A SYLLOGISM OF PRINTING (libel) Testing an image through printing. The drawing on the etching plate is covered in ink. The ink is wiped off,…
Artist: William Kentridge (Nose)
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PUTTING THE S INTO LAUGHTER Compulsory Hilarity. An X in Russian is transliterated as Kh, a guttural clearing of the throat like the G in…
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YES, OF COURSE (bust) Noses feature often in Gogol’s writing. He himself had a famous nose. A bust of him in the hermitage shows a…
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VANITAS (the bath) Much can and has been written about artists and their mirrors. Four decades ago John Berger gave an elementary lesson in optics.…
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COPPERPLATE Light up and hard down, was how we were taught to write—a bastardised, simplified calligraphy of ‘scribble’ writing. This was possible with an HB…
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MIKHAIL IVANOVICH KALININ A Party member from 1898 and a member of the Central committee from 1919, he was neither tried nor shot. He died…
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ANOTHER KHEPPI ENDING At the end of Gogol’s story, collegiate assessor Kovalyov wakes one morning and finds that his nose is back in its place…
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AD HOC My sister collected stamps. My recollection is that from family of friends she received stamps of cosmonauts, ballet dancers and athletes, all marked…
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VYACHESLAV MIKHAILOVICH MOLOTOV A member of the Party from 1906 and a member of the Central Committee from 1921, through the period of the great…
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LEV BORISOVICH KAMENEV A member of the party from 1901 and a member of the Politburo from 1917. He was condemned in the first of…
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INTELLIGENCE OF THE HAND The print is a collaboration between artist and printer. Each printer or print workshop under the direction of a master printer…
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BAD DISGUISES 2 In the 1920s, Trotsky was airbrushed out of all photographs that showed him with Lenin. We are by now so familiar with…