februarie 2017 – Pagina 2 – constantinenache/dans contemporan si teatru-dans japonez Butoh (2025)

Biography

Emir Kusturica (born 24 November 1954) is a Serbian filmmaker, actor and musician. He has been recognized for several internationally acclaimed feature films, as well as his projects in town-building. He has competed at the Cannes Film Festival on five ocasions and won the Palme d’Or twice (for When Father Was Away on Business and Underground), as well as the Best Director prize for Time of the Gypsies. He has also won a Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival for Arizona Dream and a Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival for Black Cat, White Cat. In addition he was also named Commander of the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

Since the mid-2000s, Kusturica’s primary residence has been in Drvengrad, a town built for his film Life Is a Miracle, in the Mokra Gora region of Serbia. He had portions of the historic village reconstructed for the film.[citation needed] He is a member of the Academy of Sciences and Arts of the Republika Srpska since 9 November 2011.

Early life

Kusturica was born in Sarajevo, the son of Murat Kusturica, a journalist employed at the Sarajevo’s Secretariat of Information, and Senka Numankadić, a court secretary,[6] Emir grew up as the only child of a secular Serb Muslim family in Sarajevo, the capital of PR Bosnia and Herzegovina, a constituent republic within FPR Yugoslavia.

A lively youth, young Emir was by his own admission a borderline delinquent while growing up in the Sarajevo neighbourhood of Gorica. Through his father’s friendship with the well-known director Hajrudin „Šiba” Krvavac, 17-year-old Emir got a small part in Krvavac’s 1972 Walter Defends Sarajevo, a partisan film funded by the Yugoslav state.

Cinematic career

In 1978, Kusturica graduated from the film school (FAMU) at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, which is why he is sometimes considered a part of the Prague film school, an informal group of Yugoslav film directors who studied at FAMU and shared similar influences and aesthetics. After graduating from FAMU, Kusturica began directing made-for-TV short films in Yugoslavia.

He made his feature film debut in 1981 with Do You Remember Dolly Bell?, a coming-of-age drama that won the prestigious Silver Lion for Best First Work at that year’s Venice Film Festival. The same year, at the age of 27, he became lecturer at the newly established Academy of Performing Arts in Sarajevo, a job that he performed until 1988. He was also art director of Open Stage Obala (Otvorena scena Obala).

Kusturica’s second feature film, When Father Was Away on Business (1985), earned a Palme d’Or at Cannes and five Yugoslav movie awards, as well as a nomination for an American Academy Award for Best Foreign Film. Kusturica wrote the screenplays for both Do You Remember Dolly Bell? and When Father Was Away on Business. In 1989 Kusturica earned more accolades for Time of the Gypsies, a film about Romani culture and the exploitation of their youth. In 1989 he was a member of the jury at the 16th Moscow International Film Festival.

Kusturica continued to make highly regarded films into the next decade, including his American debut, the absurdist comedy Arizona Dream (1993). He won the Palme d’Or for his black comedy epic, Underground (1995), based upon a scenario of Dušan Kovačević, a noted Serbian playwright. He also taught Film Directing at Columbia University’s Graduate Film Division.

In 1998, he won the Venice Film Festival’s Silver Lion for Best Direction for Black Cat, White Cat, a farcical comedy set in a Gypsy (Romany) settlement on the banks of the Danube. The music for the film was composed by the Belgrade-based band No Smoking Orchestra.

In 2001, Kusturica directed Super 8 Stories, a documentary road and concert movie about The No Smoking Orchestra, of which he is a band member. He was appointed President of the Jury of the 2005 Cannes Film Festival. His film, Maradona, a documentary on Argentine soccer star Diego Maradona, was released in Italy in May 2007. It premiered in France during the Cannes Film Festival in 2008. His film Promise Me This premiered at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival. In June 2007, Kusturica directed the music video to Manu Chao’s single „Rainin in Paradize”, from the latter’s forthcoming album.

On 8 September 2007, Kusturica was appointed a UNICEF National Ambassador for Serbia, alongside Ana Ivanovic, Jelena Janković and Aleksandar Đorđević.

Since January 2008 he has organized the annual private Küstendorf Film Festival. Its first installment was held at Drvengrad, a village built for his film Life Is a Miracle, from 14 to 21 January 2008. His next film, Cool Water, is a comedy set against the background of a Middle East conflict. Filming started in November 2010 in Germany. It is the first time Emir Kusturica directed a film which he did not write.

During the promotion of his autobiography in 2010, Kusturica was asked why he thinks his cinematic style translates well in the West when so many Eastern European, Yugoslav or Serbian authors never managed to do the same: “My oeuvre was born while moving around from Sarajevo to Prague via Belgrade, at the exact spot where communism started to disintegrate. While at the same time in parallel a mythical projection of that downfall was being created with stuff like Karol Wojtyła being elected as the Pope to steer things down that road. And I entered that corridor like Chaplin entered the revolution and I came out through a door where my movies that feature love-filled depictions of some of these things happened to find a receptive audience. I underscore love here because I was never anti-communist. Quite the contrary, some of my deepest personal convictions were shaped and molded in that system though I obviously don’t put much from that system into practice when it comes to my own life. So I sort of entered into that mythical projection of the tear-down of communism with my first two feature films, which communicated through poetic narrative, but without a trace of hate, unlike say Yugoslav Black Wave that actually disqualified communism in every way possible. I on the other hand, out of affection for my father who was a staunch communist and my family that fought in World War II on the Partisan side, extended that love into those movies as well. And the West took to it because the West isn’t one big monolithic entity. I realize that to many ordinary people in Serbia, the West is Olli Rehn or some other similar fat and balding EU bureaucrat, but fortunately there’s more to it. Another thing is this. When I submitted When Father Was Away on Business to the Cannes Film Festival back in 1985 it was one of 700 films the selectors had to sift through and choose some dozen or so for the competition program. When I did the same with Underground a decade later it was one of 1,200 films. Nowadays, we’re talking 2,500 to 3,000 films every year submitted at Cannes. So in that gargantuan quantity, your quality really has to shine through. And for me quality was fierce authenticity. So to recap, why do I think the West is receptive to me? First and foremost, I got in at a good moment during the tear-down of communism or more specifically the tear-down of Bolshevism. And secondly, no less importantly, they respond to my genuine commitment to the basic authentic motifs that have been existing here in the Balkans for centuries.”

At the 64th Cannes Film Festival, held 11–22 May 2011, Kusturica presided over the jury of the Un Certain Regard section of the festival’s official selection. On 14 May, in Cannes, he was invested with the insignia of Chevalier of the Legion of Honour, the highest decoration in France.

In September 2012 Emir Kusturica accepted the offer to become the head juror of the first Saint Petersburg International Film Festival. During the festival Kusturica also performed for the residents and guests of Saint Petersburg with his band „The No Smoking Orchestra”

During the last months of 2013, Kusturica started shooting a documentary film on the life of the Uruguayan president José Mujica, whom he considers „the last hero of politics”.

Kusturica currently acts as the president of the Ski Association of Serbia.

Acting

After numerous film cameo appearances over the years, Kusturica’s first sizable acting role took place in The Widow of St. Pierre, a 2000 movie by director Patrice Leconte, where he played a convict on the French island colony of Saint Pierre. In 2002, Kusturica appeared as an electric guitar player/security specialist in The Good Thief, directed by Neil Jordan. In the French movie L’affaire Farewell (2009), he played the role of a Russian KGB agent, Colonel Sergei Gregoriev.

Musical career

This section of a biography of a living person does not include any references or sources. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living people that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately. Performing with The No Smoking Orchestra in March 2009.

In mid-1986, Kusturica, already an accomplished film director at the time, started playing bass guitar in Zabranjeno Pušenje, a Sarajevan punk rock outfit that was the main driving force behind the New Primitivism movement. In addition to being on friendly terms with the guys and admiring their work, Kusturica’s inclusion in the group had to do with the difficult situation Zabranjeno Pušenje found itself in following the political and media scandal caused by the verbal offence committed by their frontman Nele Karajlić. The so-called ‘Marshal affair’ that played out throughout late 1984 and early 1985 severely limited the band’s access to media, causing its second album to sell poorly; additionally, three of the six members left the group in light of its bleak commercial prospects. Therefore, in 1986 as the band was still reeling from the scandal and devising strategy for the future, the thinking behind Kusturica’s arrival on board was that having the famous and celebrated film director affiliated with Zabranjeno Pušenje will help it get over the media bans it faced. Kusturica played bass on three track on the band’s third studio album Pozdrav iz zemlje Safari and also contributed by composing the music for the track „Probušeni dolar” on the same album. Furthermore, he directed the video for the track „Manijak”, which was deemed controversial, receiving a television ban due to vague visual allusions to the Agrokomerc Affair,[citation needed] yet another political scandal brewing in Bosnia at the time. Still, with hit songs like „Balada o Pišonji i Žugi”, „Hadžija il bos”, and „Dan Republike”, the band managed to regain its popularity and commercial success. Though never fully involved in the band’s day-to-day life, Kusturica left Zabranjeno Pušenje in 1988.

Kusturica returned to the group following the Black Cat, White Cat film and the band’s name changed to Emir Kusturica & The No Smoking Orchestra. In 1999, the No Smoking Orchestra recorded a new album, Unza Unza Time, produced by the Universal record company, as well as a music video, directed by Emir Kusturica. The band has been touring internationally since 1999. The musician and composer Goran Bregović has composed music for three of Kusturica’s films: Time of the Gypsies, Arizona Dream, which featured Iggy Pop; and Underground.

Writing

Smrt je neprovjerena glasina

Kusturica’s autobiography, Smrt je neprovjerena glasina (Death is an Unverified Rumour), was published in October 2010 in Belgrade by Novosti AD. The launch took place on 26 October during the Belgrade Book Fair and was attended by Nele Karajlić, Dušan Kovačević, foreign minister Vuk Jeremić, Vojislav Koštunica, etc. Initially released only in Serbia, Montenegro, and Republika Srpska, the book’s first printing of 20,000 copies quickly sold out. The second printing of 32,000 copies was out in November and it too sold within weeks. On 8 December, the third printing in 40,000 copies was out and promoted a day later at Belgrade’s Dom Sindikata. In February 2011, a fourth printing with further 10,000 copies was out and soon the sale of the 100,000th book was announced. The final number of copies sold by the publisher was 114,000.

