Brodskij, Lenin e "The April Theses"

"Tutto questo aveva ben poco a che fare con Lenin, per il quale, suppongo, il mio disprezzo cominciò fin da quando ero in prima elementare – non tanto a causa della sua filosofia politica o della sua prassi, di cui a sette anni sapevo ben poco, ma per via delle sue immagini onnipresenti che infestavano quasi ogni libro di testo, ogni parete della scuola, francobolli, monete e quant’altro, raffigurando l’uomo in varie età e fasi della sua vita. C’era baby Lenin, che con i suoi boccoli biondi somigliava a un cherubino. Poi Lenin ventenne e trentenne, calvo e impettito, con la faccia atteggiata a un’espressione che non significava niente e poteva essere scambiata per tutto, preferibilmente un senso di determinazione. Quella faccia perseguita in un modo o nell’altro ogni russo e propone una sorta di modello umano per la sua assoluta mancanza di carattere. (Forse, non essendovi in essa nulla di specifico, quella faccia suggerisce molte possibilità). Poi c’era un Lenin attempato, più calvo, con la sua barba a cuneo, nel suo completo scuro, a volte sorridente ma più spesso nell’atto di parlare alle «masse» dall’alto di un’autoblindo o dal podio di qualche congresso del partito, con una mano protesa nell’aria. Non mancavano le varianti: Lenin col suo berretto da operaio, con un garofano infilato nell’occhiello; in panciotto, seduto nel suo studio, a scrivere o a leggere; su un ceppo in riva al lago, a scribacchiare le sue Tesi d’aprile, o qualche altra sciocchezza, al fresco." 

Fuga da Bisanzio - Iosif Brodskij. 

From: "The April Theses", iLENIN#5 ©davide Monteleone

Coming soon: "The April Theses"

The April Theses #1

In March 1917 Vladimir Ilych Ulyanov (LENIN) was leaving exiled and in poverty in Zurich. Within eight months he assumed the leadership on 16000000 people occupying one-sixth of inhabited surface of the world. On April 9th 1917, with the support of German authorities, at that time in war with Russia, he travelled back to his own country on a train across Germany, Sweden and Finland to reach Finland Station in St. Petersburg on April 16th.  By the time he was back in St Petersburg he wrote a ten points program known as “The April Theses”. 

Lenin's Statue at "RGASPI" - Moscow. ©Davide Monteleone.

Part of the documents concerning Lenin's life between March 27th and April 22nd 1917 which I reviewed to research about the trip and "The April Theses".

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100 year later I created a chronology of that 2 weeks of Lenin’s life just before the events that changed Russia and the entire world. In search of the original draft of “The April Theses” I recreated and sometime reacted on a real non-invented trip Lenin’s epic journey on the base of archival documents found it at the R.G.A.S.P.I (Political History Russian State Archive of Political History ) and historical books including “To Finland Station” by Edmund Wilson and “The sealed train” by Michael Pearson. 

C' era una volta...

While I was moving from Rome I found a box full of numerous undeveloped Polaroid. Unfortunately my Polaroid SX70 camera felt on the ice of Moscow in February 2012 while I was trying to jump on a taxi to reach a demo in the center of the city. My weird intention was to work in the cold of Moscow with this old camera and technique. The camera did not survive! Since then, the diary onceI was doing with a Polaroid I' m now doing  (as most of us does) with a much "cold" digital device. No regrets....pictures are always pictures...almost!

Here is a selection from my digital portable camera device (DPCP) which I will keep updating time to time, remembering my old Polaroid...

The last emperor

Manzhouli, China 2015. ©Davide Monteleone

On August 18, 1945, Pu Yi, China’s Last Emperor, who by that time was reduced to being the emperor of the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo, renounced his throne and prepared to flee northeastern China along with the defeated Japanese Army.  Bernardo Bertolucci’s Academy —— film, ‘The Last Emperor’ depicted the moment when Soviet troops seized a Manchurian airport and stopped Pu Yi and his royal entourage from escaping to Korea.  They were taken to the Soviet Union to meet an uncertain fate.
Pu Yi spent five years as a prisoner of war in the Soviet Union. In an autobiography that was published in the 1960s, he described his life in Chita and Khabarovsk.

I spent the last 3 weeks traveling in Northern Est China, close to the border between Russia and China searching for historical and contemporary relations between the two countries. I met ethnic Russian Chinese, mixed couples, woodcutter, traders, an orthodox Chinese priest and visited surreal amusement parks and "sanatorium". 

