Riga: a city cast of characters (November 2024)

The sun is setting beyond the Daugava River, bestowing golden reflections on the castle, on the colorful medieval little houses, and on the extremely tall pointy turrets, and we are feeling proud that, already within our very first day in Riga, we have walked almost all of Old Town. My fellow traveler and I are under the impression that, for the remaining days, all we'll have to do is delve deeper into the purlieus we have already come to know - climb on St. Peter's bell tower, visit the 15th-century house (the city's oldest), locate the German, Swedish, and Russian historical layers - thinking that this perfectly preserved, thriving with tourist traffic, and utterly beautiful labyrinthine part is the basic sight of the capital of Latvia.

Reversal awaits at the corner -literally: on a curved cobblestone little street close to the Cathedral, I come face to face with a building in a way I had never experienced before. The classical, austere but not stern, perhaps a little sad, oversized female figure does not simply adorn the Neiburgs Building; her face is of such scale and proximity to the pedestrians, and carved in such an organic way onto the facade that you think that the stone deity (?) is the building. The edifice flows out of the figure – the arched entrance grows through her wavy hair [mane??], the floors are her body. That same night, I see on the map that in the newer center of the city, there is a whole “Art Nouveau District” - i.e. named after the international artistic movement to which clearly the Neiburgs Building belongs - and naturally on the following day I head there.

Lush parks with little ponds, majestic wide avenues, historic multi-story department-stores, theatres, the Opera - contemporary Riga, a model of 19th-century urban planning, shines with an air of splendid grandeur.

The sculpted decoration of the vast majority of buildings, whether neoclassical or eclecticist, is unparalleled. Riga may be completely flat geographically speaking, but it is uniquely sculpted from an architectural point of view.

Muscular Atlantes are “bearing” on their sturdy shoulders and backs many of the balconies of the newer center, attracting your attention with their athletic ribs and pronounced muscle lines. No matter how anti-gym you may be, I think that if you feel every day the gaze of these buffs fall heavy on you, you will end up developing a desire to get swole. But Caryatids are not left behind: though as if made of air, with garments and limbs that dance, they too sustain many protruding decorative details and friezes, ravishing the pedestrians' senses.

The light-blue Mikhail

But the doormen who usher you into the “nest” of Jugendstil (in Latvian, the German term of the movement prevailed) are zoomorphic—or rather grotesque: the two cute dragons on 8 Antonijas Street, with bat wings and coiling little tails, do not simply guard the apartment building entrance (once upon a time, they must have also held torches) but they also welcome you to the fairytale-like Art Nouveau neighborhood.

After the dragons, come the owls: at 10b Elizabetes Street, the eyes and becks of the sculpted wise birds seem abstracted to their geometrical ideals, while their wings are creating ninety-degree angles. Mikhail Eisenstein (father of Sergei, the top Soviet filmmaker and “father” of montage) must have been in a great mood when he designed the three-story 1903 apartment building. There is no figure, classical or expressionistic, that has not been included in the facade. A little higher than the birds, cylinders, curves, and a shell-shaped form compose primitive masks, while in the center above the entrance, a female head with a radiate crown prevails (I think she's wearing a helmet; she could be Athena). Numerous other geometric and vegetal and animal motifs (I “see” insects and frogs and lyres and peacocks) continue to unfold vertically and horizontally, but the new irresistible element from the second floor and up is the surfaces in a bold light-blue color. No matter how many buildings by Eisenstein I saw subsequently, in my mind he stayed as the light-blue Mikhail.

And as you reach the finish, flanking the crown, here they are, two gigantic female classical faces, in profile, also a little sad, like their “cousin” at the Old Town's Nieburgs, surveying earthly life and contemplating the sky. How strange, how riveting are these oversized heads that have been let to sit on the top.

On Alberta Street

I don't proceed on to Alberta Street because I'm afraid I'll develop Stendhal's syndrome – I'll faint due to beauty overdose. I come back the following day: both sides of the celebrated street are occupied by Art Nouveau buildings (designed by Eisenstein but also by other architects), which, though individually possessing their distinct features, yet at the same time form a unified landscape, a unique aesthetic experience – in the same way the limits between architecture, sculpture, and decoration “wither,” and one art “blooms” through the other.

First I notice the building with the red pilasters and the arcades on the top that let the bright blue sky peek out through the arched openings. Next, the one with the three theatrical faces gracing the entrance. Then a sweet, cream-colored one, where the show is stolen by the almond-shaped windows - you think that the whole building is smiling at you. Across the street a yellowish one with a red-orange belt course and an Egyptian female head. Another light-blue one. A red-brown one. A pistachio one...

Battleship Potemkin may be black-and-white, but it is not by accident that the color theory of Eisenstein fils is central to his work. Seeing how boldly color was used not only by his father but also by other architects, I can imagine what a heightened color perception little Sergei must have developed while growing up in the streets of the exploding visual arts-wise early 20th-century Riga.

At the turn of the century

Hailing from Saint Petersburg, architect and civil engineer Mikhail Eisenstein came to Riga at the turn of the century to build a brilliant career at a time when this strategically situated Baltic seaport was among the five biggest cities of the Russian Empire and was experiencing its greatest development in its history, coinciding with the Art Nouveau flourishing. Fruit of the above components is a worldwide record number of buildings belonging to this artistic style (and which of course have been preserved), making Riga today the capital not only of Latvia but also of Art Nouveau.

Trees, flowers, abundant aesthetic richness, the Latvians who are rowing little boats in the heart of the contemporary downtown – I feel as I traveled not simply to the Baltic but to the lost mythical era of the Golden Age, where humans lived in harmony among the gods. Surrounded by so many exquisite figures, I, a mortal, lived for a little between Muses, nymphs and demigods.

We ended up not climbing to the top of St. Peter, but the keys to architectural paradise were handed to us by that first sculpted figure in the Old City.

This essay first appeared in Greek in HellasJournal.com on November 27, 2024.

Το κείμενο αυτό πρωτοδημοσιεύτηκε στο HellasJournal.com στις 27 Νοεμβρίου 2024.

Για να διαβάσετε το ελληνικό κείμενο, κάντε κλικ εδώ.

My American friends (October 2024)

I'm proud of my American friends – they're the embodiment, the personification of diversity, multiethnicity and talent:

Joyce – violinist, scholar, chanter at an Orthodox church. African-American. (And Ron, her husband – high-school teacher, cameraman. Jewish from the Bronx.)

Sol – librarian at Columbia and organist at several NYC churches. Jewish, born and raised in Queens.

Miriam – business woman and MA in Theology holder. Catholic and Jewish. Lover and benefactor of the arts.

Conor – professor of Medicine and film producer. Protestant with Jewish roots. He's not raising his children in any religion – he's letting them choose for themselves, but he is sending them to Jewish Sunday school so that they can learn Hebrew as a foreign language. Resident of Brooklyn.

Ashley – Bostonian, second-generation American, daughter of Pakistani immigrants. Psychology lecturer at City College.

Neil – costume designer and swimmer. Gay former Mormon from Utah. Now an atheist.

Mendy – Californian, second-generation American, daughter of Vietnamese immigrants. Fashion designer. Buddhist.

Jim – mathematician and cinephile. Baptist from New Orleans, resident of Harlem.

Nicole – Law Professor, second-generation American, daughter of Ethiopian immigrants. Christian Orthodox.

Matt – dancer. Dad a New Jersey Jew, mom Peruvian.

(Thank God, the list is long – the “melting pot where nothing melted” that Tony Kushner talks about in Angels in America, to my eyes, is functional.)

But the chasm between my tolerant, colorful, multi-talented friends and the American government seems unbridgeable. Why don't I see my American friends' virtues reflected in the actions of those governing the US? The question of governing is age-old – Plato of course tried to tackle it in the “Republic.” One aspect of the question can be illuminated by Plato – but not in his “Republic” but rather in the “Symposium.” It involves the example of the US-Israel relationship.

Unconditional eros

The relationship in question looks like love, eros – or like an erotic friendship: it is based on the axiom of unconditional, nonnegotiable support. “I'll love you till death, I'll love you unrestrictedly, endlessly, no matter what, in sickness and in health,” promised the US to Israel. No matter what the eromenos (the younger partner) does, no matter how many International Law violations it commits, no matter how many hospitals it bombs, the love is nonnegotiable: “unconditional alliance.” The relationship is so straightforward, so clear, that it would have been moving, had it not been so catastrophic for the civilians, the communities, the countries that happen to be located within the eromenos' range. Since the erastis, the older lover, has committed himself to supply unconditional support, the pais, the youth, can do whatever he wants. (Of course in the platonic model the erastis should be morally checking the actions of the eromenos, should be teaching virtue.)

News like “Biden was mad that Netanyahu did not do x” or “Washington expressed dismay that Israel did not abide with y” are nothing but little passion squabbles. The proof is that, for more than a year now, nothing has proven adequate to incite the slightest active motion on behalf of the US towards a ceasefire. The UN Security Council may be convening or some may be bringing the case to the Hague, but since the erastis' weapons and dollars are flowing abundantly and uninterruptedly, comments like the above seem almost comedic. As a theatre person, I hate the expression, but in this case I'm going to apply it: it's only playacting. They're only playacting when they say that “they haven't spoken to each other in seven weeks.” They might be sulking a little, but the spark of the passion burns undiminished.

Letters and numbers

Numbers do not matter at all anymore: who sets up, who decides, who rules at how many deaths someone (who?) will cry out “enough”, ceasefire now? At this moment I'm reading that the number of dead Palestinians has risen to x thousand. But when it was x-y, what difference did it make? And tomorrow, when quite possibly it will rise to x-y, will something change? Since love has no limits, there's no limits either to the death toll that will put an end to the conflict.

“And where have you been all these years?”, someone will ask. “Didn't you know that superpowers have always bombed countries to maintain their influence?” I had heard of that, yes, but I am particularly awakened right now because, though an NYC resident for nineteen years, this year is the first I'm eligible to vote. The alarm clock of the ballot is ringing.

Americans have one thing sacred and you cannot touch it, they'll explode with anger: their democracy. Additionally, they're exquisite orators. So, during election season in particular, we are “bombarded” with how perfect our democracy is, how proud we are of it, and how sorry we feel for the parts of the world that, unfortunately, do not enjoy a democracy as exemplary as our own.

This is where the fiasco begins, where the type of rage that can only lead to a revolution begins: as soon as the logical, humble question “Fine, but do all these ideals not apply to the children of Gaza?” intrudes into the perfect democracy rhetoric, then it collapses, it is ridiculed. When the question is posed, some politicians answer that Palestinians do have a right to Freedom, Dignity, Security. Really? How is it possible then that, when you give speeches, you claim the latter, but in reality you kill x number of civilians within a year?

The same way in art things acquire their meaning not individually but as part of a synthesis, thanks to montage (not only in film but also in visual arts, music and theatre), thus speeches about high ideals sound empty as ever against the backdrop of the repeated images of the ongoing destructive war. The words of the ideals are bulldozed by the death toll.

I would love to succumb to the invitation to “joy” - it is indeed a high ideal, Beethoven must have known a thing or two. But is it possible to find joy in the endless footage of bombarded rubble and of children with amputated limbs?

This essay first appeared in Greek in the TA NEA newspaper (online) on October 21, 2024.

Το κείμενο αυτό πρωτοδημοσιεύτηκε στην εφημερίδα ΤΑ ΝΕΑ (ηλεκτρονική έκδοση) στις 21 Οκτωβρίου 2024.

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Sad summer (of the transfiguration) (August 2024)

“-Which is your favorite month?

-July, because then it is real summer.”

The above answer I had given in a slam book in fifth or sixth grade (it's highly possible that in an explosion of self-satisfaction it was in my own slam book - I invented the question so that I could enthusiastically answer it myself). That mad was I about summer.

Admittedly, we were privileged. Though wage earners, our parents, aided by some divine grace, but also by a type of social welfare long gone, had managed to secure for us enviable living conditions: my sister and I were “packed” and “spirited” off to the country house of the mainland set of grandparents on the day after school was out, and we would return to Athens a couple of days before school reopened, back to the salt mines. The dreamy three months were distributed over three basic destinations: the seaside holiday village in Fthiotis (in central Greece), the little house on the island (an inheritance from the set of grandparents from Tinos), and the (free, thanks to mom's Social Security) summer camp in Dionysos, in the Attica mountain of Penteli. Add-ons included few-days-long escapes back to Athens for cultural activities – in the early years, “Holiday on Ice” at the Kallimarmaro (the Panathenaic Stadium); when I grew up a little, heavier culture began: Béjart Ballet and Sankai Juku (Butoh dance company) at the Herodeon (Odeon of Herodes Atticus), and of course Epidaurus, rain or shine. Oh, and some Cycladic island with Tinos as a starting point.

Thus fared our average middle-class family. So, I was mad about summer.