Translations were published in Italy (translated by Alice Parmeggiani) on 30 March 2011 under the title Dove sono in questa storia („Where am I in this Story”), in France by JC Lattès on 6 April 2011 as Où suis-je dans cette histoire ?, and in Germany in September 2011 as Der Tod ist ein unbestätigtes Gerücht. In 2012, the book was published in Bulgaria as Cмъpттa e нeпoтвъpдeн cлуx, in Greece as Κι εγώ πού είμαι σ’ αυτή την ιστορία;, in Romania as Unde sunt eu în toată povestea asta, and in Hungary as Hogy jövök én a képbe?.

Sto jada

Kusturica’s second book, a fictional novel Sto jada (Hundred Pains), got released in Serbia on 24 April 2013 by Novosti AD in the initial printing of 35,000 copies. On 6 June, the second printing came out in the circulation of 25,000. The book’s translated form was released in France in January 2015 by JC Lattès as Étranger dans le mariage.

Other endeavors

Drvengrad

Drvengrad (meaning Wooden Town) is a traditional village that Kusturica built for his film Life Is a Miracle. It is located in the Zlatibor District near the city of Užice, two hundred kilometers southwest of Serbia’s capital, Belgrade. It is located near Mokra Gora and Višegrad, best known for Yugoslav Ivo Andrić’s Nobel-winning novel, The Bridge on the Drina.

Time of the Gypsies punk opera

During 2007, Kusturica and Nele Karajlić prepared a punk opera, Time of the Gypsies. The initial idea came five years earlier in 2002 from Kusturica’s collaborator Marc di Domenico while the support of the Paris Opera director Gérard Mortier got the project rolling. Basing the production on his eponymous 1988 film, Kusturica wrote the libretto by adapting the story of the Gypsy youth from the Balkans relocating to Italy in order to obtain money for his ill sister’s surgery. The director cast young Serbian folk singers Stevan Anđelković and Milica Todorović in the roles of Perhan and Azra, respectively, while the experienced Karajlić took the role of Ahmed Đida. The music in the original movie had been composed by Goran Bregović; however, since Kusturica and he have not been on speaking terms since the late 1990s, those songs couldn’t be used. The all-new score was composed by Dejan Sparavalo of The No Smoking Orchestra.

The premiere took place in June 2007, at the Opéra Bastille in Paris, to positive reviews. Following the vast open stage of Bastille, the show was performed in smaller arenas. In March 2008, the production was staged in Paris’ Palais des congrès. In fall 2010, the production was staged in Belgrade at Sava Center.

On 29 June 2012, the opera was staged in Banja Luka at the City Stadium, for the very first time under the open skies, with 10,000 people in attendance. This was followed with the July staging in Cartagena, Spain, as part of La Mar de Músicas de Cartagena. Future staging of the punk opera is scheduled for August 2013 in Krasnodar, Russia, during Kubana Festival.

Küstendorf Film and Music Festival

Since 2008, Drvengrad hosts the annual Küstendorf Film and Music Festival, which showcases films and music from all around the world as well as a competition programme for student short films. The festival is known for not having a red carpet as well as none of the popular Hollywood festival artifacts.

The reverence Kusturica enjoys in the film circles along with his professional and personal contacts ensure the arrival of top guests from the European and world cinema every year. The festival hosted global stars Johnny Depp and Monica Bellucci along with Nikita Mikhalkov, Gael García Bernal, Abel Ferrara, Kim Ki-duk, Audrey Tautou, etc.

Andrićgrad

On 28 June 2011 Kusturica started the construction project of Andrićgrad (also known as Kamengrad, meaning Stone Town), located in Višegrad, Republika Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was scheduled to be completed by 2014. Andrićgrad is located several kilometers from Kusturica’s first town Drvengrad, in Serbia. Andrićgrad will be used as a filming location for his new film „Na Drini ćuprija”, based on the book The Bridge on the Drina, by Nobel Prize for Literature laureate Ivo Andrić. His last name is used in the town name Andrićgrad, meaning „Town of Andrić” in Serbian.

Personal life

Family

Kusturica is married to Maja Mandić; the couple has two children: Stribor and Dunja.

He currently lives in Drvengrad, Serbia, the village which he had built for his film Life Is a Miracle. Kusturica holds dual Serbian and French citizenship.

Ethnic and religious identity

Mayor of Guadalajara Alfonso Petersen presents Kusturica with the keys to the city at Telmex Auditorium in March 2009

On Đurđevdan (St. George’s Day) in 2005, he was baptised into the Serbian Orthodox Church as Nemanja Kusturica at the Savina monastery near Herceg Novi, Montenegro. To his critics who considered this the final betrayal of his Bosniak roots, he replied that: “My father was an atheist and he always described himself as a Serb. OK, maybe we were Muslim for 250 years, but we were Orthodox before that and deep down we were always Serbs, religion cannot change that. ”

Despite the aforementioned conflict of religion, Kusturica refused to see himself as either a Bosniak or Serb. Instead, he had continued to insist that he was simply a Yugoslav.

When his mother was on her deathbed he wanted to find out his ancestry and learnt that the origin of the Kusturica family stemmed from two Orthodox Christian branches. An ancestor of his, who helped build the Arslanagić bridge in the 18th century, hailed from Bileća and the Babić family. Аccording to the studies of geographer Jevto Dedijer (1880–1918) in the Bileća region (1902): the Kusturica family lived in a čopor (grouped area, literally „pack”) in the village of Plana; they had eight houses next to the Kozjak family (four houses), northwest across a field from the Avdić family (23 houses). In Granica, there was a family surnamed Kusturica which had left Plana 80 years earlier. According to the Avdići, their progenitor Avdija Krivokapić, an Islamized Montenegrin, reportedly was honoured by the Sultan for his military service and on the way home to Herzegovina, in Kyustendil, he bought a gypsy and brought him to Plana; this gypsy was, according to them, an ancestor of the Kusturica family.The story, however, as was common, was motivated by traditional disputes of neighbouring families regarding status in the village. According to Savo Pujić, an ancestor was Hajdarbeg Kusturica who was a čauš (officer) who lived in Volujak and was said to have been fair, having repurchased Muslim slaves, protected Orthodox clergy and his subject peasants. The name is derived from kustur, an Old Slavic word for dull knives, sabres, etc., most often referring to sabres.

Political views

Putin and Kusturica in Kremlin on 4 November 2016

At the 2007 parliamentary elections, he gave indirect support to Prime Minister Vojislav Koštunica and his center-right Democratic Party of Serbia. In 2007, he also supported the Serbian campaign Solidarity – Kosovo is Serbia, a campaign against the unilateral separation of the Serbian province of Kosovo.

Regarding Vladimir Putin, he said in 2012: „If I was English I would be very much against Putin. If I was American I would even fight with him, but if I was Russian I would vote for him”. Kusturica was present at the Kremlin for Putin’s third inauguration as president in May 2012.

Kusturica was awarded the Order of St. Sava, First Class, for his selfless care and presentation of the Serbian nation in the world, on 12 May 2012. On 4 November 2016 he received the Order of Friendship from Vladimir Putin in Moscow. He communicated in Russian at the event.

Controversy

Work

Kusturica and his work have provoked controversy at home and abroad. Underground, scripted by Dušan Kovačević, was partly financed by state-owned Yugoslav television. It recounted the history of Yugoslavia from World War II until the conflict in the 1990s. Some Bosnian and French critics claimed the film contained pro-Serb propaganda.

French philosopher and writer Alain Finkielkraut, a supporter of the Croatian president Franjo Tuđman during the 1990s, denounced the Cannes Film Festival’s jury award, saying: In recognizing „Underground”, the Cannes jury thought it was honouring a creator with a thriving imagination. In fact, it has honoured a servile and flashy illustrator of criminal clichés. The Cannes jury … praised a version of the most hackneyed and deceitful Serb propaganda. The devil himself could not have conceived so cruel an outrage against Bosnia, nor such a grotesque epilogue to Western incompetence and frivolity.

It was later revealed that Finkielkraut had not seen the film before writing his criticism. French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy made a film criticizing Underground. In a discussion with Levy, the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek said: I hope we share another point, which is – to be brutal – hatred of [director] Emir Kusturica. Underground is one of the most horrible films that I’ve seen. What kind of Yugoslav society do you see in Kusturica’s Underground? A society where people fornicate, drink, fight – a kind of eternal orgy.

Sarajevo-born novelist Aleksandar Hemon, who emigrated to the United States before the war, said Underground downplayed Serbian atrocities by presenting „the Balkan war as a product of collective, innate, savage madness.”

Libel cases

Andrej Nikolaidis

Andrej Nikolaidis, a Montenegrin writer and columnist, criticized Kusturica for appearing to agree with Slobodan Milošević’s propaganda during the Bosnian War.

In May 2004, Nikolaidis wrote in the Monitor magazine: Considering he proclaimed his dead father a Serb, and himself, Emir, an Orthodox Christian, he easily chose his own in the Bosnian War. He recognized them in Radovan Karadžić and Ratko Mladić. He wasn’t there to fire cannon barrages, but whenever he could, with his artistic and media get-up he provided them an alibi for every killed Muslim who didn’t want to admit that he was originally an „Orthodox Christian”.

Kusturica sued Nikolaidis and the Monitor newspaper for civil damages at the Supreme Court of Montenegro. In the end, Nikolaidis was ordered to pay $6,490 to Kusturica for calling the famed director a „media star of Milosevic’s war machinery”. The judge ruled that the evidence was not credible enough. In the end Nikolaidis and the paper were fined 12,000 euros for breaking the code of journalism by calling Kusturica „stupid, ugly and corrupt” in the article.

2010 Antalya festival

In October 2010 Kusturica withdrew from the jury of Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival after being publicly criticized and accused by Turkish director Semih Kaplanoğlu and Turkey’s minister of culture Ertuğrul Günay over his alleged remarks and opinions about the Bosnian War.