Tomorrow I will fly back to Moscow exactly from Chita. I'll have numerous days of editing back home, but updates and stories will come soon.

Rendering Moscow (2015- )" Imperium", chapter 1

"Imperium" - chapter #1: The Capital of the Empire.

In 2007 Viktor Erofeev wrote an introduction for my first book Dusha. In that book there is really few pictures from Moscow, but this is how Viktor begun his text:

“I am convinced that Moscow is the most interesting city in the world.  Except that it has a dirty aura. The air is dirty. Its thoughts are dirty.  Moscow has told too many lies and continues to do so.  It wears heavy make-up.  It is a city of shameless advertising.  The women wear fur coats and no underwear.  I flee from the capital to experience the pleasure of liberation.

When travelling through Russia one has the sense of entering into a great open space where the only company is huge trucks streaking past like meteorites.  People say that Moscow is not Russia.  It is like oil and water.  The greasy stain that is Moscow is lost amid the forests on the outskirts of the capital. Moscow is ruled by time, Russia by eternity.”

Last November Moscow ranked 62nd out of 64 major cities in a global liveability index. In 2012, the Russian government announced the formation of a new “greater Moscow”, and there is talk of a grand urban vision: new jobs, homes, infrastructure and city-wide improvements.

Moscow changed a lot since the first time I arrived there fourteen years ago, and is transforming rapidly in the last two years. Plans involve pedestrianized embankments high-speed water transport,  brand-new cycling infrastructure, new parks and of course new dwelling houses in the outskirt of the city. But how much has life really changed for Moscow’s residents? Has the transformation been for the benefit of everyone or just a select few?

“Rendering Moscow” is my attempt to look at the city for what is becoming. In this first part of the project the residents seems to be only a part of the of the new scenography of the city, unaware of the role they may have in the new scheme planned by government and institutions. 

To be continued…

One of...

From the series "One of..." - Liliana Uiao, China. One of 18523. ©Davide Monteleone.

From the series "One of..." - Jekaterina Pressmann, Estonia. One of 47. ©Davide Monteleone.

From the series "One of..." - Niang Abdou, Senegal. One of 1731 ©Davide Monteleone.

Few weeks ago I found this article by Roman historian Ursula Rothe in Newsweek where she describe the policy on immigration at the time of the Roman Empire as a model that could be applied nowadays to deal and reconsider the migration's issue in Europe.

Italy hosts officially  3.874.726 foreign citizens and is properly considered one of the main gate to Europe because of its geographical position. I also just recently discovered Rome accomodate 181 different foreign community ( almost the entire nationalities of the word) living in the city. Last month I decided I want to try to make one portrait for each nationality inviting them to my studio in Rome.

"My ancestors…encourage me to govern by the same policy of transferring to this city all conspicuous merit, wherever found. And indeed I know, as facts, that the Julii came from Alba, the Coruncanii from Camerium, the Porcii from Tusculum, and not to inquire too minutely into the past, that new members have been brought into the Senate from Etruria and Lucania and the whole of Italy, that Italy itself was at last extended to the Alps, to the end that not only single persons but entire countries and tribes might be united under our name.

We had unshaken peace at home; we prospered in all our foreign relations, in the days when Italy beyond the Po was admitted to share our citizenship…. Are we sorry that the Balbi came to us from Spain, and other men not less illustrious from Narbon Gaul? Their descendants are still among us, and do not yield to us in patriotism.

Everything, Senators, which we now hold to be of the highest antiquity, was once new."

Emperor Claudius 41 to 54 AD

IF YOU WANT TO HELP ME TO COMPLETE THIS PROJECT AND YOU ARE OR YOU KNOW FOREIGNERS LIVING IN ROME  PLEASE WRITE TO: STUDIO@DAVIDEMONTELEONE.COM TO FIX AN APPOINTMENT TO DO THE PORTRAIT.

Per me si va...

Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
mi ritrovai per una selva oscura,
ché la diritta via era smarrita. 

Ahi quanto a dir qual era è cosa dura
esta selva selvaggia e aspra e forte
che nel pensier rinova la paura! 

Tant’è amara che poco è più morte;
ma per trattar del ben ch’i’ vi trovai,
dirò de l’altre cose ch’i’ v’ ho scorte. 

Io non so ben ridir com’i’ v’intrai,
tant’era pien di sonno a quel punto
che la verace via abbandonai.  
[...]

Divina Commedia, Inferno, Canto I.

Imperium - Chapter 1/b - Flux ©Davide Monteloene

Studies on Color

Just pointed my camera to the window in my hotel room: