writing in that it lists many success stories and is generally favorable.  It includes details I didn’t know, such as a quote from one expat Chinese saying that “the Filipinos will work under a boss, but we all want to have our own business, be our own boss” — something any red-blooded Italian should take heart with.  But before I get too giddy handing out the accolades, I should say that the print version includes maps of five different city streets and store-by-store diagrams indicating which businesses are foreign-owned.  This is an issue, especially when coupled with making note that the particular Chinese who come to Italy are called “China’s Jews.” Perhaps not intentional, but tasteless at best, as were the cover (see graphic) and at least part of the title (“We Were Evicted — We’ll Win” — why must someone lose, Chinese or Italian?).   Hard to find online, but here’s a terribly-formatted version. In Italian.

Be sure to click on the above link to read about Burba’s role in the run-up to the war in Iraq.