The criticism of Kusturica was started by an organization called the Turkish-Bosnian Cultural Federation as soon as Kusturica was announced as a jury member. Turkish media reported that Kusturica repeatedly downplayed the number of killed people and the rape of Muslim women during the war. It was not clear when Kusturica was supposed to have made those comments, but the daily Milliyet said Kusturica denied the allegations.

Public sentiment in Turkey and in Serbia were such that a couple of days after Kusturica left Turkey, there were news reports by Serbian tabloids claiming that a mob of Turkish youths in Antalya physically assaulting Swiss actor Michael Neuenschwander (in town to promote his movie 180° – Wenn deine Welt plötzlich Kopf steht) because they mistook him for Kusturica due to apparent physical resemblance between the two. Later, Neuenschwander’s press agent said there was no physical assault and that Neuenschwander was verbally abused by a small group.

Kusturica later commented on the incident: ”I did receive a sincere apology from the mayor of Antalya Mustafa Akaydın over what happened. Essentially, I became collateral damage in the ongoing political fight between the central powers from the ruling coalition in Istanbul and the municipal authorities in Antalya where the local power is held by a social-democrat party. But regardless of everything, this is completely unacceptable on a basic level – when you’re an invited guest somewhere, your hosts simply cannot behave in this manner. And this run-in I had was with a part of Turkish society, the part that consists of highly-evolved primitives. I am not a politician and I’m not obliged to comment on and dissect every crime or genocide around the world. And then I got very angry and I told them if they’re so sensitive about genocide it would be much better for them to publicly condemn the genocide they committed against the Armenian people, before having a go at me with accusatory statements. I clearly condemned the crimes in Bosnia, but the ‘problem’ is that I condemned the crimes committed by all sides, which makes me incompatible with the strategy they have for Bosnia.”

Filmography

As director

Guernica, 1978, short

The Brides Are Coming (Nevjeste dolaze), 1978, TV film

Buffet Titanic (Bife Titanik), 1979, TV film

Do You Remember Dolly Bell? (Sjećaš li se Dolly Bell), 1981.

Nije čovjek ko ne umre, 1984, TV film

When Father Was Away on Business (Otac na službenom putu), 1985.

Time of the Gypsies (Dom za vešanje), 1988.

Arizona Dream, 1993.

Underground (Podzemlje), 1995.

Bila jednom jedna zemlja, 1996, TV series

Magic Bus, 1997, short

Black Cat, White Cat (Crna mačka, beli mačor), 1998.

Super 8 Stories, 2001, documentary

Life Is a Miracle (Život je čudo), 2004.

Promise Me This (Zavet), 2007.

Maradona, 2008, documentary.

Words with Gods, 2014.

On the Milky Road, 2016.

As actor

Walter Defends Sarajevo, 1972.

Arizona Dream, 1993.

Underground (Podzemlje), 1995.

The Widow of Saint-Pierre, 2000.

The Good Thief, 2002.

Strawberries in the Supermarket, 2004.

Secret Journey, 2006.

L’affaire Farewell (Farewell), 2009.

Hermano (film), 2010.

Nicostratos le pélican (film), 2011.

Au bonheur des ogres (The Scapegoat), 2012.

7 Days in Havana, 2012.

The Ice Forest, 2014.

Words with Gods, 2014.

On the Milky Road, 2016.

Awards

1st prize on Student’s Film Festival in Karlovy Vary, (1978) for Guernica

Golden Lion for „Best First Work” in Venice Film Festival, (1981) for Do You Remember Dolly Bell?

Golden Palm Cannes Film Festival, (1985) for When Father Was Away on Business

FIPRESCI prize Cannes Film Festival, (1985) for When Father Was Away on Business

Best Foreign Language Academy Award Nomination, (1985) for When Father Was Away on Business

Best Director award at Cannes Film Festival, (1989) for Time of Gypsies

Silver Bear – Special Jury Prize at the Berlin Film Festival, (1993) for Arizona Dream

Golden Palm at Cannes Film Festival, (1995) for Underground

Silver Plate of best documentary at Chicago International Film Festival, (2001) for Super 8 Stories

Cinema Prize of the French Education System at Cannes Festival (2004) for Life is a Miracle

Best European Union Film at César Awards, (2005) for Life is a Miracle

Philippe Rotthier European Architecture Award, (2005) for Küstendorf village in Serbia

On 10 February 2007, Kusturica received Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, France’s highest order in recognition of significant contribution to the arts.

Philippe Rotthier European Architecture Award for his ethnic village project Küstendorf (also called Drvengrad – „wooden town”) on Mt. Zlatibor, Serbia, in 2005. The prize is awarded every three years by the Brussels Foundation for Architecture.

In 2004, The Prix de l’Education nationale (National Education Prize) honored Emir Kusturica and his film Život je čudo (Life is a Miracle).

2004 – Lifetime Achievement Award at the 26th Moscow International Film Festival

On 8 April 2011, Kusturica was the first person ever to receive „Momo Kapor award”, for his book Death is an Unverified Rumour

In 2011, Kusturica won „Tipar award” for satire, awarded in the city of Pljevlja

Order of St. Sava, Serbian Orthodox Church’s highest decoration, on 12 May 2012.

Honorary Magritte Award at the 4th Magritte Awards, on 1 February 2014.

Order of St. King Milutin, awarded in Andrićgrad by Serbian Orthodox Church, on 28 June 2014.

Order of Friendship, 2016.

FOTO:Emir Kusturica

Written by: Constantin Enache

Biography

Pier Paolo Pasolini (5 March 1922 – 2 November 1975) was an Italian film director, poet, writer and intellectual. Pasolini also distinguished himself as an actor, journalist, philosopher, novelist, playwright, painter and political figure.

He remains a controversial personality in Italy to this day due to his blunt style and the focus of some of his works on taboo sexual matters, but he is an established major figure in European literature and cinematic arts. His murder prompted an outcry in some circles of Italy, with its circumstances continuing to be a matter of heated debate.

Early life

Pasolini was born in Bologna, traditionally one of the most leftist politically of Italian cities. He was the son of Carlo Alberto Pasolini, a lieutenant of the Italian army, and Susanna Colussi, an elementary school teacher. His parents married in 1921, Pasolini was born in 1922 and named after his paternal uncle. His family moved to Conegliano in 1923 and, two years later, to Belluno, where another son, Guidalberto, was born.

In 1926, Pasolini’s father was arrested for gambling debts. His mother moved with the children to her family’s house in Casarsa della Delizia, in the Friuli region. That same year, his father Carlo Alberto, first detained and then identified Anteo Zamboni as the would-be assassin of Benito Mussolini following his assassination attempt.[citation needed] At any rate, Carlo Alberto was persuaded of the virtues of fascism.

Pasolini began writing poems at the age of seven, inspired by the natural beauty of Casarsa. One of his early influences was the work of Arthur Rimbaud. In 1931, his father was transferred to Idria in the Julian March (now Idrija in Slovenia); in 1933 they moved again to Cremona in Lombardy, and later to Scandiano and Reggio Emilia. Pasolini found it difficult to adapt to all these moves, though in the meantime he enlarged his poetry and literature readings (Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Shakespeare, Coleridge, Novalis) and left behind the religious fervour of his early years. In the Reggio Emilia high school, he met his first true friend, Luciano Serra. The two met again in Bologna, where Pasolini spent seven years while completing high school: here he cultivated new passions, including football. With other friends, including Ermes Parini, Franco Farolfi, Elio Meli, he formed a group dedicated to literary discussions.

In 1939 Pasolini graduated and entered the Literature College of the University of Bologna, discovering new themes such as philology and aesthetics of figurative arts. He also frequented the local cinema club. Pasolini always showed his friends a virile and strong exterior, totally hiding his interior travail. He took part in the Fascist government’s culture and sports competitions. In his poems of this period, Pasolini started to include fragments in Friulan, a language he didn’t speak but learned after he’d begun to write poetry in it. „I learnt it as a sort of mystic act of love, a kind of félibrisme, like the Provençal poets.”

Early poetry

After the summer in Casarsa, in 1941 Pasolini published at his own expense a collection of poems in Friulan, Versi a Casarsa. The work was noted and appreciated by intellectuals and critics such as Gianfranco Contini, Alfonso Gatto and Antonio Russi. His pictures had also been well received. Pasolini was chief editor of the Il Setaccio („The Sieve”) magazine, but was fired after conflicts with the director, who was aligned with the Fascist regime. A trip to Germany helped him also to perceive the „provincial” status of Italian culture in that era. These experiences led Pasolini to rethink his opinion about the cultural politics of Fascism and to switch gradually to a Communist position.

In 1942, the family took shelter in Casarsa, considered a more tranquil place to wait for the conclusion of the Second World War, a decision common among Italian military families. In the weeks before the 8 September armistice, Pasolini was drafted. He was captured and imprisoned by the German Wehrmacht, but managed to escape disguised as a peasant, and found his way to Casarsa. Here he joined a group of other young fans of the Friulan language who wanted to give Casarsa Friulan a status equal to that of Udine, the official regional standard. From May 1944 they issued a magazine entitled Stroligùt di cà da l’aga. In the meantime, Casarsa suffered Allied bombardments and forced enrollments by the Italian Social Republic, as well as partisan activity.

Pasolini tried to remain apart from these events. He, his mother and other colleagues of his taught students unable to reach the schools in Pordenone or Udine starting in October 1943. Others were involved too, but this educational workshop was considered illegal, and broke up in February 1944. He had his first experience of gay love for one of his students.[citation needed] His brother Guido, aged 19, went on to join the Party of Action and their Osoppo-Friuli Brigade, taking to the bush, near Slovenia. On 12 February 1945 Guido was killed in an ambush planted by Italian Garibaldine partisans serving in the lines of Tito’s Yugoslavian guerrillas. The fatal event turned into a harrowing tragedy for mother and son.

Six days later Pasolini and others founded the Friulan Language Academy (Academiuta di lenga furlana). Meanwhile, Pasolini’s father Carlo Alberto was allowed to Italy from his Kenya’s detention period in November 1945 on account of Guido’s death. He settled down in Casarsa, Susanna’s home town. Also in November, Pier Paolo Pasolini graduated after completing a final thesis about Giovanni Pascoli’s works.

In 1946 Pasolini published a small poetry collection, I Diarii („The Diaries”), with the Academiuta. In October he traveled to Rome. The following May he began the so-called Quaderni Rossi, handwritten in old school exercise books with red covers. He completed a drama in Italian, Il Cappellano. His poetry collection, I Pianti („The cries”), was also published by the Academiuta.

Relationship with the Italian Communist Party

Provinces of Friuli–Venezia Giulia

On 30 October 1945, Pasolini joined the pro-devolution association Patrie tal Friul, founded in Udine. The political status of the region became a matter of contention between different political factions. Pasolini wanted a Friuli based on its tradition, attached to its Christianity, but intent on civic and social progress, as opposed to those autonomists who wanted to preserve their privileges based on „immobilism”. He also criticized the Communist Party for their opposition to devolution, and their bet on Italian centralism. He founded the party Movimento Popolare Friulano, but ended up quitting it, persuaded that it had come to be controlled and used by the Christian-Democrat Party in order to counter the Yugoslavians, who in turn were attempting to annex large swaths of the Friuli.

On 26 January 1947 Pasolini wrote a declaration for the front page of the newspaper Libertà: „In our opinion, we think that currently only Communism is able to provide a new culture.” It generated controversy partly due to the fact he was still not a member of the Italian Communist Party (PCI).

Piazza del Popolo in San Vito al Tagliamento

He was planning to extend the work of the Academiuta to other Romance language literatures and met the exiled Catalan poet, Carles Cardó. After joining the PCI, Pasolini took part in several demonstrations. In May 1949, Pasolini attended the Peace Congress in Paris. Observing the struggles of workers and peasants, and watching the clashes of protesters with Italian police, he began to conceive his first novel. Pope Pius XII excommunicated any communist sympathizers from the Church. During this period, while holding a position as a teacher in a secondary school, Pasolini stood out in the local Communist Party section as a skillful writer defying the notion of communism as contrary to Christian values.

The local Christian-Democrats took notice. In the summer of 1949, Pasolini was blackmailed by a priest, „either leave politics, or his school career will be ruined,” an intermediary went. Similarly, after some posters were put in the loggia of San Giovanni, Giambattista Caron, a Christian-Democrat deputy, warned Nico Naldini that his cousin Pasolini „should abandon communist propaganda” to prevent „pernicious reactions”.

A small scandal broke out during a local festival in Ramuscello (September 1949). „A public voice”, someone who overheard comments, informed Cordovado, the local sergeant of the carabinieri, on sexual conduct (masturbation) shown by Pasolini with three youngsters aged 16 and younger after dancing and drinking. Cordovado went on to summon the boys’ parents, who hesitated, but did not file any lawsuit, despite Cordovado’s enthusiasm. However, the sergeant drew up a report, and the informer elaborated publicly on his accusations, sparking a public uproar. The judge of San Vito al Tagliamento charged Pasolini with „corruption of minors and obscene acts in public places” He and the 16-year-old involved were both indicted.

In October 1949, when called to declare in the police station, he would not deny the basic fact, for which he talked of a „literary and erotic drive”, and cited André Gide, the 1947 Nobel Prize for Literature laureate. Regardless, Cordovado informed also his superiors, and the regional press stepped in. The headlines were shouted in the streets by the news vendors. According to Pasolini, the whole affair was prepared by the Christian-Democrats with a view to smearing his name („the Christian-Democrats pulled the strings”), and came to be fired from his job position in Valvasone.

The Fountain of the Turtles, next to Pasolini’s temporary dwelling (1950)

Not only that, he was expelled from the Communist Party by the party’s Udine section, for which he felt stabbed in the back. He addressed a critical letter to the head of the section (and friend) Ferdinando Mautino – named Carlino -, and claimed he was being subject to a „tacticism” of the Communist Party. In the party, the expulsion was opposed by Teresa Degan, Pasolini’s colleague in education. She also was addressed a letter by Pasolini, where he showed his regret about himself for being „such a naive, even indecently so”. His father broke out in desperate shouts, yelled at his mother Susanna, who in turn locked herself in her bedroom („she was about to go nuts”). The situation in the family became untenable.

Struggling in an extremely difficult situation, in January 1950 Pasolini moved to Rome with his mother Susanna to start a new life from scratch. He was acquitted of both charges in 1950 and 1952. „I came to Rome from the Friulan countryside. Unemployed for many years; ignored by everybody; driven by the fear to be not as life needed to be”. Instead of asking for help from other writers, Pasolini preferred to go his own way. In these years Pasolini transferred his Friulan countryside inspiration to Rome’s suburbs, the infamous borgate where poor proletarian immigrants lived in often horrendous sanitary and social conditions. After one year sheltered in a maternal uncle’s flat next to Piazza Mattei, Pasolini and his 59-year-old mother moved out to a run-down suburb called Rebibbia, next to a prison (a period briefly described in a 1966 documentary). Mother and son settled down there for 3 years.

He found a job as a worker in the Cinecittà studios and sold his books in the ‘bancarelle’ („sidewalk shops”) of Rome. In 1951, through the help of the Abruzzese-language poet Vittorio Clemente, he found a job as a teacher at a secondary school in Ciampino, a suburb of the capital, a long commute involving two train changes, in exchange of a meagre paycheck of 27,000 liras of the time.

Success and charges

Pasolini filming Accattone

In 1954, Pasolini, who now worked for the literary section of Italian state radio, left his teaching job and moved to the Monteverde quarter. At this point, his cousin Graziella moved in. They also accommodated Pasolini’s ailing, cirrhotic father Carlo Alberto who died in 1958. Pasolini published La meglio gioventù, his first important collection of dialect poems. His first novel, Ragazzi di vita (English: Hustlers), was published in 1955. The work had great success but was poorly received by the PCI establishment and, most importantly, by the Italian government. It initiated a lawsuit for „obscenity” against Pasolini and his editor, Garzanti. Though totally exonerated of any charge, Pasolini became a victim of insinuations, especially by the tabloid press.

In 1955, together with Francesco Leonetti, Roberto Roversi and others, he edited and published a poetry magazine called Officina. The magazine closed in 1959 after 14 issues.

In 1957, together with Sergio Citti, Pasolini collaborated on Federico Fellini’s film Le notti di Cabiria, writing dialogue for the Roman dialect parts. He also co-wrote the dialogues of Fellini’s La dolce vita.

In 1960 he made his debut as an actor in Il gobbo, and co-wrote Long Night in 1943. Along with Ragazzi di vita, he had his celebrated poetry work Le ceneri di Gramsci published, where Pasolini voiced tormented tensions between reason and heart, as well as the existing ideological dialectics within communism, a debate over artistic freedom, Socialist realism and commitment.

His first film as director and screenwriter is Accattone of 1961, again set in Rome’s marginal quarters. The movie aroused controversy and scandal. In 1963, the episode „La ricotta”, included in the collective movie RoGoPaG, was censored and Pasolini was tried for offense to the Italian state and religion.

During this period Pasolini frequently traveled abroad: in 1961, with Elsa Morante and Alberto Moravia to India (where he went again seven years later); in 1962 to Sudan and Kenya; in 1963, to Ghana, Nigeria, Guinea, Jordan and Israel (where he shot the documentary, Sopralluoghi in Palestina). In 1970 he traveled again to Africa to shoot the documentary, Appunti per un’Orestiade africana.

In 1966 he was a member of the jury at the 16th Berlin International Film Festival. In 1967, in Venice, he met and interviewed the American poet Ezra Pound. They discussed the Italian movement neoavanguardia, arts in general and Pasolini read some verses from the Italian version of Pound’s Pisan Cantos.

The late 1960s and early 1970s were the era of the so-called „student movement”. Pasolini, though acknowledging the students’ ideological motivations, thought them „anthropologically middle-class” and therefore destined to fail in their attempts at revolutionary change. Regarding the Battle of Valle Giulia, which took place in Rome in March 1968, he said that he sympathized with the police, as they were „children of the poor”, while the young militants were exponents of what he called „left-wing fascism”. His film of that year, Teorema, was shown at the annual Venice Film Festival in a hot political climate. Pasolini had proclaimed that the Festival would be managed by the directors (see also Works section).

In 1970 Pasolini bought an old castle near Viterbo, several miles north of Rome, where he began to write his last novel, Il Petrolio, where he denounced obscure dealing on the highest spheres of government and the corporate world (the ENI, CIA, the mafia, etc.). The novel-documentary could not be completed due to his death. In 1972 he started to collaborate with the extreme-left association Lotta Continua, producing a documentary, 12 dicembre, concerning the Piazza Fontana bombing. The following year he began a collaboration for Italy’s most renowned newspaper, Il Corriere della Sera.

At the beginning of 1975 Garzanti published a collection of critical essays, Scritti corsari („Corsair Writings”).

Murder / Pasolini Memorial monument in Lido di Ostia, where he was killed in 1975

A Carabinieri squad car stopped a speeding Alfa Romeo near Rome. The driver, Giuseppe (Pino) Pelosi, a 17-year-old hustler, tried to run but was arrested for theft of the car, which was Pasolini’s. Two hours later, the director’s body was discovered. Pasolini was murdered by being run over several times with his own car, dying on 2 November 1975 on the beach at Ostia. Multiple bones had been broken and his testicles crushed by what appeared to be a metal bar. His body had been partially burned, the autopsy report revealed, by gasoline after the point of death. It has long been considered to have been a mafia-style revenge killing, extremely unlikely for one person to have carried out. Pasolini was buried in Casarsa, in his beloved Friuli. Pelosi confessed: Pasolini had picked him up and they ate a meal at a restaurant the director knew, the Biondo Tevere near St Paul’s basilica, where he was known. Pino ate spaghetti with oil and garlic, Pasolini drank a beer. At 11.30 pm they drove towards Ostia, where Pasolini „asked something I did not want” – to sodomise the boy with a wooden stick. Pelosi refused, Pasolini struck; Pelosi ran, picked up two pieces of a table, seized the stick and battered Pasolini to death. As he escaped in the car, he ran over what he thought was a bump in the road. „I killed Pasolini”, he told his cellmate, and the police. Pelosi was convicted in 1976, with „unknown others”.