The life chapter that started with the end of high school looks like a long dive from beach to beach, from bar to bar, where seaweed, shots, friendships, “fallings-in-love”, existential and other quests get mixed up in a cocktail that leads from an usettled brain to calmness. You burn without mercy all your “extra lives” in random vehicles and entertaining acquaintances, but you continue to dive deeper and deeper because the propeler of desire incessanty pushes you forward. The way to maturity passes through the dyad of every learning experience, the two extremes of pleasure and pain. Besides, the beach where, as a child, you thought you were in paradise, was the same one that taught you the pain from the sting of the jellyfish and the weever fish.

No matter how many losses and harsh reversals they were encompassing, the summers of that period didn't cease to remain variations on the same theme of the archetypical sacred, privileged childhood summer.

The other August

Then came grad school in America and with it the first radical transformation of summer: August turned into the month of the beginning of the academic year; the September “back-to-school” notion moved a month earlier. In the first year I arrived to settle down at the Columbia University dorm (and in the new continent) on August 23rd, with classes starting in just two weeks. The following year I returned from my vacation in Greece back to New York a week earlier – on Δεκαπενταύγουστος (August 15th, Assumption Day, the quintessential summer Greek holiday), whereas in the third and final year of my MFA, I transferred my return to NYC and to campus as early as possible – I spent the whole month of August there. Who knew: the Tinian tradition of saying “Have a happy winter!” as soon as the Assumption Day ceremony comes to its end in the afternoon of August 15th (a line that sounded surreal to my teenage ears - “But we still have a month until schools reopen!”) was meant to find its confirmation in the US educational system.

Very soon came yet another summer metamorphosis – one that brought the sweetness of harvest. Most of the shows I happened to direct in New York took place within summer festivals - Fringe NYC International Festival, Between the Seas Festival, Euripides Festival, Salty Women Festival. Summer then offers the orgasm of creation – you harvest the fruits of your sweat (double, thanks to the extra level of difficulty because of the heat), and you have the satisfaction that during the months that used to be out of school, you not only worked hard, but you also shared your artistic work with audiences.

This second metamorphosis meant festive theatre “summers” – in quotation marks because summer, no matter how joyful the metropolis might turn it, deep down is never real for a Greek if it doesn't have a dose of Cyclades.

As ye sow, so shall ye reap

With this and that, we arrived in 2024. How and when did the excursion I didn't want to end transform not only into an obstacle I have to jump over but also into an enemy I have to vanquish? As is often the case with changes, they work silently but systematically, and they finally reveal themselves causing you sadness because you come face to face with the transfiguration.

Although this year's summer started again with a New York performance, it then got burried in the Attica desert. We, the travelers of Athens, trapped by the unprecedented fetter of the temperature that won't drop not even at night for weeks in a row, tried to bring the island of Aeolos to the urban balcony and “the pine tree covered Dionysos slopes” (as goes the summer camp march) to the living room: we would take post-midnight bucket showers in our bathing suits on the veranda (the same way we rinse ourselves from salty water on the rooftop in Chora, Tinos) and we dragged our mattresses to the living room where taps sound out close to dawn so that we could take advantage of even the last drop of cool.

Those of us who resort to air-conditioning only as the ultimate solution and after first exhausting any other less energy-devouring and less contributing to the over-warming of the planet (and the city) cooling medium (sheets hung on balconies to block the sun, fans in the rooms, sealing of the apartment in daytime, trapping of whatever available coolness at night), even we, this year almost surrendered. As for the last stronghold of the once-upon-a-time venerated Athenian staycation, open-air-movie-theatre-going without limits, this too fell. The walls are boiling to such a degree that you think you will be devoured by their “jaws.”

“Focus on the tiniest part of reality over which you can have control”, some sages say. We go out after midnight to walk. In the searing Ambelokipi streets, the cats, exhausted from the heat, have aligned their bodies with the tiniest crack of cool in corners and crevices. What am I able to do? I can put out fresh water for them, and I can offer them my moral support.

Now that the fateful date of Δεκαπενταύγουστος has come and gone, I'm sorry I let the wide Greek summer slip through my fingers without drinking not even a drop of Aegean. I was hoping to at least stay with the memories of camping on the hardwood floor and of splashing about with a view to the President Hotel, but now that even the Penteli mountain has burned down, I don't want to remember anything.

I look for the resurrection of the forests. And next year may we be on the Trans-Siberian.

This essay first appeared in Greek in the TA NEA newspaper (in print and online) on August 24, 2024.

It was reproduced by HellasJournal.com.

Το κείμενο αυτό πρωτοδημοσιεύτηκε στην εφημερίδα ΤΑ ΝΕΑ (έντυπη και ηλεκτρονική έκδοση) στις 24 Αυγούστου 2024.

Αναδημοσιεύτηκε από το HellasJournal.com.

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Farewell to a Manhattan symbol (July 2024)

Emerging on the brand-new escalator from the recently renovated Penn Station onto the street level, I catch myself gazing at the Empire State Building as if I had never seen it before: the filling yet elegant oblong silhouette with the attractive antenna crown absorbs the senses instantly yet efficiently, like an unexpected dose of meditation as I'm rushing to rehearsal. Walking down Seventh Avenue, I realize that the skyscraper-New York symbol seems as if built yesterday, in spite of its almost one hundred years, not only thanks to the irresistible, light-blue backdrop of the summer sky, but also because in the foreground something's missing: Hotel Pennsylvania, which used to occupy - also for one hundred years - the block between 33rd and 32nd Streets, has recently been demolished. A void has emerged where the gaze used to rest on the twenty-two buff and gray brick stories of the McKim, Mead & White creation, which, when it started to welcome clients to its 2,200 rooms in 1919, bragged it was the world's largest hotel.

A lot has been written about this painful, though not unexpected, architectural (and more broadly esthetic) loss incurred on the Manhattan landscape, yet two pieces of trivia are hard to resist:

-What is the historic hotel's phone number?

“Pennsylvania 6-5000,” title - and chorus - of a song by Glenn Miller who, along with his orchestra, was so hot in 1940 at the Café Rouge (the hotel's celebrated restaurant) that he dedicated an entire hit to the telephone number. Legend has it that the number is the oldest in continuous use in the history of New York.

-Which invention was introduced at a conference right here in 1947?

Polaroid instant photography.

Now the marble staircases and the water fountains and the Renaissance lounges have been shattered into powder, and the block is about to receive the erection of yet another high-rise, with the question of whether even a place like Manhattan needs more office buildings pressing. I let big-band lovers dance swing in eternity, and I allow today's crowds to sweep me away in their wave to my destination, the Opera America Center, a few blocks down. I've made it on time, one more rehearsal day.

The itinerary is almost the same every day. Like a spider, I construct a central axis from the subway station to the studio, and around that “bridge” I weave the web of my routine. The break gives you the space to unfold variations: you have enough time to make it to the impressively pedestrian-turned Broadway, where you can enjoy free public seating spots, or simply relish the luxury of walking in the middle of the avenue. After rehearsal I carry my thread to throw it however far my feet can take me. Then my cobweb expands to all directions.

All this was for as long as rehearsals lasted. On the eve of the show, my sister visited me from Athens. She hadn't been to New York in fourteen years. Now time condensed and expanded at the same time: before completing twenty-four hours, my visitor had already taken pictures of the dress rehearsal and attended the performance. We scoured the city: I dragged her to numerous neighborhoods and stores and architectural poems and little beaches and flower beds and paths. Some of those routes we had already savored in the past, some were new even for me - I was waiting to try them with her for the first time.

We crossed again the Brooklyn Bridge, we wasted our time again on Fifth Avenue, we admired again the Flatiron (under scaffolding this time, that's okay). How incredibly have the High-Line trees grown! But even the former-elevated-railroad-line-turned-into-park itself has spread so much that is has reached the (nonexistent in 2010) Hudson Yards, a whole skyscraper-village with performance spaces that slide on gigantic wheels, and with the stunning building/sculpture “Vessel” (it closed to the public very soon after its opening due to multiple suicides, now you can gaze it, getting goose bumps, only from the outside).

We climbed the woods of Inwood and dove into the Wall Street “gorges”, discovering Art Deco treasures. We sucked in the sea breeze (long live summer-in-the-city!) in the continuously multiplying and becoming ever more exciting piers and marinas on both riverbanks. We laughed with the trend in Soho to give not even two, but three-word names to bars - “Jack's Wife Freda”.

But why do I also want to show her the rehearsal itinerary (with all its accompanying details), the everyday “ritual” of the production process, since my select visitor was present at the final product, the performance? Why do I want to entangle her in my net? (This is the rehearsal-studio entrance - next to the elevator there's the classic gold-and-glass mail chute, an amazing American patent for handling the mail in high-rise buildings through a... slide; this is the “hidden” outdoor seating area of Fashion Institute of Technology, where you can eat in peace the discounted sushi you got at the nearby Fairway.)

The warning Anne Bogart (my directing professor) gave us echoes inside my head: “Beware - devote your life to your artistic work, and not vice-versa! Don't fall into the trap of turning your life into a work of art.” As I'm sharing with equal enthusiasm the work -the performance- but also the web that I've been patiently weaving, unearthing little corners and delicacies, and recording miles on my urban meter, I think I have fallen exactly in the spidery trap our teacher had cautioned us to avoid.

Those of us who serve the live arts are old friends with the ephemerality (of art, therefore of life too): our work is made of the stuff dreams are made on – now you see it and, as soon as the show is over, poof, it vanishes into thin air. You can touch the set and put on the costumes but, after coming to an end, the theatrical event lives on only as a memory in the minds and bodies of actors and spectators. Therefore I wonder if, in the same way we try to entangle in our work's net as many spectators as we can, we actually do the same thing (as I'm doing now with my guest) with the web of our ritual.

Did the demolished Hotel Pennsylvania truly vanish? Indeed, it is not occupying anymore the space it used to occupy in our generally agreed-upon four-dimensional version of reality (length, height, depth, in present time). Yet I challenge whoever listens to the refrain “Pennsylvania six five oh oh oh” to tell me whether they're not instantly transported through the grand Ionic columns of the main entrance into the high-ceilinged Café Rouge, swung away by swing, and by the tweed suit jackets, the off-the-shoulder gowns and the perfect curls of the 1940 clientele.

This essay first appeared in Greek in the TA NEA newspaper (in print and online) on July 27, 2024.

It was reproduced by HellasJournal.com.

Το κείμενο αυτό πρωτοδημοσιεύτηκε στην εφημερίδα ΤΑ ΝΕΑ (έντυπη και ηλεκτρονική έκδοση) στις 27 Ιουλίου 2024.

Αναδημοσιεύτηκε από το HellasJournal.com.

Για να διαβάσετε το ελληνικό κείμενο, κάντε κλικ εδώ.

From the Sorbonne to Columbia (May 2024)

At the Sorbonne in May '98

I went for the first time to Paris in May '97, on my twenty-third birthday, as a senior at the Theatre Studies Department of the University of Athens, to be interviewed, along with my close college classmate and friend, Vassilis Noulas, as part of the admissions process for the Sorbonne Paris III graduate program. We both got in, so the following spring, the end of our first academic year as graduate students at the Sorbonne coincided with the 30-year anniversary since May '68.

Youth frisson, student fever: to have housing at the “Cité U” (Cité Internationale Universitaire de Paris), to be going to school in the 5th arrondissement, to be avidly devouring movies, museums and theatre, to be reading (ok, sometimes maybe only skimming through) books and magazines, to be trying all cafés from Saint-Germain-des-Prés to the Bastille (and at night, “Buddha Bar”, that's another story).

May '68 was – is – mythical anyway; but now, May '98 – my very own first grad student Parisian May – seems equally mythical: we didn't have Internet, we didn't have a TV, we didn't have cell phones, we didn't even have landlines! The landline at the “Fondation” (La Fondation Hellénique, the Hellenic “house”) was a unique object per floor, precious and cherished, and the legendary, right out of a Polanski movie concierge/operator Madame Pratt would call you on your intercom (“Telephone pour vous”) so that you would get out into the hallway and rush to the much-desired, communally shared apparatus that was ringing (I was privileged, my dorm room was right next to it).

The digression about communication conditions reminiscent of Khrushchev-era Soviet apartments is employed to underline the misty allure that enveloped notions, persons and, yes, revolutions, before the times when, simply by touching (or commanding) a screen, images and words flow instantly in front of you. Back then, we had to make an effort in order to catch the features in question – catch the specific France Culture radio show at the moment it aired or look for the specific Nouvel Observateur issue. But it is also the readiness to be allured, to succumb to the power of imagination: the black-and-white imagery is so seductive that I have come to think of Daniel Cohn-Bendit as a cross between a friend of my parents' and a grad-school classmate of mine (both false, of course).

Spaces for ideas

This May I'm reminiscing on all that having just watched at a screening at MoMA the Soviet Revolutionary Committee film documentary The Fall of the Romanov Dynasty (1927), and as I'm walking towards Columbia.

