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Scarred and encrusted with ammonite-like shells and arcane symbols, these figures seem to be mysterious, fossilized remnants of an ancient animism, or echoes of archaic hybridism and genomic plasticity
Dialogue, 160x 200cm, oil on canvas, by Vahan Bego 2006
The following interview was conducted and edited by Marcin Kubicki, for Moda i Styl. It is translated by Loosavor and reproduced here with permission.
Q – Do you think that everyone is an artist?
A – Yes! Yes! Everyone is an artist, God and a fallen angel all at once. I think that humans are nothing, just ordinary biological bacteria making a mess of the world, and only consciousness of who one is can justify our existence on this planet. Let everyone define themselves by their creativity.
A Kiss, Vahan Bego 1993
Cuneiform script at Erebuni Fortress, Yerevan, 782 BC. Photo by Vahan Bego, August 2006
[click to enlarge]
Meyerhold's production of The Bathhouse by Mayakovsky, March 16 1930
"The methods of Taylorism may be applied to the work of the actor in the same way as they are to any other form of work with the aim of maximum productivity."
Vsevolod Emilevich Meyerhold, 1922
Continue reading "Meyerhold & Mayakovsky - Biomechanics & the Communist Utopia" »
The Dream of Don Quixote, 70 x 100cm, Vahan Bego, Pastel, May 2006
Continue reading ""the thing is to turn crazy without any provocation"" »
Nani's Nude, Vahan Bego, June 2006, Bronze @ Ventzi Gallery, Poznań
Most Teatralny (Theatre Bridge)
Stanislaw I. Witkiewicz, self-portrait, before 1914
Continue reading "Witkiewicz & Futurism - The Crazy Locomotive" »
"Radom, Mayday Street, 25th June 1976 - workers demonstration outside the burning building of the Regional Party Headquarters"from Gazeta Wyborcza 24.06.2006
Continue reading "Workers Against the Communist State - Radom, June 25 1976" »
Khor Virab Monastery With Mount Ararat in the background
Detail from Saint Sebastian, 100 x 70 cm, Vahan Bego, pastel, May 2006
A 'small gift' from Fala, a guitarist from Sweet Noise, the ex X-man.
Vanquished in the field of arms, Armenia seeks salvation in the scriptoria... These must have been enormous collections: in 1170 the Seljuks destroy a library in Syunik consisting of ten thousand volumes... At first they wrote on skins, then on paper. They once made a book that weighed thirty-two kilograms. Seven hundred calves went into it... Golden armies of small Armenian letters crawl over hundreds of pages... The fate of these books is the history of the Armenians.
Ola Watowa, Kazakhstan 1941
Then I saw how powerful the property instinct is, the way it defied the system that wanted to produce Homo Sovieticus.
Continue reading "Ola Watowa - Private Property & the Steppe" »
In the current intense environment, Kapuściński’s Shah of Shahs (1982) is extremely pertinent and ought to be compulsory reading in some quarters.
Being a glutton for punishment and a lover of vast canvases, Kapuściński set himself the daunting task of describing the lead-up to, and outcome of, the Iranian revolution in 1979.
Apart from providing a broad and enlightening backdrop for the genesis of the Iran's Islamic Republic, this book also demonstrates how a mind can navigate its way through overwhelming events and material to arrive at a degree of robust, condensed clarity: it is done by bothering to listen carefully, by slow absorption and pausing for thought, by a laborious writing process involving ruthless chiselling; not by thoughtless clicking, sloppy scanning and semi-automated copying and pasting.
Shah of Shahs is a rare breed of book: despite being about hugely controversial characters and events, Kapuściński manages to avoid the vicious polarities which are part and parcel of divisive 'us or them' politics; it does not seek to convince us or force an agenda down our throat.
Continue reading "Ryszard Kapuscinski’s ‘Shah of Shahs’ (Szachinszach)" »
The graffiti of cantwo is the tip of an evolutionary lineage which has accumulated and refined optimal designs. It is traditional for graffiti artists to assert and insist on their originality, and to depise those who copy or 'bite'. However, this makes little sense in terms of evolutionary development, which modifies and 'perfects' existing designs, rather than continually starting from scratch. There are optimal and suboptimal shapes for letters: some graffiti templates for the letter 'C' are aesthetically pleasing, while others are not. A writer's calibre should be judged on the orginality with which they modify pre-existing designs; on how they take the template to another level. Cantwo is on top of the game in this regard.
Graffiti is a prime example of memetic evolution: it passes on techniques, shapes and colour schemes from one continent to the next, from one city to the next (horizontal meme transmission), and from one generation to the next (vertical meme transmission). In graffiti natural selection operates by ruthlessly eliminating the wack - only the wildest, most dynamic and most perfectly executed designs are assured a future.
Continue reading "Graffiti Evolution: Building on Existing Design" »
cover artwork by staalplaat
listen to extracts from Temple Carcass and Meesur - both from
A Box of Silk & Dogs (Staalplaat 1999)
... an extract from Lahore - Lahore & Marseille (Soleilmoon 1998)
... an extract from Bethlehem is Free - Hummus (Soleilmoon 2002)
... an extract from remix03 - Remixes Vol 2 (Soleilmoon 1998)
For background information on Muslimgauze.
The most comprehensive Muslimgauze site: pretentious.
If you go to Berlin, be sure to go STAALPLAAT @ TORSTR. 72 - as well as having a vast range of Muslimgauze and other weird and wonderful noise for sale, they are extremely helpful and friendly.
For free and legal Muslimgauze downloads, and a well-written description of the music, search for Muslimgauze here.
For streamed tracks and a rare concert performance: Arabbox
Zbieracz Chrustu (The Brushwood Gatherer), pastel on card, 2005
Miłosna Kompzycja pt. Vulkan, by the artist Vahan Bego, demands some processing.
A few things that could be borne in mind:
• Love Composition Volcano, a fairly epic painting, weighs in at 140cm by 200cm. Though it is obviously best seen ‘in the flesh’, some of its power can be felt in the claustrophobic confines of JPEG.
• Quite exceptionally for this day and age, the painting was executed entirely in oil paint.
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 design by maciej sierpien & krzysztof bartkowski |
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