Twenty-nine years later, on 7 May 2005, Pelosi retracted his confession, which he said had been made under the threat of violence to his family. He claimed that three people „with a Southern accent” had committed the murder, insulting Pasolini as a „dirty communist”.

Other evidence uncovered in 2005 pointed to Pasolini having been murdered by an extortionist. Testimony by Pasolini’s friend Sergio Citti indicated that some of the rolls of film from Salò had been stolen, and that Pasolini had been going to meet with the thieves after a visit to Stockholm, 2 November 1975. Despite the Roman police’s reopening of the murder case following Pelosi’s statement of May 2005, the judges charged with investigating it determined the new elements insufficient for them to continue the inquiry.

Political views

Pasolini visiting Antonio Gramsci’s tomb, 1968 protests

Pasolini generated heated public discussion with controversial analyses of public affairs. For instance, during the disorders of 1968, when the autonomist university students were carrying on a guerrilla-like uprising against the police in the streets of Rome and all the leftist forces declared their complete support for the students, describing the disorders as a civil fight of proletariat against the System, Pasolini, alone among the communists, declared that he was with the police; or, more precisely, with the policemen.

He considered them true proletariat, sent to fight for a poor salary and for reasons which they could not understand, against pampered boys of their same age, because they had not had the fortune of being able to study, referring to poliziotti figli di proletari meridionali picchiati da figli di papà in vena di bravate (lit. policemen, sons of proletarian southerners, beaten up by arrogant daddy’s boys). He found that the policemen were but the outer layer of the real power, e.g. the judiciary and the judges.[24] Pasolini was not alien to courts and trials. During all his life, Pasolini was frequently entangled in lawsuits filed against him, up to 33, variously charged with „public disgrace”, „foul language”, „obscenity”, „pornography”, „contempt of religion”, „contempt of the state”, etc., for which he was always eventually acquitted.

The 1968 revolt was seen by Pasolini as an internal, benign reform of the establishment in Italy, since the protesters were part of the petit bourgeoisie. Notwithstanding his position, he saw it as a way of goading protesters into re-thinking their revolt, and did not stop him from contributing to the autonomist Lotta continua movement.

The rising society of consumption

He was particularly concerned about the class of the subproletariat, which he portrayed in Accattone, and to which he felt both humanly and artistically drawn. Pasolini observed that the kind of purity which he perceived in the pre-industrial popular culture was rapidly vanishing, a process that he named la scomparsa delle lucciole (lit. „the disappearance of glow-worms”). The joie de vivre of the boys was being rapidly replaced with more bourgeois ambitions such as a house and a family. He described the coprophagia scenes in Salò as a comment on the processed food industry.

Pasolini’s stance finds its roots in the belief that a Copernican change was taking place in the Italian society and the world. Linked to that very idea, Pasolini was also an ardent critic of consumismo, i.e. consumerism, which he felt had rapidly destroyed Italian society since the mid 1960s to the early 1970s. As he saw it, the society of consumerism („neocapitalism”) and the new fascism had thus expanded an alienation / homogenization and centralization that the former clerical-fascism had not managed to achieve, so bringing about an anthropological change.

That change is related to the loss of humanism and the expansion of productivity as central to the human condition, which he despised. He found that ‘new culture’ was degrading and vulgar. In one interview, he said: „I hate with particular vehemency the current power, the power of 1975, which is a power that manipulates bodies in a horrible way; a manipulation that has nothing to envy to that performed by Himmler or Hitler.”

Strong criticism of Christian Democracy

The June 1975 elections saw the rise of leftist options, and dwelling on his blunt, ever more political approach and prophetic style during this period, he declared the time was reached to put the most prominent Christian-Democrat figures to trial in a court, where a staging would be needed showing them walking in handcuffs and conducted by the carabinieri. That was urgent if the „democratic game” was to be restored and the nation saved from a tragic fate, and ridicule.

Television linked to cultural alienation

He was angered by economic globalization and cultural domination of the North of Italy (around Milan) over other regions, especially the South. He felt this was accomplished through the power of TV.

He lashed out at publicity and television. A debate TV program recorded in 1971, where he denounced censorship, was not actually aired until the day following his murder in November 1975. In a reform blueprint drawn up by himself in September and October 1975 (he got closer to the Communist Party, „an island of salvation”), among the desirable measures to be implemented, he cited the abolition of compulsory secondary school, and television.

Others

He opposed the gradual disappearance of Italian languages and dialects by writing some of his poetry in Friulan, the regional language of his childhood. His opposition to the liberalization of abortion law made him unpopular on the left.

After 1968 he left communism,[clarification needed] claiming instead the Radical Party (Partito Radicale): left-libertarian, liberal, anti-clerical and led by his friend Marco Pannella. In 1975, leaving a letter to Congress with radical party on written :” Dear Pannella, dear friends, dear radical Spadaccia […] you don’t need to do anything else (I believe) that continue to be yourself: which means continuously be unrecognizable. Forget immediately i grandi successi: and continue straight ahead, obstinate, eternally opposed, to demand, to want, to identify yourself with the other; to shock; to blaspheme.”

Sexuality

The LGBT encyclopedia states the following regarding Pasolini’s homosexuality: While openly gay from the very start of his career (thanks to a gay sex scandal that sent him packing from his provincial hometown to live and work in Rome), Pasolini rarely dealt with homosexuality in his movies.

The subject is featured prominently in Teorema (1968), where Terence Stamp’s mysterious God-like visitor seduces the son and father of an upper-middle-class family; passingly in Arabian Nights (1974), in an idyll between a king and a commoner that ends in death; and, most darkly of all, in Salò, or The 120 Days of Sodom (1975), his infamous rendition of the Marquis de Sade’s compendium of sexual horrors.

In 1963 Pasolini met „the great love of his life,” fifteen-year-old Ninetto Davoli, whom he later cast in his 1966 film Uccellacci e uccellini (literally Bad Birds and Little Birds but translated in English as The Hawks and the Sparrows), Pasolini became the youth’s mentor and friend. „Even though their sexual relations lasted only a few years, Ninetto continued to live with Pasolini and was his constant companion, as well as appearing in six more of his films.”

Works

Pasolini’s first novel, Ragazzi di vita (1955), dealt with the Roman lumpenproletariat. The book caused obscenity charges to be filed against Pasolini, the first of many instances in which his art provoked legal problems. The movie Accattone (1961), also about the Roman underworld, also provoked controversy, and conservatives demanded stricter censorship by the government.

He wrote and directed the black-and-white The Gospel According to Matthew (1964). It is based on scripture, but adapted by Pasolini, and he is credited as writer. Jesus, a barefoot peasant, is played by Enrique Irazoqui. While filming it, Pasolini vowed to direct it from the „believer’s point of view”, but later said that upon viewing the completed work, he realized he had expressed his own beliefs.

In his 1966 film Uccellacci e uccellini (literally Bad Birds and Little Birds but translated in English as The Hawks and the Sparrows), a picaresque—and at the same time mystic—fable, Pasolini hired the great Italian comedian Totò to work with Ninetto Davoli, the director’s lover at the time and one of his preferred „naif” actors. It was a unique opportunity for Totò to demonstrate that he was a great dramatic actor as well.

In Teorema (Theorem, 1968), starring Terence Stamp as a mysterious stranger, Pasolini depicted the sexual coming-apart of a bourgeois family. (Variations of this theme were filmed by François Ozon in Sitcom and Takashi Miike in Visitor Q).

Later movies centered on sex-laden folklore, such as Boccaccio’s Decameron (1971), Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales (1972), and Il fiore delle mille e una notte (literally The Flower of 1001 Nights, released in English as Arabian Nights, 1974). These films are usually grouped as the Trilogy of Life. While basing them on classics, Pasolini wrote the screenplays and took sole credit as writer. This trilogy, prompted largely by Pasolini’s attempt to show the secular sacredness of the body against man-made social controls and especially against the venal hypocrisy of religious state (indeed, the religious characters in The Canterbury Tales are shown as pious but amorally grasping fools) were an effort at representing a state of natural sexual innocence essential to the true nature of free humanity. Alternately playfully bawdy and poetically sensuous, wildly populous, subtly symbolic and visually exquisite, the films were wildly popular in Italy and remain perhaps his most enduringly popular works. Yet despite the fact that the trilogy as a whole is considered by many as a masterpiece, Pasolini later reviled his own creation on account of the many soft-core imitations of these three films in Italy that happened afterwards on account of the very same popularity he wound up deeply uncomfortable with. He believed that a bastardisation of his vision had taken place that amounted to a commoditisation of the body he had tried to deny in his trilogy in the first place. The disconsolation this provided is seen as one of the primary reasons for his final film, Salo, in which humans are not only seen as commodities under authoritarian control but are viewed merely as ciphers for its whims, without the free vitality of the figures in the Trilogy of Life.

His final work, Salò (Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom, 1975), exceeded what most viewers could accept at the time in its explicit scenes of intensely sadistic violence. Based on the novel 120 Days of Sodom by Marquis de Sade, it is considered Pasolini’s most controversial film. In May 2006, Time Out’s Film Guide named it the „Most Controversial Film” of all time.

Legacy

As a director, Pasolini created a picaresque neorealism, showing a sad reality. Many people did not want to see such portrayals in artistic work for public distribution. Mamma Roma (1962), featuring Anna Magnani and telling the story of a prostitute and her son, was an affront to the public ideals of morality of those times. His works, with their unequaled poetry applied to cruel realities, showing that such realities were less distant from most daily lives, and contributed to changes in the Italian psyche.