I never hid my “stuckness” with university spaces: it was love at first sight with Columbia campus the instant I set foot on the brick-paved College walkway, as a, yet again, grad student in 2005. My former MFA School of the Arts classmates make fun of me: “You're still there?!” With my husband (whom, incidentally, I met in the dorm laundry room), we lived on campus, inside the Gothic tower of Union Theological Seminary, for a whole twelve years (and even when we moved out, we went nearby). Even when I will have abandoned this vain city, my “office” will always be Obama's bench, against the backdrop of the Low Memorial Library dome, and I will be forever “seated” in the armchairs of the, radiant in its glass and metal splendor, Lerner Hall, with a view to the magnificent trees behind the Pulitzer Hall. Universities are spaces for ideas, but the spaces are also part of the university's idea – the pillars and the chandeliers and the magnolias and the cherry tress become part of the World of Ideas.

I arrive at the black iron Gate on 116th & Broadway. Padlocked, and guarded by police. On the beloved brick-paved sidewalk, a poster has fallen. This revolution's heroine is less glamorous than the Nouvelle Vague-worthy “red” Danny: six-year-old Palestinian Hind, a war victim who, trapped inside a car with already dead members of her family, was left to perish, in spite of rescue appeals to Israeli authorities.

The question to Alma Mater

I've read that among the negotiation proposals offered by the university administration to the protesting students was the future planning of educational programs for Gaza children. I “turn” - virtually, since the statue is nearby, but I'm not allowed to approach it – to the wise Alma Mater (who, with her arms harmonically stretched out, had always seemed to me like a depiction of the scales of justice), and I ask the bronze spiritual nurse whether the reparation proposal through pedagogical support “in the future” seems to her like a fair counterbalance for the systematic, unprecedented extermination of thousands of children today.

“Wrongs are wrongs in whosoever's name they may be committed.” Ironically, the phrase that comes to mind is uttered by the lips of the Jewish hero of the prophetic anti-Nazi 1938 play Address Unknown by Kathrine Kressmann Taylor, whose Greek premiere I had the honor to direct (KET Theatre, Athens, 2014).

In this materialized world of ideas, meritocracy and freedom are attainable, as I can testify through my humble personal experience, since my (Russian) husband and I, both immigrants, entered Columbia land while not only not knowing anyone, but also as newcomers from another continent to study what we loved. Our very life was determined by this Gate, which did not simply open wide for us, but continues to host us.

I am awaiting the reply of the owl that's “hiding” in the classical figure's chiton. “In Lumine Tuo Videbimus Lumen” is Columbia's motto.

This essay first appeared in Greek in the TA NEA newspaper (in print) on May 18, 2024.

It was reproduced by HellasJournal.com.

Το κείμενο αυτό πρωτοδημοσιεύτηκε στην εφημερίδα ΤΑ ΝΕΑ (έντυπη έκδοση) στις 18 Μαΐου 2024.

Αναδημοσιεύτηκε από το HellasJournal.com.

Για να διαβάσετε το ελληνικό κείμενο, κάντε κλικ εδώ.

Little tables out (April 2024)

(reflection on the cut-down Athenian mulberry trees)

First I noticed one, then a second, a third one, many in a row. “Little tables as in cafés' and restaurants' outdoor seating areas, like the title of the album by Greek composer Dionysis Savvopoulos (Τραπεζάκια Έξω)”, I thought to myself. The sidewalk tree trunks, cut at about one meter from the ground, seemed like little tables (or stools). I asked, and I found out that the chopped up trunks are dead mulberry trees, victims of a wood-boring invasive beetle. Between 2019 and today, thousands of mulberry trees have withered in Athens. Trees irrepairably infected by the insect are getting cut down.

The rows of the cut-down, withered mulberry trees attract our gaze, asking for our attention in a slew of Athenian streets and squares. Like anything else in life, animate or inanimate, so it goes with the mulberry trees: they finally become visible, sensed, truly perceived, and maybe understood, thanks to their loss. Only when something is lost are its real hypostasis and dimensions brought to light.

Admittedly, it's been a few years now that I have been given the chance to appreciate the above-mentioned fruit trees thanks to my urban explorer sister. She, like other Athenians, had “discovered” that the fallen mulberries that turn the sidewalks “messy” and stain our clothes, and which all our life we used to step on, are, of course, delicious (and healthy). On night exploratory missions to neighborhoods like Ambelokipi, Psychiko and Cholargos these past few summers, she had initiated me to the collection and enjoyment of the free fruits.

The blow from the mulberry trees' sickness is even bigger because we have had the chance, thanks to the act of collecting their fruit, to develop a kind of relationship with the trees. In an era when our ability to concentrate on something continuously weakens, when, precisely because of its abundance, information loses its ability to convert into knowledge, since the time we devote to its distillation and processing continuously shrinks, those of us who were granted the blessing to spend a little bit of time with the mulberry trees – to locate them, look at them, see if their berries are black or white, grab their branches and let their leaves fall on our faces, taste their fruit and evaluate its sweetness -, now that they got sick, now that they're dying, the event of them getting cut down does not anymore constitute yet another general and abstract depressing piece of news but a specific, tangible reality. Unlike the thousands of horrific images that flow into our brain day and night from the screens occupying our hands, desks, rooms and streets, the withered mulberry trees are thre-dimensional: you can stumble upon them, sit on them, touch their dried bark.

Particularly to those of us who happened to have been out of town and are returning now that “spring enters the city” (as the Savvopoulos song goes), the stumps-that-look-like-outdoor-seating-little-tables seem even gloomier since they are contrasted with the mauve explosion of the Judas tree buds and the intoxicating bitter orange trees' blossoms. The “little stools”, with the flat surfaces of their cut-down trunks exposing the tree's life cycles to public view, like an installation of their timeline, prove victorious over the flashy blossoms of the other trees. The once-upon-a-time delicious spring has been irrepairably “stained”: it's as if the mulberry trees are taking their revenge on us for not taking enough notice of them during all those years that they were generously offering us the cool of their verdant foliage.

Now, we're left to sink in the stone of the roofless sidewalks, to fry eggs.

This essay first appeared in Greek in the TA NEA newspaper (in print and online) on April 20, 2024.

Το κείμενο αυτό πρωτοδημοσιεύτηκε στην εφημερίδα ΤΑ ΝΕΑ (έντυπη και ηλεκτρονική έκδοση) στις 20 Απριλίου 2024.

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Harlem (March 2024)

“Old-fellow-Jim / in the entire Harlem...”, went a song by Greek composer (and social justice advocate) Manos Loizos in one of the cassette soundtracks of our family excursions on the Fiat 128 in the '80s. I had a lot of questions on the lyrics, but what was clear was that the song darkened my soul, no matter how joyful the Attic landscape through which dad was driving us was. Little did I know that, a few decades later, I would be given the nickname “Harlem girl”, since, as fate would have it, I have been residing in the aforementioned NYC district since 2017 (after having first spent twelve years in the nearby Morningside Heights of Columbia University).

Other people's musics

So, in Harlem, my village, if you wake up (or go to bed) and it's quiet, something's wrong. Deafening musics penetrate your home and head day and night, rain or shine. My neighbors believe that whatever music they are listening to, those around them have to listen to too, by force. From the windows, from the walls, from the prewar apartment-building air shafts, boom-boom at a pumped up volume shakes the floors and our nervous system.

But where decibels break all records and glass is squeaking is with the cars, which are, essentially, dance clubs in motion. The volume is intolerable for us who are inside our homes – imagine the degree of hearing loss incurred onto those inside the car. Pedestrians follow suit: wretches, destitute creatures who seem to be barely surviving, yet they have found a way to be carrying shopping carts with loudspeakers the size of microwave ovens, if not bigger, so that they can “carry” with them their own music, wherever they go.

The type of music is beyond the point (though, admittedly, this noise sounds to my ears like a barrage of palpitation-causing gusts, mixed with an endless slur of words that would all get censored if I attempted to quote them here); what is the point is that the music is imposed on you, and at an outrageous volume for that matter. You see, the problem with music is that you can't filter it – once it enters your brain, it starts influencing your world, regardless of your will. (The classic question of my piano teachers comes to my mind: “What types of music have you been exposed to?”)

To the explosive mix are also added the NYPD and FDNY cars' sirens (I have signed the petition to turn down their volume, but to no avail).

But in Harlem, my village, we do not only have unique customs as far as entertainment is concerned; we also have our very own traffic laws: we double-park wherever our heart desires, and then, if, by chance, we have blocked another vehicle -which, surprisingly, desires to get out of its spot-, we simply wait to be notified by its driver's honking -an activity which, of course, wrecks the nervous system of the whole neighborhood. (This technique is applied on a daily basis.)

On top of all of the above, as soon as the weather opens up a little, to the mess are added the motocross motorcycles, in a herd, demonically gunning, with their lovely “quiet” exhausts piercing your skull like a jackhammer. Marvelous – the last thing we needed in this ecosystem was aggressive dirt bikes.

Outside: chaos continued

I make up my mind and get out. In the hallway I run into the building's exterminator. Nice guy, average efficiency. On the sidewalk of our 137th Street, with its exquisite prewar buildings, idyllic scenes offer recreation: rat families are playfully chasing each other jumping here and there. The critters are so well acclimated that they do not hide in order to avoid passers-by: it is not the mouse who waits for the human to pass, but vice-versa (otherwise the rodent will get entangled in your feet). A few rarely seen semi-feral cats are hiding because they're afraid of the rats, I think.

On the sidewalks rise piles of anything imaginable anybody feels like getting rid of: from entire home furnishings to tv sets, and from printers to gigantic plastic monstrosity-toys, as well as clothing of all types and sizes. Poor mayor: he's leading zero waste campaigns; what a joke. I'm not sure how many generations it will take to change (if it can ever change) the mentality “whatever I don't feel like seeing in my place anymore, I just dump on the street.” Notions like “repair/reuse/exchange/donate” are non-existent. The civilization of single-use and overconsumption is exposed in all its sad grandeur every single day in Harlem. The most incomprehensible aspect is seeing baby accessories in perfect shape ditched in the bins. It makes you wonder: those striving parents do not have a trace of solidarity for next-door striving parents? Doesn't it cross their mind that the (almost unused) stroller they toss in the bin, could be used by another family?

An extension of the issue of traffic laws not being valid in the streets is what happens on the sidewalks: delivery bikes circulate matter-of-factly on sidewalks from all directions, crashing on the helpless pedestrians.

Strivers' Row

And yet, as soon as I walk half a block and cross Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard (Seventh Avenue), it's as if I've been transported into another zone, another city: as if a magic switch has turned off noise pollution and a conjuring stick has made trash and rodents disappear (they exist here too, it's just that rich people hide them better): 138th and 139th Streets between Seventh and Eighth Avenues form the illustrious “Strivers' Row” -an architectural gem.

Wondrous and incomprehensible the readiness of the human species to forget about the bad things and to turn to the beautiful: deep-red and yellow brick, terracotta geometric motifs on the arcs. Light pillars elegantly frame the windows. Splendid railings twine along the stoop stairs. Iron little gates lead to pretty pocket gardens irresistible throughout the year, but most delicious when snow piles on benches and jardinieres. The whole is spirited by the breath and shade of the magnificent trees of the street, with their robust, reassuring trunks. The leaves provide reflections in the summer while the bare branches draw poetic silhouettes in the winter.

Favorite details abound, since, seven years now, like a pilgrim, I've made a vow to pass through the fairy-tale-like streets at least once a day, as fate cast me across from them: the two lions that guard one of the 139th Street row houses; the little pine tree in a pot on a charming balcony on 138th. Decorated with taste throughout the year (with cute ornaments at Christmas, with colorful Easter eggs in the spring, with magical lanterns for Lunar New Year now in February), it functions as a perpetual source of high aesthetics and feast alike – feast for “beauty that will save the world”. But the top detail of the neighborhood, and quite possibly unique in all New York City, is the sign “Private Road: Walk Your Horses”, preserved on some of the gates of the private cross streets of the complex. Gilded Age nostalgics are kindly requested to get off the carriage here.

Designed by prominent architects (including Stanford White of the firm McKim, Mead & White) around 1891, these two blocks had been conceived as a model of urban planning and aesthetics, with high-end construction-wise residences intended for white New Yorkers. However, after a combination of economic depression and departure of white populations from the area, the project was finally inhabited by Black Americans in 1919, when Harlem was experiencing its artistic and spiritual bloom. The two sparkling streets owe their appellation to the ambitious, hard-working African-American professionals who strived to rise socially and who moved into the enviable residential complex.

From Dutch village to Renaissance

Today's feel of independence and autonomy is not mere rhetorical hyperbole. Baptized by the Dutch settlers in honor of their motherland town of Haarlem in the 17th century, this northern part of Manhattan was truly a village (pasture and farmhouses) until approximately 1830, at which point it started rapidly developing into a suburb. Its regular connection to urban transit in 1880 catapulted it to one of the most sought-after New York City districts. But real explosion came in 1920, when the neighborhood evolved into a magnet for and symbol of all Black America. The celebrated Harlem Renaissance gave rise to leading music, literature, politics and civil rights figures. The secluded “islet” turned into a spiritual cradle.

