Bloodshy & Avant

Downdraft 5 Someone once asked me if I could write a book about myself what would the title be and how do I see the ending of my life. I would title my book, “Why Naughty is the New Nice”. The reason for this title is because I am probably one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet. I would do absolutely anything for anyone. Always being the nice girl means I work my ass off to get others to like me because I cannot stand to think that anyone hates me. I usually go out of my way to do favors for others but get absolutely nothing in return. I try my damnedest to please everyone, but in the end people just take advantage of me. I also have a really hard time with confrontation. I never go out of my way to pick a fight with anyone. This makes things difficult because deep down inside I want to lash out at a few select people and tell them how I really feel. My in-laws, the most God-awful people you could ever meet, are at the top of my list. They treat me like I am an old, dirty, nasty piece of chewed gum on the bottom of their shoe. For example, Dave, a good friend of my husband, was posting pictures of our son on his Facebook. I do not know any of the people Dave is friends with on Facebook so I texted him asking if he would please not post anymore pictures. He apologized and said he wouldn’t do it anymore. Within about 15 minutes there were a lot more pictures of our son posted. Come to find out, my in-laws were at Dave’s house and told him to ignore me and that it was okay…

her and her mother. Having attended a German preparatory school, she became fluent in many languages including German, French, Russian, English and her native Swedish. Södergran maintained fluency in these languages but herself stated that German “was her best language and the language of her intellect.” It would be easy then to expect that Södergran’s poetry may have been better expressed and received by a larger audience had she written in German, indeed many of her earliest poems were written…

By no accident, “Kyivproekt,” chose avant-garde style to reconstruct the city central street, Khreshchatyk, in 1954. The main building, a skyscraper, hotel “Moskva,” was built on the place of the first Kyiv’s skyscraper by Ginsburg (1912-1944) ruined in 1944. The reconstruction project was led by Anatol Dobrovolsky, who became the city architect four years before. In 1950, he received Stalin’s award of II range for “technology development, an organization of mass production and implication of…

Boris Groys. The Total Art of Stalinism: Avant-Garde, Aesthetic Dictatorship, and Beyond. Translated by Charles Rougle. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1992. 126 pp., $13.49 (paper). The Total Art of Stalinism is not only a historical book on art, but it is also a political provocation of the well-known histories of 20th century Soviet art and literature. Originally published in German, this book was the first major work of Groys to have been translated into English. This…

Lazar Markovich Lissitzky better known as El Lissitzky was a Russian artist, designer, architect, typographer, and photographer. He was an important figure of the Russian avant-garde and he helped develop the Suprematism art movement which focused on basic geometric shapes. His work had a great influence on the development of the Bauhaus and constructivist movements and later on his experimentation with production techniques and stylistic devices in the 1920’s and 1930’s went on to dominate and…

With political discourse taking center stage in Russia during the early 20th century, the atmosphere surrounding the beliefs of the working class switched from the oppression of autocracy towards a communist state. The effects surrounding the societal switch was sparking new ideas and viewpoints in the world of art. Russian avant-garde artist, Kazimir Malevich, the inventor and pioneer of Suprematism, was a driving force in the development of today’s modern art community. His views and messages…