Pasolini’s work often engendered disapproval perhaps primarily because of his frequent focus on sexual behavior, and the contrast between what he presented and what was publicly sanctioned. While Pasolini’s poetry often dealt with his gay love interests, this was not the only, or even main, theme. His interest in and use of Italian dialects should also be noted. Much of the poetry was about his highly revered mother. He depicted certain corners of the contemporary reality as few other poets could do. His poetry, which took some time before it was translated, was not as well known outside Italy as were his films. A collection in English was published in 1996.

Pasolini also developed a philosophy of language mainly related to his studies on cinema. This theoretical and critical activity was another hotly debated topic. His collected articles and responses are still available today.

These studies can be considered as the foundation of his artistic point of view: he believed that the language—such as English, Italian, dialect or other—is a rigid system in which human thought is trapped. He also thought that the cinema is the „written” language of reality which, like any other written language, enables man to see things from the point of view of truth.

His films won awards at the Berlin International Film Festival, Cannes Film Festival, Venice Film Festival, Italian National Syndicate for Film Journalists, Jussi Awards, Kinema Junpo Awards, International Catholic Film Office and New York Film Critics Circle. The Gospel According to St. Matthew was nominated for the United Nations Award of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) in 1968.

Ebbo Demant directed the documentary Das Mitleid ist gestorben (1978) about Pasolini.

Stefano Battaglia made Re: Pasolini (2005) in dedication to Pasolini.

In 2014 Abel Ferrara directed a biopic about Pasolini, with Willem Dafoe in the lead role. It was selected to compete for the Golden Lion at the 71st Venice International Film Festival.

In 2015 Malga Kubiak directed a drama movie based on the story of Pier Paolo Pasolini’s life and death titled PPPasolini. The movie was screened at 7th edition of LGBT Film Festival In Warsaw, Poland and received a People’s Choice Award at the festival.

Films

All titles listed below were written and directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini unless stated otherwise. Although obviously Oedipus Rex and Medea are loosely based on plays by Sophocles and Euripides respectively, Pasolini took significant liberties with original texts and is solely credited for the writing of these films. The latter is also true for the gospel according to St. Matthew.

1961 Accattone/Accattone, Screenplay by Pier Paolo Pasolini based on his novel Una vita violenta. Additional dialogue by Sergio Citti.

1962 Mamma Roma/Mamma Roma, Screenplay by Pier Paolo Pasolini with additional dialogue by Sergio Citti.

1964 Il vangelo secondo Matteo/The Gospel According to St. Matthew, Silver Lion-Venice Film Festival

United Nations Award-British Academy of Film & Television Arts

1966 Uccellacci e uccellini/The Hawks and the Sparrows

1967 Edipo re/ Oedipus Rex

1968 Teorema/Theorem- Pasolini’s novel Teorema was also published in 1968.

1969 Porcile /Pigsty

1969 Medea/Medea

1971 Il Decameron/The Decameron, based on The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio. Won the Silver Bear at the 21st Berlin International Film Festival.

1972 I racconti di Canterbury /The Canterbury Tales, based on The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. Won the Golden Bear at the 22nd Berlin International Film Festival.

1974 Il fiore delle Mille e una Notte/A Thousand and One Nights (Arabian Nights), Screenplay written in collaboration with Dacia Maraini. Won the Grand Prix Spécial Prize.

1975 Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma /Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom, based on Les 120 journées de Sodome ou l’école du libertinage by the Marquis de Sade. Screenplay written in collaboration with Sergio Citti with extended quotes from Roland Barthes’ Sade, Fourier, Loyola and Pierre Klossowski’s Sade mon prochain.

Documentaries

Sopralluoghi in Palestina per Il Vangelo secondo Matteo (1964)

Comizi d’amore (Love Meetings, 1964)

Appunti per un film sull’India (1969)

Appunti per un romanzo dell’immondizia (1970)

Appunti per un’Orestiade Africana (Notes Towards an African Orestes, 1970)

Le mura di Sana’a (1971)

12 Dicembre 1972 (1972)

Pasolini e la forma della città (1975)

Episodes in omnibus films[edit]

La ricotta in RoGoPaG (1963)

First segment of La rabbia (1963)

La Terra vista dalla Luna in Le streghe (The Witches, 1967)

Che cosa sono le nuvole? Capriccio all’Italiana (1968)

La sequenza del fiore di carta in Amore e rabbia (1969)

Bibliography

Ragazzi di vita (The Ragazzi, 1955)

Una vita violenta (A Violent Life, 1959)

Il sogno di una cosa (1962)

Amado Mio—Atti Impuri (1982, originally composed in 1948)

Alì dagli occhi azzurri (1965)

Teorema (1968)

Reality (The Poets’ Encyclopedia, 1979)

Petrolio (1992, incomplete)

Poetry[edit]

La meglio gioventù (1954)

Le ceneri di Gramsci (1957)

L’usignolo della chiesa cattolica (1958)

La religione del mio tempo (1961)

Poesia in forma di rosa (1964)

Trasumanar e organizzar (1971)

La nuova gioventù (1975)

Roman Poems. Pocket Poets No. 41 (1986)

The Selected Poetry of Pier Paolo Pasolini: A Bilingual Edition. (2014)

Essays

Passione e ideologia (1960)

Canzoniere italiano, poesia popolare italiana (1960)

Empirismo eretico (1972)

Lettere luterane (1976)

Le belle bandiere (1977)

Descrizioni di descrizioni (1979)

Il caos (1979)

La pornografia è noiosa (1979)

Scritti corsari (1975)

Lettere (1940–1954) (Letters, 1940–54, 1986)

Theatre

Orgia (1968)

Porcile (1968)

Calderón (1973)

Affabulazione (1977)

Pilade (1977)

Bestia da stile (1977)

FOTO:Pier Paolo Pasolini

Written by: Constantin Enache

Yayoi Kusama (born March 22, 1929) is a Japanese artist and writer. Throughout her career she has worked in a wide variety of media, including painting, collage, soft sculpture, performance art, and environmental installations, most of which exhibit her thematic interest in psychedelic colors, repetition, and pattern. A precursor of the pop art, minimalist and feminist art movements, Kusama influenced her contemporaries such as Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg, and George Segal and exhibited works alongside the likes of them.

In 1957 she moved to the United States, settling down in New York City where she produced a series of paintings influenced by the abstract expressionist movement. Switching to sculpture and installation as her primary media, Kusama became a fixture of the New York avant-garde during the early 1960s where she became associated with the pop art movement. Embracing the rise of the hippie counterculture of the late 1960s, Kusama came to public attention when she organized a series of happenings in which naked participants were painted with brightly colored polka dots. Although largely forgotten after departing the New York art scene in the early 1970s, Kusama is now acknowledged as one of the most important living artists to come out of Japan, and an important voice of the avant-garde.

Kusama’s work is based in conceptual art and shows some attributes of feminism, minimalism, surrealism, Art Brut, pop art, and abstract expressionism, and is infused with autobiographical, psychological, and sexual content. Kusama is also a published novelist and poet, and has created notable work in film and fashion design. Major retrospectives of her work have been held at the Museum of Modern Art in 1998, the Whitney Museum in 2012, and Tate Modern in 2012. In 2006, she received a Women’s Caucus for Art Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2008, Christie’s New York sold a work by her for $5.1 million, then a record for a living female artist. In 2015 Artsy named her one of the Top 10 Living Artists of 2015.

Early life: 1929–1949

Born in Matsumoto, Nagano, into an upper-middle-class family of seedling merchants, Kusama started creating art at an early age, and began writing poetry at age 18. Her mother was reportedly physically abusive and Kusama remembers her father as „…the type who would play around, who would womanize a lot”. She went on to study Nihonga painting at the Kyoto Municipal School of Arts and Crafts in 1948. Frustrated with this distinctly Japanese style, she became interested in the European and American avant-garde, staging several solo exhibitions of her paintings in Matsumoto and Tokyo during the 1950s.

Career

Early success in Japan: 1950–1956

By 1950, Kusama was depicting abstracted natural forms in watercolor, gouache and oil, primarily on paper. She began covering surfaces (walls, floors, canvases, and later, household objects and naked assistants) with the polka dots that would become a trademark of her work.

Kusama on polka dots: a polka-dot has the form of the sun, which is a symbol of the energy of the whole world and our living life, and also the form of the moon, which is calm. Round, soft, colorful, senseless and unknowing. Polka-dots become movement … Polka dots are a way to infinity.

The vast fields of polka dots, or „infinity nets,” as she called them, were taken directly from her hallucinations. The earliest recorded work in which she incorporated these dots was a drawing in 1939 at age 10, in which the image of a Japanese woman in a kimono, presumed to be the artist’s mother, is covered and obliterated by spots. Her first series of large-scale, sometimes more than 30 ft-long canvas paintings, Infinity Nets, were entirely covered in a sequence of nets and dots that alluded to hallucinatory visions.

One day I was looking at the red flower patterns of the tablecloth on a table, and when I looked up I saw the same pattern covering the ceiling, the windows and the walls, and finally all over the room, my body and the universe. I felt as if I had begun to self-obliterate, to revolve in the infinity of endless time and the absoluteness of space, and be reduced to nothingness. As I realized it was actually happening and not just in my imagination, I was frightened. I knew I had to run away lest I should be deprived of my life by the spell of the red flowers. I ran desperately up the stairs. The steps below me began to fall apart and I fell down the stairs straining my ankle.

New York City: 1957–1972

After living in Tokyo and France, Kusama left Japan at the age of 27 for the United States. In 1957 she moved to Seattle, where she had an exhibition of paintings at the Zoe Dusanne Gallery. She stayed there for a year[16] before moving on to New York City, following correspondence with Georgia O’Keeffe in which she professed an interest in joining the limelight of the city, and sought O’Keeffe’s advice. During her time in the U.S., she quickly established her reputation as a leader in the avant-garde movement. In 1961 she moved her studio into the same building as Donald Judd and sculptor Eva Hesse; Hesse became a close friend. In the early 1960s Kusama began to cover items such as ladders, shoes and chairs with white phallic protrusions. Despite the micromanaged intricacy of the drawings, she turned them out fast and in bulk, establishing a rhythm of productivity she still maintains. She established other habits too, like having herself routinely photographed with new work.