Harlem's geographic isolation proved a blessing for its current aesthetic image. Compared to the rest of NYC, it is one of the rarest cases of preserved historical architecture: churches, aristocratic apartment buildings and entire row houses have remained intact because they escaped the waves of galloping demolition and development the rest of Manhattan has undergone.

Unfortunately, it is precisely this invaluable preservation of the architectural identity that is proving fatal to the economic survival of the historical community: the gorgeous buildings are being renovated to attract - at beyond-reach rents or at astronomical sell-prices - the financially privileged; the rich invaders are expanding, while the poor locals are forced to flee.

“You look happy today”, whistles good-heartedly to me a delivery guy from his bike as I'm crossing the street (surprisingly, he has stopped at the red light). “Yes”, I'm thinking, “I am happy because I survived yet another day here.” But I don't say it out loud. Perhaps he's right. I realize I'm smiling as I'm walking in my village, which I hate and I love. And which is the only place in all of the City of New York where you can walk around 24/7 and not be scared, because the neighbors may not be aware of the notion “quiet hours” but they're open-hearted and friendly, and they talk to you without knowing you and without sexual nuances. Only in Harlem, my village.

This essay first appeared in Greek in the TA NEA newspaper (online) on March 19, 2024.

Το κείμενο αυτό πρωτοδημοσιεύτηκε στην εφημερίδα ΤΑ ΝΕΑ (ηλεκτρονική έκδοση) στις 19 Μαρτίου 2023.

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Christmas in Wall Street (December 2023)

“The Sun: it shines for all”: the inscription on the protuberant (and prominent) clock on Broadway and Chambers, though poetic, is not referring to literature or philosophy; it is actually the motto of the bygone New York newspaper “The Sun.” The newspaper building, with its two decorative details that turn it unique – the elegant, four-faced 1917 clock, hanging like a street-lamp at its south corner, and the respective thermometer at its north –, marks for me the beginning of truly Lower Manhattan, and the starting point of wandering in the Financial District.

I get excited and nervous at the same time: although I've been living in the city for eighteen years now, I don't often come this far downtown, so there's always a combination of the enthusiasm and the nervousness of discovery. Here more than anywhere else one comes across the more “ancient” face of the metropolis and is immersed in its past: there's no other place where you're so aroused by the thirst to step on the stones where Dutch and British fought against each other, or to contemplate the Atlantic and to wonder how, for centuries, explorers, immigrants, or visitors must have felt when they finally arrived in the "new world" after spending weeks (or even months) in the middle of the ocean.

I start heading south on Broadway. Skyscraper and lace sound like incompatible terms, and yet, the Woolworth makes them match. The stunning sixty-storey Gothic Revival jewel may look cream-colored, but it wisely incorporates polychromy. The decoration in arcs and canopies over the thousands of windows is so intricate that it gives the impression that it is made of fabric rather than terracotta and limestone. Built in 1913, it held until 1930 the title of the tallest building in the world.

While gazing at the masterful facade, I notice something I had never noticed before: on the top-left part above the entrance, a Native American is “looking” at us. We learn that the four bas-relief portraits that harmonically grace the skyscraper's base represent the four continents (Africa, America, Europe, Asia). The Native American reminds us that, no matter how many towers the western conquerors may erect, the soil we're stepping on belonged, once upon a time, to the Lenape tribe, and this is their island, “Manahatta”.

If the lace-like exterior makes you stop in your tracks, the inconceivably luxurious and abundantly decorated cross-shaped lobby makes your jaw drop. Marble (from the Greek island of Skyros) all over, golden surfaces, mosaic domes with Byzantine aroma, arcades with murals, elevators with Tiffany doors. But the building is not open to visitors -“No photo, no tourist” yells the doorman. I want to reply that I'm not a tourist, that I passed my citizenship exam at the nearby Federal Office Building, but I restrain myself and obey after having taken some precious pictures.

I salute the City Hall (I got married in here), and I move on. At its end Manhattan forms a little tip -the farther south you go, the more you feel sea and history surround you, the more you remember that you are on an island. Speaking of surrounding, here is the... wall:

Across from Trinity Church, I turn left on a narrow, downhill little street: Wall Street took its name from the wall the Dutch built in 1653 on the then-northern limit of their colony, New Amsterdam, in order to protect themselves from British invasion (sidenote: the British actually showed up from the sea). A few blocks up, the inscription on the neoclassical Municipal Building reads “New Amsterdam”, founded in 1626, and “New York”, founded in 1664.

Movies flood your head: if you happen to have seen Michael Douglas and Charlie Sheen on the big screen in the '80s, images from the dark, silver, high-end atmosphere of the film that bears the name of the legendary stock-market street, flash like waves.

And yet, at the intersection of Wall and Broad Streets, in front of the “temple” of capitalism (New York Stock Exchange), I come across the most fairytale-like Christmas tree that can ever be! Furthermore, combined with the statue of the little girl posing nearby, fearless yet cute, the scene is far from being taken from the jungle of the stylishly dressed enraged brokers.

The bronze “Fearless Girl” (2017), which had originally been placed across from the famous bull a little further down, but which was subsequently moved here, is standing as a reminder of the place of women in the wild financial world, and beyond.

Tourists and families are having their picture taken under branches adorned with colorful ornaments, as if we were in any other NYC Christmas setting, and not at the place where designer-dressed "wolves" devour each other's flesh as a sacrifice for profit.

The sun is about to set, the cold begins to bite. I briskly head west. As soon as you find yourself in today's World Trade Center -where, by now, five or six humongous impressive skyscrapers invite you to look up-, your attention is drawn to a source of light on the lower level: at the foot of the cluster of the newly-erected, “space” glass mega-structures, the new Saint Nicholas temple glows in such a particular way that you think it is a living organism. The whole building emits a white warm light.

The impression of luminescence does not simply persist, it actually climaxes when you enter the temple: inside the hospitable, thoroughly warm “cocoon”, you feel as if you're floating in the light. You are in an Orthodox church and you recognize the iconography, yet everything is structured in a different light, literally and metaphorically. The newly-built temple, designed by Santiago Calatrava, does not simply replace the Greek Orthodox church that was destroyed on September 11th, but it's also invited to play the role of a national shrine open to all. (Funny, “The Sun”'s motto is finally confirmed here, in the humble Saint Nicholas.)

I exit the bright cocoon and I find myself again outside, in the space-like freezing landscape. And, although while I was inside the temple, I was sure I could hear a Byzantine ison in the background, now that I'm thinking about it, there was no choir or chanter or other sound source. The ison was coming from the power of the space.

This essay first appeared in Greek in the TA NEA newspaper (online) on December 28, 2023.

It was reproduced by HellasJournal.com.

Το κείμενο αυτό πρωτοδημοσιεύτηκε στην εφημερίδα ΤΑ ΝΕΑ (ηλεκτρονική έκδοση) στις 28 Δεκεμβρίου 2023.

Αναδημοσιεύτηκε από το HellasJournal.com.

Για να διαβάσετε το ελληνικό κείμενο, κάντε κλικ εδώ.

A cemetery in the city that never sleeps (November 2023)

The chill has by now started to make your ears feel tingly; a few solitary crickets are left here and there singing away; the light has changed and surprises you: the autumn detector is infallible. Once again, the season of the year (and with it the holiday) has arrived, marking the theatrical release of yet another splatter film. Upon encountering the first pumpkin, this year I try to go beyond enjoying the orange-color decorations and to peel the layers that, like dry leaves, pile up on the origins of Halloween (a holiday considered until recently “Western” but which for the past few years has been celebrated alright in Greece as well).

Digging below the surface of the established symbols, I turn to the place (metaphorical but also literal) toward which point the gigantic spiders and the skeletons: to the cycle of nature and life, and therefore to death and to the avenues available toward the sphere of the dead. Instead of marveling at the passion with which New York households devote effort and money to turning into “cemeteries” even the tiniest gardens -often just flower boxes since this is the closest they have available in terms of “garden” due to lack of space- by planting fake tombstones and other accessories, I decide to visit a real cemetery.

And yet today's decision has way deeper roots. The very first image I remember from the first time I came to NYC (in February 2005) is the endless cemeteries on the way from Queens to Manhattan. After our virgin crossing of the Atlantic, we were headed on the Olympic Airways van from JFK to midtown. And while in the background the skyline of the Big Apple was already forming -with a heavy cloud installed on top of Gotham City and sucking in it the skyscrapers-, my attention was drawn to the landscape on either side of the highway: vast expanses with dark dots were stretching as far as your eye could see. I will never forget the instant I realized that the dots were graves. While you approach with thirst and you can't hold back your enthusiasm that so many little boxes, shapes, icons -the Empire State Building, the Chrysler, the bridges- gradually become bigger, clearer and more tangible as the vehicle races toward the mythical metropolis, right and left the hills with the dots whisper to you “memento mori”.

Return to the present: after a quick look at the map, I pick one of Queens' cemeteries and embark. I cross the cast-iron gate of Calvary Cemetery and, against what one would expect inside a cemetery, my gaze is driven up high: exquisite neoclassical marble stelae rise in the crystal-clear October light, unadorned, perhaps only with a cross on the top, or supplying a several meters high pedestal to grieving angels and tender mothers that lean over their babies. I walk uphill under trees that have just started to turn red, while fallen fruits break with a cracking sound under my footsteps. The “upper neighborhood” is dominated by mausoleums with pediments, pillars and busts.

Upon turning at the top of the hill, I encounter rows of low vertical gravestones stretching on a great slope until they meet the Manhattan skyline in the horizon. The city of those who have fallen asleep, in double-exposure with the skyscrapers in the background, makes the “city that never sleeps” seem fake, mere decor. As if in a geometry game, the glass towers of the backdrop rise among the tombstones of the foreground. I rediscover the image that had been engraved in my memory; eighteen and a half years later, I finally approached the dots I had then seen fly by the window. And, while the flashback scene was blurred from the rainy winter evening, today's visit to the place of repose unfolds under an exceptionably warm autumn sun. The dive into “memento mori” has the flavor of the sweetest clear afternoon ever.

The place is literally one “of green pasture” - the tombstones pop up in perfect lines through the well-tended grass. I wander stepping with awareness on the ground. Maloney, Kelly, Kennedy; Napolitano, Cardinale, Visconti. This is a Catholic cemetery, the names are in their vast majority Irish and Italian (I subsequently learned that scenes from the “Godfather” were shot here); the graves are old - some of these people died in the 19th century. I quickly do the math and develop scenarios - all you need is just one name and two dates (birth and death) to instantly give birth to innumerable stories, particularly in light of immigration. (Did that Napolitano ever make it to Naples? How far back does his Italian root go? Or maybe he was born there himself and immigrated to America? And those Kennedys, were they by any chance related to the dynasty? Did they, too, like so many others, come here because of the Irish Potato Famine?)

Like Hansel and Gretel, I go from “breadcrumb” to “breadcrumb”, from stone to stone, from name to name, looking for the thread of narration, which is impossible to sever from earthly life.

I walk downhill toward the exit. The shadows are enormous by now, but the sun is still shining. I leave the gate behind me. Open.

This essay first appeared in Greek in HellasJournal.com on November 24, 2023.

Το κείμενο αυτό πρωτοδημοσιεύτηκε στο HellasJournal.com στις 24 Νοεμβρίου 2023.

Για να διαβάσετε το ελληνικό κείμενο, κάντε κλικ εδώ.

A Poughkeepsie panorama (September 2023)

The Poughkeepsie Railroad Station leaves little doubt that you have arrived at a historical place: the wood-paneled, high-ceilinged waiting room with its chandeliers; the facade with the high arched windows; the elegant, steel-frame overhead walkway – everything seems to have stopped a hundred years ago, perfectly preserved though.

The one-hour-and-forty-minutes ride upstate along the Hudson is enough to not only immerse you in the stunningly beautiful natural landscape -with state parks you can't get enough of at any time of the year- but to also broaden your horizons. The farther you get from the vibrant metropolis, the clearer you see its history emerge in front of you, since the water artery unfolds the connection not only with the rest of the state but also with the whole country.

Hudson Valley has it all: mines, factories, towns, companies, colleges. Everything seems idyllic thanks to the river and the forests, especially when you gaze at them from the train car that runs right next to the water. Even the legendary West Point, perched on a verdant hill on the other side of the river, looks like a quaint little village and not like the Military Academy of the United States.

So, I leave the station behind me and I walk towards Poughkeepsie Downtown, and, while all worked up about experiencing something like “North and South”, I arrive at... Little Italy: a deliciously-smelling family bakeshop with to-die-for biscotti; an old-school abandoned cafe with display windows vaguely reminiscent of the aristocratic “Varsos” (an uptown Athens classic cafe and pastry shop); a small house with a juicy female wooden figure carved on its facade, as if on a boat's bow.

I move on and am faced with the following problem: in order for a pedestrian to reach the Downtown, they have to cross a couple of multi-lane highways. History class has already begun: welcome to the Automobile Civilization. Somewhat disheartened by the trucks and the traffic (an abrupt return down to earth from the fairy-tale-like Little Italy), I reach the intersection of Main and Market Streets. In spite of the shock of cars everywhere, Downtown Poughkeepsie is trying its best to prove itself visitor-friendly: exceptionally illuminating maps placed at every corner highlight in hand-drawn renderings the main buildings, accompanied by texts and photos.

Poughkeepsie was settled in the 17th century by the Dutch. Strategically situated on the river, midway between New York City and Albany, its economy flourished in the 19th century thanks to its industrial activity, which ranged from foundries and lumber mills to breweries and millineries, but also thanks to its outstanding natural beauty, for which it was selected as a second residence place by the NYC elite. But what goes up must come down, so, today, although the broader area boasts the IBM headquarters as well as three distinguished colleges, the former “Queen City of the Hudson River Valley” is rather in decline, in spite of occasional revitalization efforts.

The board -the map- is not enough; to play the “board game” of exploring, you also need “game pieces”: in a photo Franklin D. Roosevelt (born and raised in the neighboring town of Hyde Park) is laying the cornerstone of the Poughkeepsie post office, while we read that Eleanor, much beloved by the locals, was often spotted shopping in town. The image of the First Lady strolling in these very streets gives me new flight.

The Post Office

With its grey geometric volumes, its imposing stairs and its dome, the noble post office (1937) stands like a guard at the Downtown's northern edge. The President did not simply lay the cornerstone – he chose it: he insisted on using the local fieldstone in order to preserve the region's traditional architecture. The question of whether a post office needs (or used to need) so much space, is beyond the point. US post office architecture is often monumental: it is a matter of ideology, not practicality; the post office is a symbol -of communication, and of power.

Associations flow abundantly thanks to American mythology readings and images -“The Stage Coach”, “The Singing Wire”. From Lucky Luke to western movies, the chapters under the topic “the evolution of communication in America” parade like the cars of a transcontinental train.

The Newspaper

What comes after communication? Mass media, of course!

Across from the post-office “fortress”, rises the impressive press “castle”. The charming Dutch elements fool you into thinking the newspaper building is very old, but it is actually Colonial Revival (1941). Poughkeepsie Journal itself, however, established in 1785, is the state's oldest newspaper.

And while the post office is the offspring of a somewhat “socialist” turn of America thanks to the New Deal, the Poughkeepsie Journal building evokes galloping capitalism, with movie-worthy rises (and falls) of press magnates.

My mind goes to Eleanor, whose personality merges both sides of the empire. The First Lady was a Roosevelt before marrying Roosevelt; she belonged to high society, and yet she built her career on the notion of welfare. Though privileged herself, she chose to turn her focus to the socially vulnerable.

The Movie Theater

It is only natural after the filmic associations to arrive at the movie theater. The Bardavon Opera House opened its dazzling doors in 1869. It did not limit itself to opera: vaudeville, film, Broadway shows – any type of entertainment that could be hosted by a movie theater made it here, and so did various eras' stars, from Edwin Booth to Isadora Duncan.

In the '70s it came close to demolition but was finally saved, so today, with its fancy lights and marquee, which thrust you into the Golden Age of musicals, it's still in business, providing Poughkeepsie with yet another antiquity prize: Bardavon constitutes the oldest continuously operating theater in New York State.

The Bank

What comes after the show-business temple? The “temple of commerce”, of course!

Indeed that is the nickname the locals had given to the bank building. And rightly so: upon encountering the huge Ionic order columns, you can't tell whether the Classical Revival building is dedicated to the worship of God, of money or of power. ...Or maybe is it to the worship of beauty? While the 1912 inscription “Poughkeepsie Savings Bank” has been preserved, the subtitle reads HOHA (Hair On Hudson Association). Oh yes: where dollars used to stack, now haute coiffure is being taught.

The Armory

Made of scarlet brick and sporting impressive turrets, the Armory (this time the castle is real) carries you like a period dress into romantic 19th-century depictions. Troop deployments but also special social and sports events used to form part of the agenda of those versatile military buildings. In 1935 President Roosevelt held here a fundraiser birthday party, raising funds for polio treatment research.

And right when I was ready to return to the starting point of the board game, the suspicion that I might be missing something important began to rise inside me. “That's all well and good, but where did the mythology heroes, the protagonists of all this film material live? Of course I have seen here and there beautiful historical apartment buildings and exquisite mansions. But isn't there a specific neighborhood where the Poughkeepsie elite would have resided in its heyday?”

As soon as the question took shape in my mind, my eye fell on a house cute like a doll's, with a pistachio-green facade and a purple arched door. At the next corner I am mesmerized by a brick house with freshly painted bright-green wooden shutters. As I approach to take a sneak peak into the atmospheric preserved interior, I discover a metallic plaque that reads: “No 63, Historic Garfield Place, 1864”.

From that corner on, one stellar residence follows the next, to such a degree that I find it impossible to stay on one side of the street and I jump from one to the other, zigzagging. Blue shutters on the right; another purple door on the left, but here the facade is earthen-colored; extravagant porches; attics, oval-shaped windows and roofs with gable decorations; cylindrical and polygonal turrets. And most importantly: all these architectural gems with the unrivaled view to the mountains across the river have no fences; they are posing in all their eclectic grandeur with their lush gardens and splendid lawns open, occasionally “fenced” only by the embrace of the enviable tall trees.

But Garfield Place proved something beyond a mere architectural treasure: it is also a time capsule because it forms an enclave protected from the pest that plagues the rest of the town: traffic. Not a single car drove by while I was zigzagging, and the only thing I could hear were the birds singing.

Garfield Place had in store a cinematic finale, yet reminiscent rather of “Psycho” than Disney, despite its picturesqueness. We learn (from the Poughkeepsie Journal, of course) that in 1931 at the number 16 of the dreamy street the Japanese butler slaughtered the businessman owner (and resident) of the mansion when the latter fired him in cold blood because he failed to prepare the boss's night sandwich. The filmic irony continues since the reason was that the butler had chosen to go to the movies instead of serving his master's craving. The struggling immigrant lost his mind under the Great Depression specter, historians state, and attacked the industrialist with an axe and knives.

Coup de théâtre: the butler got the death penalty but who commuted his sentence to life in prison? None other than, then-Governor, Franklin D. Roosevelt.

This essay first appeared in Greek in the TA NEA newspaper (online) on September 25, 2023.

Το κείμενο αυτό πρωτοδημοσιεύτηκε στην εφημερίδα ΤΑ ΝΕΑ (ηλεκτρονική έκδοση) στις 25 Σεπτεμβρίου 2023.

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Naples and the ghosts of Herculaneum (September 2023)

A hint of claustrophobia gave me pause when the “Napoli Sotterranea” tour guide described the very narrow and dark passage that was coming up and which we were supposed to cross in single file and with our flashlights on. I'm sure I'm not claustrophobic, yet I decided not to proceed along with the other visitors. Maybe the real reason was the desire to enjoy the gigantic, cool subterranean “arcade” on my own and in quiet -something otherwise impossible during a group tour.

After having spent seven days in the heart of Naples, on the eve of my departure, I finally enter the... inner sanctum. With roots spreading thousands of year ago, underground Naples and its maze-like network of huge caves encompasses three primary uses: ancient Greek quarries, Roman aqueducts, World War II bomb shelters. In the “lower” city, in the monster's belly, I'm given the opportunity to “digest”, to mentally organize the overwhelming impressions from the “upper” city with the thousand faces.

COUNTLESS CHURCHES

Necks ache from a week's worth of gazing up at the stunning interiors of the countless churches (there are literally hundreds of them): the dazzling frescoes, golden arches and incredible splendor in Gesù Nuovo's dome; the breath of David and Jeremiah's sculptures (you think they're about to detach themselves from their niches and take flight) in the same church; Perugino's “Assumption of the Virgin” in the Duomo; the masterful marble sarcophagi in San Lorenzo Maggiore; the deliciously delicate decoration in San Giovanni Maggiore, with the pastel motifs curling around capitals and ceilings like fragile paper wrap of luxury pastry.

Architectural movements and historical layers pile up not only in churches but also in palaces, theatres, towers, obelisks, castles, monastic complexes, while the momentum of the contemporary city keeps you alert, since the ceaseless flow of pedestrians and vehicles is exhausting and often dangerous (every night I thank God that I didn't get hit by any of the motorcycles that rush day and night at a hair's breadth by the tourists on the bumpy, preserved cobblestone narrow streets of the Centro Storico).

LAUNDRY AND SOCCER

Striped awnings and colorful loads of washed laundry blow eternally in the wind, but now on the clothesline ropes that connect one historic residential building to the other have been added thousands of white and light-blue celebratory ribbons, as an homage to the recent Napoli soccer team's championship, accompanied by libations of Maradona Spritz at the bars and the Argentinian's portrait bearing a halo featured on graffiti and banners.

But here in the earth's guts I also have the chance to recall yesterday's archeological excursion: the first thrill once you arrive at Herculaneum (modern-day Ercolano) on the Circumvesuviana train – just a twenty-five minute ride from Naples – comes from reuniting with the sweetness of the Mediterranean summer thanks to the reconnection with nature: the bright green of the familiar pine trees, the accompaniment of the cicadas, the dear pink of the oleanders. Even the afternoon sun feels milder in the open country of Campania than in the thick Neapolitan urban matrix.

UNTOUCHED CITY

The Herculaneum archeological site introduces itself very straightforwardly to the visitor: skulls and skeletons belonging to the inhabitants of the once-upon-a-time thriving Roman city “greet” you at the facade. Those people had sought refuge in the boat sheds situated at the edge of the city, along that era's coastline, when Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD. They perished right there, buried under the volcanic ash which, ironically, proved lethal to their individual existence, yet offered immortality to the material aspect of their organized social life: thanks to the otherwise deadly to mortal humans tephra, their exceptionally developed city remained astonishingly untouched for 2000 years.

I walk along the House of Argus colonnade and I picture the symposia it would have framed. I caress the deep-red wall of a nearby room and I marvel at the playful “reflection”, since the painted decoration depicts a peristyle.

Little dolphins, an octopus, a squid, all of them are “swimming” around a Triton: the immaculate joy of the Mediterranean summer jets out of the two-thousand-year-old spectacular mosaic floor and inundates the Thermae. All my imagination needs to supply is the water. I place my (imaginary) aryballos on the perfectly preserved little shelves of the apodyterium and I get ready to “dive in”.

Fully immersed by now, I exit the frigidarium and I pay a visit to the House of the Wooden Partition. I sit by the impluvium (a basin for collecting rainwater) at the center of the enormous atrium and I gaze at the splendid fresco. I wonder whether this luxurious villa's former inhabitants too loved the same tiniest detail -a small strange blossom. The house is packed with guests, that's why the hosts have retired in the special area which, thanks to two sliding wooden doors, is separated from the imposing reception room. I'll ask them some other time about the little flower of their fresco...

BREAD AND CIRCUSES

Now I have to go to dinner to the nearby house. But is it ever possible to focus on your food when the wall is adorned with the most exquisite mosaic that can ever be? And yet, right here, where Neptune and Amphitrite are posing extremely shiny, used to be the open-air summer dining area of this wealthy family. A sea shell spreads like a fan on the upper part of the composition, exalting its glorious palette (royal blue, light blue, burgundy, aquamarine, almond green), graced by twining sea and vegetal motifs.

Unfortunately the guards lock the space before sunset. Although I did not spend the night at Herculaneum, I do feel as if I've lived there, since its inhabitants opened their houses to me and granted me the freedom to dream their life.

Return to the underground cave: having reminisced both on the throbbing city above as well as on the dolce vita of the neighboring Herculaneum, I hope tomorrow I will be able to board the goodbye train, taking in the Gulf of Naples, towered by Vesuvius in the background.

This essay first appeared in Greek in the TA NEA newspaper (in print and online) on September 2, 2023.

It was reproduced by HellasJournal.com.

Το κείμενο αυτό πρωτοδημοσιεύτηκε στην εφημερίδα ΤΑ ΝΕΑ (έντυπη και ηλεκτρονική έκδοση) στις 2 Σεπτεμβρίου 2023.

Αναδημοσιεύτηκε από το HellasJournal.com.

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Let's take a stroll in Hopper's city (June 2023)

The first person that came to my mind as soon as I heard about the exhibition “Edward Hopper's New York” was Greek songwriter Loukianos Kilaidonis. An ardent fan of the American's, he had asked me to bring him the exhibition catalogue the previous time Whitney Museum had organized a retrospective dedicated to the artist, back in 2013. “Lucky girl”, had exclaimed the employee. The books had been sold out by the time I had arrived at the museum store, but an order had just been canceled, so the last remaining copy had just become available. The revered Greek was meant to receive his present.

It was not unexpected that this year's exhibition (at the New Whitney this time) would be a popular one. However, I would never have imagined that New Yorkers would be elbowing each other to come face to face with the waitress arranging the fruits on the display window of the Table for Ladies (1930) restaurant. Is there any accuracy in the improvised statistic that crowds cluster not so much in front of the dreamy Seventh Avenue or Village drugstore depictions but rather in front of landscapes that also include the city's heroes?

First, there are the solitary “stars” of the mythical public “sets” of the metropolis. The woman with the green coat and the yellow hat is gazing at her coffee, absorbed, sitting alone at the Automat table. (Those early self-service establishments, wildly popular with 1920s New Yorkers, including Hopper, were immortalized by Marilyn a few verses before she concluded that “diamonds are a girl's best friend”.) Equally engrossed, but in this case by the office objects, is the elegant employee of a corner-building business with a window wall that allows us to take in from the street the delicious geometry of the scene (New York Office, 1962).

Then, there are the duets, at times unaware of each other, as in the case of the woman in the blue, deep décolleté dress and the man smoking turned towards her. They are seated at different tables, alone, yet covered in the same mystery shroud, in spite of the fact that we're in broad daylight. The “movie” is not realistic. We are in some cafeteria, but we are at the same time in a memory (Sunlight in a Cafeteria, 1958).

In Room in New York (1932), she, in her orange dress, is up to something at the piano, while he, seated in the red armchair, is reading. They have been “caught” voyeuristically by the painter, who is peeking into their electrically-lit private life from the window.

These heroes seem to be comfortably seated in their “set”, their urban moment settled. And then, there are the Restless ones, those who seem to be looking at something unknown and perhaps threatening approach, or at least visible in the horizon.

The light is splendid, the light blue of the sky and the green of the park in the background is shining in Sunlight on Brownstones (1956). In spite of their relaxed poses -the man is smoking leaning against the entrance wall, the woman is seated on the stair railing-, something seems to be keeping the couple at the brownstone stoop alert. They are turning their faces to the right: what are they seeing? The sun? The future? Three other heroines, each one in her individual universe -the woman standing naked in the bedroom, with the unmade bed behind her; the other one in the pink camisole seated on the bed; the one seated at the dining table- all of them are turning their heads, their bodies and their whole being toward that Something in the direction of the window.

Meanwhile, I have long ago “embraced” the crowdedness: since they're pushing me, I will let myself get carried away by the swarms. (Exhibitions don't take place in a vacuum -whoever wants to be left alone with Hopper should come to the museum at nine in the morning or go to a private collection.) Realizing that the New Yorkers who are blocking my view are themselves a subject the painter would have utilized, I decide to make them part of my “frame”.

He, at one edge of the bench, is wearing a jockey hat that leaves part of his snowy hair exposed. Definitely in his eighties. She, at the other edge, must be in her seventies, chic, seated with her legs crossed. Behind their backs there is a display case with the colorful theatre ticket stubs from shows the Hoppers attended between 1925-1937. (Take heart, collectors: Edward and his wife, Josephine -“Jo”- Nivison Hopper, also a painter, kept all the ticket stubs, cut in two, and neatly wrote on them the title of the show.) On the wall in front of them, the “couple” I am watching (strangers to each other, united by fate just now, at the exhibition bench) are watching a slideshow of photos of the exquisite interiors of that era's Broadway theatres, as well as snapshots from the actual shows.

Next to me, the attractive blonde usher of New York Movie, in her costume and stylish 1939 shoes, is standing lost in thought in the liminal side-aisle space, suspended between the dark room (a corner of the screen is visible, as well as part of the spectators) and the red curtain that leads majestically to and from the magical world of the movies. (“Starring” in the role of the usher is, of course, Jo, Edward's permanent model.)

I head toward the museum large window wall, with the unbeatable view to the landscape that gave birth to the beloved paintings, grateful that I was granted such a city. It never feels too tight.

This essay first appeared in Greek in HellasJournal.com on June 19, 2023.

Το κείμενο αυτό πρωτοδημοσιεύτηκε στο HellasJournal.com στις 19 Ιουνίου 2023.

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In the land of melancholy faces (March 2023)

The name “Gold Museum” is somewhat misleading: the renowned institution located in the heart of Colombia's capital is actually an anthropology museum. Upon entering the modernist 1960s building in the heart of Bogotá, the video explaining the technique of turning metal into a sheet so that it can be hammered, introduces you to the marvelous (and wonder-bearing) world of goldsmithry of pre-Columbian people, where metals, and gold in particular, symbolize the fertilizing power of the sun.

But the initiation takes place in a dark gallery where jewelry and minuscule figurines glimmer, while sounds of birds transport you to some South American forest. The shaman is a channel between heaven and earth, as well as between humans and animals. The golden exhibits, objects of worship or artifacts depicting shamans, lead us into discovering the societies in which those sacred creatures played a central part and show us the path to a more spiritual and holistic view of life (and death).

Proceeding to the “Cosmology and Symbolism” gallery, the metallic little frogs move the spectator in the magical way the honest depiction of animals and plants by humans who lived centuries ago, in another continent, can always prove moving.

The dazzling, smooth containers with the perfect curves evoke Brancusi, whereas masks suspended in black display cases are positioned like a sparkling Greek drama Chorus comprised of acephalous Agamemnons. Beyond the vizards on golden sheets, more eyes, holes in geometrical breastplates or tiny eyes in anthropo-zoomorphic chubby ceramic vases with small hands or wings are looking at us.

But where have I seen similar faces staring at me so intensely from another world? Oh, but of course, nearby, just the other day, at the Botero Museum!

The dancer with the little mustache, tightly embracing his partner (though both overweight, like the rest of the couples in the ballroom, they seem to levitate as they swirl, and so does his gaze which contemplates melancholically the beyond); the woman looking at us unabashedly, even though we intercepted her standing stark naked in front of her bathtub, yet “dressed” in all her jewelry (earrings, bracelet, an elegant small watch on her plump little hand); the other bather, this one not of the bath but of the sea, lying on her towel in the sand, naked as well, also wearing her jewelry; all of them have something captivating. You want to laugh, but you can't; something grips your heart, and you smile bittersweetly.

Though portly all of them, it is not so much the bodies that unify Fernando Botero's paintings' heroes, but the faces: round, rather expressionless, definitely unsmiling, with wandering gazes and, in my opinion, melancholy. After seeing dozens of paintings with variations of these characters, you are convinced they live in a land of their own, and we, the spectators, gain access to their realm through the Colombian artist's work. Like a shaman, Botero opens a gate to another dimension, where the rotund inhabitants eat ice cream and oranges, go pick-nicking, pose for family portraits while apples fall in the background, in a reality that looks a lot like ours, but is, at the same time, elusive, diluted.

But it is in sculpture that the apotheosis of curves awaits: black, greenish, reddish, deliciously glossy, the bronze works clearly reach the sphere of myth – the bird that is “harvesting” a juicy female figure brings to mind immediately Leda and the Swan, and, indeed, nearby, can be seen another sculpture with precisely that subject and title.

I feel ashamed that, until visiting his museum, I had lightly filed Botero as “that visual artist with the oversized little people.” Maybe it was because his figures are so famous and recognizable. Two of his enormous sculptures, Adam and Eve, stand in the ground-floor lobby of the busy Columbus Circle shopping galleries in New York City. Poor Adam has not simply been reduced to an easy meeting point (something like the historical “Bakakos” pharmacy, a popular meeting point in downtown Athens, back in the day); he has also been subjected to the humiliation of having had the most... protruding part of his body get worn off, since the crowds, tourists and New Yorkers alike, do not simply want to have their picture taken in front of the naked male progenitor, but also to touch his genitals.

Back in Bogotá, the mountain, steaming after the afternoon storm, is just a hair's breadth away: a part of the Andes is suspended above the mega city. If you cast your gaze up, you can picture the golden geometric creatures and the rounded people live on, somewhere beyond the mountain range.

This essay first appeared in Greek in the TA NEA newspaper (in print and online) on March 21, 2023.

It was reproduced by HellasJournal.com.

Το κείμενο αυτό πρωτοδημοσιεύτηκε στην εφημερίδα ΤΑ ΝΕΑ (έντυπη και ηλεκτρονική έκδοση) στις 21 Μαρτίου 2023.

Αναδημοσιεύτηκε από το HellasJournal.com.

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Chroma (December 2022)

Red – as far as your eyes can see. And orange, and yellow. I'm crossing Central Park at the best time of the year, chasing the ochre palette before it's gone with the wind, since at every gust hundreds of leaves swirl around. Anne Bogart's warning echoes inside my head: “You blink, and the opportunity is missed.” Run before it's too late! The autumn shades' choreography carries along not only eyes but also feet and ears – the brick-red crunchy layer subsides at every step, chratch chroutch, chratch chroutch.

I arrive at the Met Museum with no agenda – I let chance lead my way through the wondrous castle of the arts. I take the Greek and Roman Art Galleries, where I am “greeted” by a dazzling, dark-brown haired Kore, dressed in a bold orange-red chiton, while the first word I read is... Chroma (“χρώμα”, the Greek word for “color”, transcribed into the Latin alphabet)!

After detecting and identifying with cutting-edge technology (including ultraviolet and infrared photography) remnants of pigment on ancient sculptures, Dr. Vinzenz Brinkmann (Professor, Head of the Department of Antiquity at the Liebieghaus Sculpture Collection in Frankfurt) and Dr. Ulrike Koch-Brinkmann created copies in the colors they suppose the original works had been made. The polychrome archaic Kore is one of those reconstructions, as part of the exhibition “Chroma: Ancient Sculpture in Color”.

I knew in theory that the white marble treasures we “worship” and admire used to be -in their previous lives- multicolored. But it's a completely different story to make eye contact with the dark-eyed young Phrasikleia, who is shining in her glittering jewelry and in her chiton with the scattered gold and yellow meanders and rosettes. (I would call her chiton's color vermilion, according to what Mrs Epi Protonotariou had taught us in art class at the Mina Aidonopoulou Elementary School in Athens, back in the 1980s; but, as I now find out, an actually “Greeker” word is also available - “κιννάβαρι” [=cinnabar].)

I would never have imagined an Attic sphinx's adorned bust as a red and blue jacquard, and yet the mythical creature looking at us with the characteristic archaic smile on her face is actually dressed in these colors! Her golden wings make her even more majestic than she already is, while her beige torso fools you into thinking you could caress the feline.

Picasso's saying that, when Matisse dies, then Chagall will be the only painter left who truly understands what color is, comes to my mind. Realizing that all three of them are somewhere nearby, I manage to detach myself from the red and black-figured vases, and I climb the stairs towards Modern Art.

Of course I do not remain faithful to my destination, since, on the way to the three modernist artists, I get carried away by Frederic Leighton. The suntanned rosy model/muse sleeping at high noon in “Blazing June” (1895) looks like a descendant of the brunette beauty of the ground floor. Her titian mane is entwined around her archaic-looking peach-colored garment with the delicious ruffles, while the sun is mirrored on the sea in the background.

In the vicinity, I am engulfed by an interior shot: as if on a traveling sequence, the female figures of the scene, with their garnet dresses and light auburn hair, seem to float in an earth-tone symphony, with burgundy and yellow flowers overflowing from vases and floral wallpapers, and springing out through brownish furniture, so that you can't tell where the house ends and where the garden begins – a feast arranged around the central object (and title) of Edouard Vuillard's composition titled “The Album” (also 1895).

On the following day it rained so much and the wind blew so hard that all the leaves finally turned into a deep red, like dried blood, to step on.

This essay first appeared in Greek in the TA NEA newspaper (in print and online) on December 21, 2022.

It was reproduced by HellasJournal.com.

Το κείμενο αυτό πρωτοδημοσιεύτηκε στην εφημερίδα ΤΑ ΝΕΑ (έντυπη και ηλεκτρονική έκδοση) στις 21 Δεκεμβρίου 2022.

Αναδημοσιεύτηκε από το HellasJournal.com.

Για να διαβάσετε το ελληνικό κείμενο, κάντε κλικ εδώ.

Himalayan art and Modernism (November 2022)

Doubts or disease, desire and attachment, anger, greed, wrong views, ignorance, jealousy and envy, pride: here are the eight fears Tara can help you overcome. I'm standing in front of the 19th-century Tibetan painting, studying the details: the Buddhist deity is seated in the pose of “royal ease”, with her right palm extended above the knee in a gesture signifying supreme generosity, while in her left hand, placed at the heart, she's holding a pink lotus blossom. Her blue, green, orange and red flowing garments intertwine with blossoms and decorative motifs on the impressive lotus throne, while an orange and a red disc (nimbus and aureola, respectively) are encircling her.

The fears Tara can protect you against are depicted in specific forms (e.g. envy as snakes, anger as fire, and attachment as drowning), in scenes developed circularly around the powerful deity with the serene, trusting face. As I let myself identify with each and every one of the fears -the “external and internal threats that can cause physical and mental illness and prevent our spiritual progress”-, I simultaneously glance right and left at the other visitors: they seem to me equally absorbed by the artworks of the exhibition titled “Healing Practices”. I wonder if they, too, face similar fears. The reassurance (and relief) that “you're not alone” is activated, and you start viewing with new eyes your fellow travelers, not only on this journey to this specific museum, but also on the street, the subway, the whole city...

Perhaps thanks to the unexpected context (you're not lying on the shrink's couch) or the colorful, “exotic” medium (a Tibetan thangka, painting on cloth) or the space (a museum, i.e. a place where you go precisely to see and explore something outside yourself), well, perhaps thanks to the format of the journey, you are pleasantly surprised, and you dare face your fears in the eye.

The Rubin, the only NYC museum devoted entirely to Himalayan art, covers a broad geographical (India, Nepal, Bhutan, Mongolia), religious (Hinduism, Buddhism) and artistic-medium range (from embroidered silk rolls and sculptures to a buddhist shrine installation, with all its accompanying devotional objects, sounds, lighting and scent).

I first visited the museum in 2008, when I was directing a new play on Alexander Scriabin, written by Anna Forsythe. The ultimate vision of the avant-garde composer was a... multimedia work, intended to be performed in the Himalayas! (Yes, the Russian synesthete had already envisioned in the early 1900s a symphonic music concert not simply combined with color projections but also as a site-specific piece, since he believed that this holistic art event should exclusively take place in the “Roof of the World”.)

Wisely designed to encourage those ignorant in mantras, Tantras and stupas, the Rubin invites you like a big board game to “unlock” the primer of the geography, the cultures and the artistic outlets it encompasses. The exhibition “Gateway to Himalayan Art” is key. Thanks to the spiral unfolding of the building, you are able to go up and down via the central staircase from Himalayan 101 -where beginners are introduced to symbols, codes and, most importantly, heroes (Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, deities, human beings)- to select historical masterworks and contemporary projects alike, all inspired by the Himalayan sphere.

Descending through the spire to the ground level, I exit the capsule of the dizzying feast of colors and shapes, and of the videos of mandalas in three-dimensional animations. As soon as I set foot on the street, I am engulfed by the humidity of the metropolis, and its inevitable stink. I resort to Tara and try to suppress my rage against those who urinate on the sidewalks (and are therefore accountable for the foul smell), and to keep steady course towards ataraxia -and towards the magic of nocturnal Manhattan.

And then, images from last week's museum visit start to emerge in waves. Just seven days ago, I had been captivated at the Whitney (a few blocks down) by the utter beauty and loneliness of a snowy mountain landscape by Rockwell Kent, and by the unhoped for apotheosis of a New Jersey valley thanks to Oscar Bluemner's stunning colors and geometric viewpoint, as part of the exhibition titled “At the Dawn of a New Age: Early Twentieth-Century American Modernism”.

Are these two worlds in conversation? I wonder whether the, abounding in ceremonial bells and intricate motifs, Himalayan art (and worldview) comes to complement the bare doric landscapes of the Americans; whether Nepal and Mongolia come to unveil Vermont's and Alaska's snowy slopes, and to expose the hidden demons – mind's and soul's torments that the modernists strove to cleanse with their bold, rough strokes.

The answer is probably yes – the two worlds are in conversation, based on Kent's statement that he wanted to “paint the rhythm of eternity”, and on the fact that he titled “Nirvana” one of his paintings.

I hope to continue to seek composition. With Tara's help.

This essay first appeared in Greek in the TA NEA newspaper (in print) on November 8, 2022.

Το κείμενο αυτό πρωτοδημοσιεύτηκε στην εφημερίδα ΤΑ ΝΕΑ (έντυπη έκδοση) στις 8 Νοεμβρίου 2022.

Rehearsing in Times Square (September 2022)

Legions of donuts swirl in winding screen crawls, anthropomorphic candy mascots jump up and down on gigantic digital billboards, smoke from vendor grilled sausages impairs even more the already blurred from the unbearable steamy heat vision, and, as I'm praying not to faint while waiting for the green light at the final crossing that will lead me to 48th Street and Broadway, I ask myself for the nth time why on earth mid-August finds me in the middle of Times Square and not on my Cycladic island. The answer is not simply “because my collaborators and I have rehearsal”; it's “because my collaborators and I have not had a rehearsal in New York since 2019!”.

In principle, New Yorkers go to great lengths to avoid the chaotic emblem of superficial consumerism, yielding the square condescendingly to the hordes of tourists. However, most studios for theatre, dance or any other type of rehearsal are located in exactly that area, making it impossible for anyone who has some sort of rehearsal to avoid the intersection of Broadway and Seventh Avenue, and the human swarms that stroll around, hang out, eat and shop, while the continuously multiplying advertising billboards spurt like waterfalls from the surrounding “mountain chains”, bathing pedestrians in colored lights day and night.

I artfully maneuver, avoiding Spiderman, Mickey & Minnie, and several other cartoon characters that want you to have your picture taken with them and whom I don't even recognize (clearly, I'm not in the target group), yet I almost get emotional when I bump into the Naked Cowboy. The muscular blond-maned troubadour and guitar player, dressed rain or shine only in his cowboy hat, boots and white briefs, seems unchanged to me since I first saw him in 2005 (so much so that I wonder if it's the same guy or a successor, like Broadway actors succeed each other in the same character). The only difference is that now another attraction has been added nearby: the Naked Cowgirl.

Upon entering the cool, pristine, minimalist studio, you feel as if transported onto a floating isle, and time seems to come to a halt. Looking out from the big 12th floor windows -and from the safety, the quiet and the distance from the earthly that the rehearsal space offers-, you see the human river down below with new eyes. “Imagine that a string on the top of your head is pulling you upwards...”, calls a familiar acting exercise. In this landscape, where the soaring glass and metal “trunks” disappear higher and higher in the heavens (Manhattan architecture trends have gone wild, with newly built super-skyscrapers rising at, or exceeding, the inconceivable heights of 1,200 feet, and comprising 70, 80, or even more than 90 floors), any height-related image acquires a different dimension.

THE END OF NATURE

The subject of our play is the end of nature, and associations flow in the same way the view extends from one glass surface to the other, and in the same way skyscrapers are reflected on each other's windows. The end of nature is visible and obvious, you would think; and yet, nature (or at least a version of it) seems to be going strong, even here, in the “glass forest”, since several kinds of birds fly in front of us, while the ubiquitous pigeons have, of course, nested in the most unimaginable architectural niches. And some rooftops are green – real trees pop out between water tanks and slices of concrete.

One afternoon after rehearsal I decide to proceed deeper toward the... “reactor”'s heart – to walk in the center of the square. Amidst the usual pandemonium, I discern -to my great surprise- an art installation that looks like a burned forest. As I approach, I realize that these are actually inverted tree trunks - the exposed upside-down roots look like branches. In “Roots” artist Charles Gaines showcases the impressive root system of the American Sweetgum, a native east coast tree (which, perhaps, would have once upon a time dominated Times Square...). Who knew: all these days, high up there in the glass forest, in the building right across, we had been in direct contact with this kindred spirit, down here on earth.

I had said “never again summer in New York”. Never say “never again”.

This essay first appeared in Greek in the TA NEA newspaper (in print and online) on September 17, 2022.

Το κείμενο αυτό πρωτοδημοσιεύτηκε στην εφημερίδα ΤΑ ΝΕΑ (έντυπη και ηλεκτρονική έκδοση) στις 17 Σεπτεμβρίου 2022.

Michelangelo's “David” as a hero in a new musical (July 2022)

Thanks to a stroke of luck, I have found myself again in Florence exactly three years after my first visit. Upon exiting on Via Santa Reparata, the huge, heavy door of the 16th century palazzo closes with a thump behind me, like a sound cue that prompts me to pick up the exploration from where I left off back in June 2019. The familiar San Lorenzo dome at the end of the street offers instant orientation, whereas from the very first step my feet remember the unbelievably bumpy and slippery cobblestone. Barely have I walked half a block, when the realization is taking shape: this trip may have in store its own discoveries and thrills, but it will be a continuous comparison to “last time”...

Joyful as a small child I reunite with a decorative detail which, when I had first discovered, I wanted to stop all passers-by and share it with them: I couldn't understand why they were not raving as much as I was at the view of the cast iron turtles that stand on the base of Palazzo Fenzi's balconies on Via San Gallo (the palazzo now houses University of Florence departments). Placed at pedestrian eye level, the turtles and I would come face-to-face several times a day, for three weeks. (Later I started locating turtles at other spots as well -like on the bases of the Piazza Santa Maria Novella obelisks-, until I finally found out that they are actually a Medici symbol.) Reuniting with such a tiny but tangible detail makes a difference -it stimulates memory and grabs you by the throat!

But I also realize something else: I feel as if I'm accompanied by the gaze (or the spirit) of a Law School student from 1890 Saint Petersburg. Sergei Diaghilev (1872-1929), legendary founder of Ballets Russes and modernism archpriest (he collaborated with and championed figures ranging from Stravinsky and Nijinsky to Chanel and Cocteau), was initiated early -and irreparably- to the Cult of Beauty. A pivotal spot in his initiation was his Grand Tour -the de rigueur trip for every young Russian (or European for that matter) aristocrat to the ancient monuments of the Mediterranean, to Renaissance Italy and also to the major European cities.

In the new musical MANIFESTO: The Diaghilev Project (which, incidentally, I directed at the Robert Moss Theatre in New York in 2018), the Grand Tour sequence was central, culminating in the meeting of awkward 18-year old Sergei with Michelangelo's "David", symbol of the Renaissance, and of Florence. Thanks to the ingenious writing of Nathan Wright, the exhilarating music of electro-pop composer and classical pianist Dustin Gledhill, and the sensual choreography of Brad Landers, we breathlessly watch Diaghilev's (Marc Sinoway) revelatory contact with Renaissance -literally, since the ideal sculpture is embodied on stage by Deon Releford-Lee.

"MANIFESTO" attempts to answer the question "How do you live your life according to your ideals?". Diaghilev fought hard to remain faithful to his doctrine -a lover of Beauty till the end. This is actually the narrative vehicle of the play itself, since the visionary impresario's life unfolds through the voices and the bodies of his eight lovers.

Impossible by now for me to separate “David” (therefore Florence) from "MANIFESTO", and, as I'm wondering "are we what we see or do we see what we are?", I arrive at the Palazzo Strozzi. I enter the shady, atmospheric ground floor and I look up at the immensely tall floors of the bankers' dynasty former palace. A barely heard other-worldly music draws me toward the center: in the atrium an AI (Artificial Intelligence) visual art installation turns out the be the closest I have ever come to a hallucinatory artistic experience. On a 27-by-18-feet LED wall, emerging colors -something between lava and powder- explode and melt into hypnotic combinations, like tongues that devour you and uplift you. The sense of time is shuttered in the bursting powders, and I turn into a pillar of salt. No surprise when we find out that Turkish media artist Refik Anadol's work is titled “Machine Hallucinations – Renaissance Dreams”. Maybe the 1890 young pioneer who was aspiring to become a musician is floating somewhere in the air, attracted by the feast of color.

This essay first appeared in Greek in the TA NEA newspaper (in print and online) on July 22, 2022.

It was reproduced by HellasJournal.com.

Το κείμενο αυτό πρωτοδημοσιεύτηκε στην εφημερίδα ΤΑ ΝΕΑ (έντυπη και ηλεκτρονική έκδοση) στις 22 Ιουλίου 2022.

Αναδημοσιεύτηκε από το HellasJournal.com.

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On Diego’s trail (February 2022)

The Palacio de Bellas Artes (Fine Arts Palace) seems unreal to the first-time Mexico City visitor. Even if you didn't know what the splendid, white marble building is, chances are “palace” would be the first word to come to mind, as you marvel at columns, curves, carved snakes framing arches, floral motifs meandering on metallic gates, with the whole twined in an organic Neoclassical and Art Nouveau ensemble, culminating in a sparkling yellow-orange dome that glows in the January afternoon light. Ethereal sculptural female figures are swaying by the entrance, inviting you in.

Writing a year ago about Diego Rivera's mural “Man at the Crossroads” (1932), which I had seen in a temporary exhibition at New York's Whitney Museum, little did I know that, exactly one year later, I would find myself again face to face with Lenin and the rest of the figures depicted in the celebrated composition, this time at its headquarters. (Originally destined to grace the newly erected Rockefeller Center, the work was rejected by the American organization because of the addition of the Russian Revolution leader's portrait; however, it did find housing in the architectural jewel of Mexico's capital.)

Surprises keep piling up, since, upon entering, I find myself immersed in the most luxurious Art Deco interior I have seen in my life! Floors, staircases and walls are all made of glossy black, pink and beige marble. Exquisite geometric fixtures rise vertically like columns or sculptures, while shiny metallic banisters, railings and balconies lead to the three floors comprising murals by the “tres grandes” (José Clemente Orozco, Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros), but also other works as well. The esthetic surprise between exterior and interior is explained by the two construction phases (1904 and 1932) of the building. (Ironically, the Art Deco splendor brings to mind Radio City Music Hall, which is part of the aforementioned Rockefeller Center...)

So, here I am, meeting again with “Man at the Crossroads” (who, to be precise, has been renamed “Man, Controller of the Universe”), and I discover new details, like the fascinating depiction of the natural world. The plants' roots on the base of the human crowd trigger obvious yet vital questions around the crisis facing humanity today -a crisis brought about precisely by man as “controller of the universe”...

On the opposite side of the floor the spectator is drawn in by Orozco's “Catharsis or humanity's eternal struggle for a better world” (1934).

The next day we set out to explore the Financial District, but on our way there, we bump into the Museo Mural Diego Rivera. Although the museum is closing in ten minutes, the super-polite employees welcome us warmly and, after the by now standardized trio of temperature-taking, disinfecting of hands and shoes, and spraying of clothes, they leave us alone with the “Dream of a Sunday afternoon at Alameda Central Park” (1947). (We actually have just crossed Mexico City's central park, Alameda, which also happens to be the oldest park in America.)

In the 50-foot-wide work Rivera unfolds a panorama of moments and persons from his country's turbulent history but also from his own life. The clock is ticking, both for the museum's closing time as well as in the sequence of scenes and of faces, making the experience even more effervescent as we're rushing to take in the feast of colors and images. Suddenly, Frida Kahlo’s piercing gaze catches my eye! The painter has captured his legendary colleague and companion in his mural embracing tenderly (maternally, perhaps) his nine-year-old self. Beyond the dissolution of “realistic” ages, the dreamy landscape provides freedom for amusing scale reversals (Kahlo's wedding painting “Frida and Diego” comes to mind, where the muse-wife appears microscopic next to a giant Rivera). In her other hand, Frida is holding the Yin-Yang symbol in front of her heart, while the chubby little boy is giving his own hand to another iconic figure, the Calavera Catrina, from José Guadalupe Posada's drawing for the Day of the Dead.

Impossible to absorb every detail, to observe every facet of the mural, in the same way it is impossible to relax in this city of esthetic wonders, where architecture blows your mind so that you don't know where to turn your head to (there is no color, shape or style you do not encounter!). You simply surrender to the power of composition.

Our third encounter with Rivera (at the SHCP Art Museum) brings about a sense of intimacy, thanks to both the medium as well as the topic: the painting is titled “The artist's studio or Lucila y los judas” (1954). It's like transitioning from the monumental works into the painter's private space. Though intimate, the studio is almost as “crowded” as the murals, a scent of surrealism permeating the whole: strange, at times monstrous, constructed creatures, grotesque animals and birds, are suspended around an elegant woman posing sensually. We learn that she is the actress Lucila Balzaretti. As for the cardboard constructions (“judas”), they are typical of Mexico's popular art and form part of a Frida-Diego beloved collection. The couple thought of “judas” as the “highest expression of the spirit of Mexican civilization.”

This essay first appeared in Greek in the TA NEA newspaper (in print and online) on February 22, 2022.

Το κείμενο αυτό πρωτοδημοσιεύτηκε στην εφημερίδα ΤΑ ΝΕΑ (έντυπη και ηλεκτρονική έκδοση) στις 22 Φεβρουαρίου 2022.

From the Baroque crèche to the Chinese serenity (January 2022)

The 13-foot tall Bodhisattva, lavished with layers of wondrous jewelry, is staring at me in an enigmatic way. I have found myself in the shadow of the larger-than-life 6th-century Buddhist sculpture because a little earlier I felt another shadow -that of the Omicron variant- approach in a menacing way, giving rise to familiar uncertainties about what we would be able to do in the (perhaps not so distant?) future. “Christmas is no Christmas without Met!”, I thought, and, revitalized by the booster shot, I ran outside, rushing to the Metropolitan Museum of Art before restrictions are imposed.

The holiday “pilgrimage” involves the Christmas tree and the Baroque Neapolitan crèche displayed every year in the atmospheric Medieval Sculpture Hall (with Christ Pantocrator -copy of the Hagia Sophia mosaic- “supervising” the scene from above). Little angels, with their faces, wings and colorful silk robes rendered in exquisite detail, hang from the tree's branches, whereas on its base, besides the classic Nativity figures, are depicted numerous scenes from urban and rural 18th-century Naples.

Last year I missed the installation because, although I did go to the museum, I did not see it at its usual spot. I assumed that they had wisely decided not to set up the popular attraction, since traditionally all visitors flock to gaze at the miniatures and to have their picture taken in front of the Christmas staple. I subsequently found out that it had actually been set up, but at another, more spacious spot. This year I read that the tree has returned to its place. Yet I decided to extend the suspense and not go directly to my “rendezvous” but first wander a little. Guardian and harbinger of the Asian Wing, the humongous Bodhisattva (enlightened being who postpones his or her own entering into nirvana in order to show the awakening way to others) exercises a mysterious power over me -I'm all alone with him in the vast room!- and pushes me to proceed deeper into the East.

As if hypnotized, I float through halls with carpets of all possible colors and sizes, hung on walls or spread on floors, while greenish porcelain vases gleam in the semidarkness. Passing under a vault guarded by two lions on either side, the Asian river carries me to an atrium with a fountain, rocks, greenery and a pagoda-shaped pavilion. The gurgling water and the bamboo are real, therefore the equally real cool of the place sends me to find refuge in the rooms spreading in the perimeter of the Ming-style courtyard. Here the warmth of wood prevails, showcasing the artistry of traditional Chinese architecture, decorative arts and woodcraft, ranging from sturdy closets to elaborate ceilings.

Moving on, I enter a dreamy snowy landscape: a Chinese painted handscroll unfolds -literally, since the work is destined to be unwrapped, unrolled slowly and “read” from right to left- a riverbank. The surrounding slopes and rocks are covered with snow, while the tree branches are bare. With ink and pigment applied onto the silk sheet, the 12th-century master captivates the spectator with the idyllic winter image, while simultaneously directing our gaze to the human figures and structures “hiding” in the heart of nature. From the embrace of the boundless scenery, the painter focuses on a small bridge leading to a plain residence (or, according to another interpretation, a hostel) with a straw roof. Again close up on the interior: an officer is enjoying his meal with his wife and son. Nearby, a gentleman on a boat is headed toward another, equally appealingly isolated, residence or shelter.

The work is part of the exhibition titled “Companions in Solitude: Reclusion and Communion in Chinese Art”, investigating the twofold theme of withdrawing from, as well as of blossoming within societal life. Stepping away from organized society is considered the ideal condition for one’s intellectual and mental cultivation, as well as for overcoming the weariness caused from this world’s pains. The question “alone or together” has puzzled Chinese culture for thousands of years, in conjunction with each era’s political circumstances. For example, we learn that retreating into nature evolved into a central theme for Tang dynasty poets and artists, as the status quo was collapsing. Faced with the human structures’ failure, the intellectuals turn to the natural world.

The medium of the (unfolded) handscroll bestows an exquisitely narrative dimension on the whole experience since, in order to follow scenes and details, you have to take small lateral steps, as in the case of a 17th-century work where women and children play music and games in the marvelous garden of an aristocratic house. Leaping over time, we dive into solitude: in a 1921 fan painting the artist depicts a woman contemplating, alone, in a garden.

In a hanging scroll, underneath towering trees a scholar-gentleman turns to his assistant who is following him carrying wine. We learn that the bright green and blue colors dominating the landscape symbolize an elusive space and time, and that the image captures the quintessence of reclusion, with man turning his back on society in favor of contact with nature.

When the guards (in the flesh, not Buddhist statues) show me the exit, I realize I, once again, failed to reunite with my beloved Christmas tree! Still, I encountered the minds of the Chinese masters through their landscapes. I hope I'll catch the crèche next time.

This essay first appeared in Greek in the TA NEA newspaper (in print and online) on January 18, 2022.

It was reproduced by HellasJournal.com.

Το κείμενο αυτό πρωτοδημοσιεύτηκε στην εφημερίδα ΤΑ ΝΕΑ (έντυπη και ηλεκτρονική έκδοση) στις 18 Ιανουαρίου 2022.

Αναδημοσιεύτηκε από το HellasJournal.com.

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At Noguchi, the museum of fluid matter (November 2021)

Upon entering the Noguchi space, you soon realize that the museum has been conceived as a rhythmical, flowing “house” for the works to exist. Gliding through the barely divided galleries, you have the impression that you are in the sculptures’ private space, where they live and breathe. Nevertheless, you feel absolutely welcome –it’s as if the geometrical “creatures” have put on their Sunday best, polished the floors and turned on the most exquisite lighting in order to warmly welcome the visitor. Even though you have found yourself at their home, you too belong there!

 The “unseen” host is Japanese-American Isamu Noguchi (1904-1988), one of the preeminent 20th century sculptors, whose activity spans a broad range of techniques and styles, extending, beyond sculpture, to architecture and design. The conversion of the former industrial Queens space into a museum-garden is his own creation. The Noguchi Museum, where everything seems so simple and natural, so harmonic, was inaugurated in 1985. And, of course, there’s nothing harder to achieve than “simple and natural”: it took the prolific internationalist artist eleven years to open his “house” to the public.

 A strong current leads you lightly but firmly between the works, from one level to the other, as if invisible threads are keeping your body in motion, your senses alert and your soul uplifted. Don’t be fooled, though, into thinking that the world here is always soft. The same civilization that gave birth to ikebana and bonsai -the fragile arts exalting nature’s poetry and miniature art-, also gave birth to hara-kiri, where, with equal dexterity, you have to dryly thrust the dagger deep into your entrails.

 As soon as you enter the museum, you find yourself in a high-ceilinged semi-enclosed cement ground-floor, reminiscent of something between a Greek apartment building piloti and a construction site. Rocky gray-brown volumes of indefinable shapes, bearing the signs of insertion (cuts, holes, curves, rills, “intrusions” of metal) stand scattered here and there, occasionally paired with arched luminous objects, while from the openings in the upper parts of the walls a slice of sky is visible. Outside, the birds are fluttering and tweeting so loud that I can’t tell if they are real or a sound installation. The smell from the concrete blocks and the cool of the rocks stimulate the senses and memory, creating a cleansing vestibule for the visitor. Particularly for those of us hailing from the Cyclades, the setting transfers you somewhere between a quarry and an ancient temple.

 Catharsis and Aegean associations had actually started a little earlier for me, since I chose to travel from Manhattan to Queens by ferry. The trip may barely last ten minutes, yet the waves and the sea breeze (yes, East River is salty!) suffice to give your outing the taste of a real excursion -and to prepare you for ecstasy.

 We learn that the light tubes accompanying the basaltic works in the “piloti” rooms, as well as several other objects strewn throughout the museum, are interventions by Eleni Petaloti and Leonidas Trampoukis of design studio Objects of Common Interest, active between New York and Greece. It’s worth noting that Noguchi maintained close ties with Greek culture and Greek people all his life.

 In the following galleries, countless studies on material, shape, perspective, composition and juxtaposition unfold; and yet, in whichever work you devote your attention to, you encounter the power of geometry and of texture. And a strange wisdom. And often a sense of humor.

 Deliciously smooth surfaces that you can barely resist caressing stand out, like “Magic Ring” (1970), a sectioned curve made of Persian travertine with reddish and cream-colored veins, coiled on the floor. Nearby, “Sun at Midnight” (1973), a black granite standing circle hypnotizes the visitor. The six-feet tall framework which I would describe as a “snaky window”, is actually titled “The Void” (1970), and is made of Portuguese Rose Aurora marble (the names of the materials are a parallel poem).

 Rarely have I felt better “installed” than on the wooden bench of the garden, where I arrived without realizing how. At the center sits a majestic, noble tree, still holding some of its leaves (it’s November). The gravel under my feet, mixed with the fallen leaves, connects me not only to the overgrown tree roots but also to the stone “creatures” all around me.

 A complex composed of four gray round-shaped rocks embracing each other emits a sense of security and reminds me again of the fatherland. (Here, though, the rocks are smaller than those in the world-renowned “moon landscape” of the Volax village in Tinos.) The eternal question arises: “Is it the Cycladic rocks that look like sculptures or is it the sculptures that imitate the Cycladic rocks?”

 Headed toward the exit, I return to the concrete vestibule. Magic sunset hour is here, and the birds’ flutter is louder than ever. The light has changed (and perhaps so have I). Now it clearly seems as if the basaltic volumes have eyes looking at you! Like Michelangelo’s “Slaves”, the volumes seem ready to emerge from the stone, to take their full shape. Though stelae, they contain movement--like the entirety of this house of liquid limits.

This essay first appeared in Greek in the TA NEA newspaper (in print and online) on November 30, 2021.

It was reproduced by HellasJournal.com.

Το κείμενο αυτό πρωτοδημοσιεύτηκε στην εφημερίδα ΤΑ ΝΕΑ (έντυπη και ηλεκτρονική έκδοση) στις 30 Νοεμβρίου 2021.

Αναδημοσιεύτηκε από το HellasJournal.com.

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