Since 1963, Kusama has continued her series of Mirror/Infinity rooms. In these complex installations, purpose-built rooms lined with mirrored glass contain scores of neon coloured balls, hanging at various heights above the viewer. Standing inside on a small platform, light is repeatedly reflected off the mirrored surfaces to create the illusion of a never-ending space. During the following years, she was enormously productive, and by 1966, she was experimenting with room-size, freestanding installations that incorporated mirrors, lights, and piped-in music. She counted Judd and Joseph Cornell among her friends and supporters. However, she did not profit financially from her work. Around this time, Kusama was hospitalized regularly from overwork, and O’Keeffe convinced her own dealer Edith Herbert to purchase several works in order to help Kusama stave off financial hardship.

Kusama organized outlandish happenings in conspicuous spots like Central Park and the Brooklyn Bridge, often involving nudity and designed to protest the Vietnam War. In one, she wrote an open letter to Richard Nixon offering to have vigorous sex with him if he would stop the Vietnam war. Between 1967 and 1969 she concentrated on performances held with the maximum publicity, usually involving Kusama painting polka dots on her naked performers, as in the Grand Orgy to Awaken the Dead at the MOMA (1969), which took place at the Sculpture Garden of the Museum of Modern Art.[19] In 1968, Kusama presided over the happening Homosexual Wedding at the Church of Self-obliteration in 33 Walker Street in New York, and performed alongside Fleetwood Mac and Country Joe and the Fish at the Fillmore East, New York City. She opened naked painting studios and a gay social club called the Kusama ‘Omophile Kompany (kok).

In 1966, Kusama first participated in the 33rd Venice Biennale. Her Narcissus Garden comprised hundreds of mirrored spheres outdoors in what she called a „kinetic carpet”. As soon as the piece was installed on a lawn outside the Italian pavilion, Kusama, dressed in a golden kimono,[13] began selling each individual sphere for 1,200 lire (US$2), until the Biennale organisers put an end to her enterprise. Narcissus Garden was as much about the promotion of the artist through the media as it was an opportunity to offer a critique of the mechanisation and commodification of the art market.

During her time in New York, Kusama had a brief relationship with Donald Judd. She then began a passionate, but platonic, relationship with Joseph Cornell. She was twenty-six years his junior – they would call each other daily, sketch each other, and he would send personalised collages to her. Their lengthy association lasted until his death in 1972.

Return to Japan: 1973—1977

Yayoi Kusama’s Ascension of Polka Dots on the Trees at the Singapore Biennale 2006 on Orchard Road, Singapore

In 1973, Kusama returned to Japan in ill health, where she began writing shockingly visceral and surrealistic novels, short stories, and poetry. She became an art dealer, but her business folded after several years and in 1977 Kusama checked herself into the Seiwa Hospital for the Mentally Ill where she eventually took up permanent residence. She has been living at the hospital since, by choice. Her studio, where she has continued to produce work since the mid-1970s, is a short distance from the hospital in Shinjuku, Tokyo. Kusama is often quoted as saying: „If it were not for art, I would have killed myself a long time ago.” From here, she has continued to produce artworks in a variety of media, as well as launching a literary career by publishing several novels, a poetry collection, and an autobiography. Her painting style shifted to high-colored acrylics on canvas, on an amped-up scale.

Revival: 1980s–present

Her organically abstract paintings of one or two colors (the Infinity Nets series), which she began upon arriving in New York, garnered comparisons to the work of Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, and Barnett Newman. When she left New York she was practically forgotten as an artist until the late 1980s and 1990s, when a number of retrospectives revived international interest.

Following the success of the Japanese pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 1993, a dazzling mirrored room filled with small pumpkin sculptures in which she resided in color-coordinated magician’s attire, Kusama went on to produce a huge, yellow pumpkin sculpture covered with an optical pattern of black spots. The pumpkin came to represent for her a kind of alter-ego or self-portrait. Kusama’s later installation I’m Here, but Nothing (2000–2008) is a simply furnished room consisting of table and chairs, place settings and bottles, armchairs and rugs, however its walls are tattooed with hundreds of fluorescent polka dots glowing in the UV light. The result is an endless infinite space where the self and everything in the room is obliterated. The multi-part floating work Guidepost to the New Space, a series of rounded „humps” in fire-engine red with white polka dots, was displayed in Pandanus Lake. Perhaps one of Kusama’s most notorious works, various versions of Narcissus Garden have been presented worldwide venues including Le Consortium, Dijon, 2000; Kunstverein Braunschweig, 2003; as part of the Whitney Biennial in Central Park, New York in 2004; and at the Jardin de Tuileries in Paris, 2010.

In her ninth decade, Kusama has continued to work as an artist. She has harked back to earlier work by returning to drawing and painting; her work remaining innovative and multi-disciplinary, and her most recent exhibition displayed multiple acrylic-on-canvas works. Also featured were an exploration of infinite space in her Infinity Mirror rooms; which typically involve a cube shaped room being clad with mirrors, water on the floor and flickering lights; which suggests a pattern of life and death. In 2017, a 50-year retrospective of her work opened at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, DC. The exhibit featured six infinity rooms and is scheduled to travel to five museums in the US and Canada.

Works

Performance

In Yayoi Kusama’s Walking Piece (1966), a performance that was documented in a series of eighteen color slides, Kusama walks along the streets of New York City in a traditional Japanese kimono with a parasol. The kimono suggests traditional roles for women in Japanese custom. The parasol, however, is made to look inauthentic as it is really a black umbrella painted white on the exterior and decorated with fake flowers. Kusama walks down unoccupied streets in an unknown quest. She then turns and cries without reason, and eventually walks away and vanishes from view. This performance, through the association of the kimono, involves the stereotypes that Asian American women continue to face. However, as an avant-garde artist living in New York, her situation alters the context of the dress, creating a cross-cultural amalgamation. Kusama is able to point out the stereotype that her white American audience categorizes her in by showing the absurdity of cultural categorizing people in the world’s largest melting pot.

Film

In 1968, the film Kusama’s Self-Obliteration which Kusama produced and starred in won a prize at the Fourth International Experimental Film Competition in Belgium and the Second Maryland Film Festival and the second prize at the Ann Arbor Film Festival. In 1991, Kusama starred in the film Tokyo Decadence, written and directed by Ryu Murakami, and in 1993, she collaborated with British musician Peter Gabriel on an installation in Yokohama.

Fashion

In 1968, Kusama established Kusama Fashion Company Ltd., and began selling avantgarde fashion in the „Kusama Corner” at Bloomingdales. In 2009, Kusama designed a handbag-shaped cell phone entitled Handbag for Space Travel, My Doggie Ring-Ring, a pink dotted phone in accompanying dog-shaped holder, and a red and white dotted phone inside a mirrored, dotted box dubbed Dots Obsession, Full Happiness With Dots, for Japanese mobile communication giant KDDI Corporation’s „iida” brand. Each phone was limited to 1000 pieces. In 2011, Kusama created artwork for six limited-edition lipglosses from Lancôme. That same year, she worked with Marc Jacobs (who visited her studio in Japan in 2006) on a line of Louis Vuitton products, including leather goods, ready-to-wear, accessories, shoes, watches, and jewelry.

Writing

In 1977, Kusama published a book of poems and paintings entitled 7. One year later, her first novel Manhattan Suicide Addict appeared. Between 1983 and 1990, she finished the novels The Hustler’s Grotto of Christopher Street (1983), The Burning of St Mark’s Church (1985), Between Heaven and Earth (1988), Woodstock Phallus Cutter (1988), Aching Chandelier (1989), Double Suicide at Sakuragazuka (1989), and Angels in Cape Cod (1990), alongside several issues of the magazine S&M Sniper in collaboration with photographer Nobuyoshi Araki.

Commissions

To date, Kusama has completed several major outdoor sculptural commissions, mostly in the form of brightly hued monstrous plants and flowers, for public and private institutions including Pumpkin (1994) for the Fukuoka Municipal Museum of Art; The Visionary Flowers (2002) for the Matsumoto City Museum of Art; Tsumari in Bloom (2003) for Matsudai Station, Niigata; Tulipes de Shangri-La (2003) for Euralille in Lille, France; Pumpkin (2006) at Bunka-mura on Benesse Island of Naoshima; Hello, Anyang with Love (2007) for Pyeonghwa Park, Anyang; and The Hymn of Life: Tulips (2007) for the Beverly Gardens Park in Los Angeles. In 1998, she realized a mural for the hallway of the Gare do Oriente subway station in Lisbon. Alongside these monumental works, she has produced smaller scale outdoor pieces including Key-Chan and Ryu-Chan, a pair of dotted dogs. All the outdoor works are cast in highly durable fiberglass-reinforced plastic, then painted in urethane to glossy perfection.

In 2010, Kusama designed a Town Sneaker-model bus, which she titled Mizutama Ranbu (Wild Polka Dot Dance) and whose route travels through her home town of Matsumoto. In 2011, she was commissioned to design the front cover of millions of pocket London Underground maps; the result is entitled Polka Dots Festival in London (2011). Coinciding with an exhibition of the artist’s work at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 2012, a 120-foot reproduction of Kusama’s painting Yellow Trees (1994) covered a condominium building under construction in New York’s Meatpacking District. That same year, Kusama conceived her floor installation Thousands of Eyes as a commission for the new Queen Elizabeth II Courts of Law, Brisbane.

Exhibitions

In 1959, Kusama had her first solo exhibition in New York at the Brata Gallery, an artist’s co-op. She showed a series of white net paintings which were enthusiastically reviewed by Donald Judd (both Judd and Frank Stella then acquired paintings from the show). Kusama has since exhibited work with, among others, Claes Oldenburg, Andy Warhol, and Jasper Johns. Exhibiting alongside European artists including Lucio Fontana, Pol Bury, Otto Piene, and Gunther Uecker, in 1962 she was the only female artist to take part in the widely acclaimed Nul (Zero) international group exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam.

Exhibition list

Yayoi Kusama’s retrospective exhibition at Tate Modern, London in early 2012

1976: Kitakyushu Municipal Museum of Art

1987: Fukuoka, Japan

1989: Center for International Contemporary Arts, New York

1993: Represented Japan at the Venice Biennale

1996: Recent Works at Robert Miller Gallery

1998–1999: Retrospective exhibition of work toured the U.S. and Japan

1998: „Love Forever: Yayoi Kusama,1958–1969”, LACMA

1998–99: „Love Forever: Yayoi Kusama,1958–1969” – exhibit traveled to Museum of Modern Art, New York, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis and Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo)

2000: Le Consortium, Dijon

2001–2003: Le Consortium – exhibit traveled to Maison de la Culture du Japon, Paris; Kunsthallen Brandts, Odense, Denmark; Les Abattoirs, Toulouse; Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna; and Artsonje Center, Seoul

2004: „KUSAMATRIX”, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo

2004–2005: „KUSAMATRIX” – exhibit traveled to Art Park Museum of Contemporary Art, Sapporo Art Park, Hokkaido); „Eternity – Modernity”, National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo (touring Japan)

2007: FINA Festival 2007. Kusama created Guidepost to the New Space, a vibrant outdoor installation for Birrarung Marr beside the Yarra River in Melbourne. In 2009, the Guideposts were re-installed at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden, this time displayed as floating „humps” on a lake.

2008: „The Mirrored Years”, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, the Netherlands

2009 „The Mirrored Years” – exhibit traveled to Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, and City Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand

August 2010: Aichi Triennale 2010, Nagoya. Works were exhibited inside the Aichi Arts Center, out of the center and Toyota car polka dot project.

2010: Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen purchased the work Infinity Mirror Room – Phalli’s Field. As of September 13 of that year the mirror room is permanently exhibited in the entrance area of the museum.

July 2011: Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain

2012: Tate Modern, London. Described as ‘akin to being suspended in a beautiful cosmos gazing at infinite worlds, or like a tiny dot of fluoresecent plankton in an ocean of glowing microscopic life’, the exhibition features work from Kusama’s entire career.

July 15, 2013 – November 3, 2013: Daegu Art Museum, Daegu, Korea

June 30, 2013 – September 16, 2013: MALBA, the Latinamerican Art Museum of Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina

May 22, 2014 – June 27, 2014: Instituto Tomie Ohtake, São Paulo, Brazil

September 17, 2015 – January 24, 2016: „In Infinity”, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark

June 12 – August 9, 2015: „Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Theory”, The Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow, Russia. This was the artist’s first solo exhibition in Russia.

February 19 – May 15, 2016: „Yayoi Kusama – I uendeligheten”, Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Oslo, Norway

September 20, 2015 – September, 2016: „Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrored Room”, Broad Museum, Los Angeles, California

June 12 – September 18, 2016: „Kusama: At the End of the Universe,” Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Houston, Texas

May 1, 2016 – November 30, 2016: „Yayoi Kusama: Narcissus Garden”, The Glass House, New Canaan, Connecticut.

May 25, 2016 – July 30, 2016: „Yayoi Kusama: sculptures, paintings & mirror rooms”, Victoria Miro Gallery, London, United Kingdom.

June 2017: National Gallery Singapore.

Yayoi Kusama’s Obliteration Room was inspired by the earlier Infinity Mirror Room that she created in 2015. This is an exhibition Yayoi Kusama made for the HAM art company in October 2016.

Collections

Kusama’s work is in the collections of leading museums throughout the world, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix; Tate Modern, London; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Utah Museum of Fine Arts, Salt Lake City, UT; and the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo.

Recognition

Kusama has received numerous awards, including the Asahi Prize (2001); Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (2003); and the National Lifetime Achievement Awards, the Order of the Rising Sun (2006). In October 2006, Yayoi Kusama became the first Japanese woman to receive the Praemium Imperiale, one of Japan’s most prestigious prizes for internationally recognized artists. Also she received the Person of Cultural Merit (2009) and Ango awards (2014).

Art market

Anti-graffiti art inspired by Kusama’s polka dot motif serving as (from a distance) camouflage in Idaho in 2015

In the 1960s, Beatrice Perry’s Gres Gallery played an important role in establishing Kusama’s career in the United States. Ota Fine Arts, Kusama’s longtime Tokyo dealer, has worked with the artist since the 1980s.[51] Kusama left Gagosian Gallery in late 2012; before moving to Gagosian, she had been with Robert Miller Gallery, New York. Kusama has been represented by Victoria Miro Gallery since the early 2000s, and joined David Zwirner in 2013. The artist is currently represented by David Zwirner, Ota Fine Arts, and Victoria Miro Gallery.

Kusama’s work has performed strongly at auction: top prices for her work are for paintings from the late 1950s and early 1960s. As of 2012, her work has the highest turnover of any living woman artist. In November 2008, Christie’s New York sold a 1959 white „Infinity Net” painting formerly owned by Donald Judd, No. 2, for US$5.1 million, then a record for a living female artist. In comparison, the highest price for a sculpture from her New York years is £72,500 (US$147,687), fetched by the 1965 wool, pasta, paint and hanger assemblage Golden Macaroni Jacket at Sotheby’s London in October 2007. A 2006 acrylic on fiberglass-reinforced plastic pumpkin earned $264,000, the top price for one of her sculptures, also at Sotheby’s in 2007. Her ‘Flame of Life – Dedicated to Tu-Fu (Du-Fu)’ sold for US$960,000 at Art Basel/Hong Kong in May 2013, the highest price paid at the show. Kusama became the most expensive living female artist at auction when White No. 28 (1960) from her signature “Infinity Nets” series sold for $7.1 million at a 2014 Christie’s auction.

In popular culture

Superchunk, an American indie band, included a song called „Art Class (Song for Yayoi Kusama)” on its Here’s to Shutting Up album.

Yoko Ono cites Kusama as an influence.

The 2004 Matsumoto Performing Art Center in Kusama’s hometown Matsumoto, designed by Toyo Ito, has an entirely dotted façade.

She is mentioned in the lyrics of the Le Tigre song „Hot Topic”.

In 2013 the British indie pop duo The Boy Least Likely To made song tribute to Yayoi Kusama, writing a song specially about her. They wrote on their blog that they admire Kusama’s work because she puts her fears into it, something that they themselves often do.

The Nels Cline Singers dedicated one track, „Macroscopic (for Kusama-san)” of their 2014 album, Macroscope to Kusama.

Works and publications

Exhibition catalogs

Rodenbeck, J.F. „Yayoi Kusama: Surface, Stitch, Skin.” Zegher, M. Catherine de. Inside the Visible: An Elliptical Traverse of 20th Century Art in, of, and from the Feminine. Cambridge, Mass: The MIT Press, 1996. ISBN 978-0-262-54081-0 OCLC 33863951

Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, Jan. 30-May 12, 1996.

Kusama, Yayoi, and Damien Hirst. Yayoi Kusama Now. New York, N.Y.: Robert Miller Gallery, 1998. ISBN 978-0-944-68058-2 OCLC 42448762

Robert Miller Gallery, New York, June 11-Aug. 7, 1998.

Kusama, Yayoi, and Lynn Zelevansky. Love Forever: Yayoi Kusama, 1958-1968. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1998. ISBN 978-0-875-87181-3 OCLC 39030076

Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Mar. 8-June 8, 1998; three other locations through July 4, 1999.

Kusama, Yayoi. Yayoi Kusama. Wien: Kunsthalle Wien, 2002. ISBN 978-3-852-47034-4 OCLC 602369060

Kusama, Yayoi. Yayoi Kusama. Paris: Les Presses du Reel, 2002. ISBN 978-0-714-83920-2 OCLC 50628150

Hoptman, Laura, Akira Tatehata, and Udo Kultermann. Yayoi Kusama. London: Phaidon Press, 2003. ISBN 978-0-714-83920-2 OCLC 749417124

Seven European exhibitions in France, Germany, Denmark, etc.; 2001 – 2003.

Kusama, Yayoi. Kusamatorikkusu = Kusamatrix. Tōkyō: Kadokawa Shoten, 2004. ISBN 978-4-048-53741-4 OCLC 169879689

Mori Art Museum, 7 February – 9 May 2004; Mori Geijutsu Bijutsukan, Sapporo, 5 June – 22 August 2004.

Kusama, Yayoi, and Tōru Matsumoto. Kusama Yayoi eien no genzai = Yayoi Kusama : eternity-modernity. Tōkyō: Bijutsu Shuppansha, 2005. ISBN 978-4-568-10353-3 OCLC 63197423

Tōkyō Kokuritsu Kindai Bijutsukan, Oct. 26-Dec. 19, 2004; Kyōto Kokuritsu Kindai Bijutsukan, Jan. 6-Feb. 13, 2005; Hiroshima-shi Gendai Bijutsukan, Feb. 22-Apr. 17, 2005; Kumamoto-shi Gendai Bijutsukan, Apr. 29-July 3, 2005; at Matsumoto-shi Bijutsukan, July 30-Oct. 10, 2005.

Applin, Jo, and Yayoi Kusama. Yayoi Kusama.[dead link] London: Victoria Miro Gallery, 2007. ISBN 978-0-955-45644-2 OCLC 501970783

Victoria Miro Gallery, London, 10 Oct. – 17 Nov. 2007.

Kusama, Yayoi. Yayoi Kusama. New York: Gagosian Gallery, 2009. ISBN 978-1-932-59894-0 OCLC 320277816

Gagosian Gallery, New York, Apr. 16-Jun. 27, 2009; Gagosian Gallery, Beverly Hills, May 30-Jul. 17, 2009.

Morris, Frances, and Jo Applin. Yayoi Kusama. London: Tate Publishing, 2012. ISBN 978-1-854-37939-9 OCLC 781163109

Reina Sofia, Madrid, 10 May – 12 Sept. 2011; Centre Pompidou, Paris, 10 Oct. 2011 – 9 Jan. 2012; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 12 July – 30 Sept. 2012; Tate Modern (London), 9 Feb. – 5 June 2012.

Kusama, Yayoi, and Akira Tatehata. Yayoi Kusama: I Who Have Arrived in Heaven. New York: David Zwirner, 2014. ISBN 978-0-989-98093-7 OCLC 879584489

David Zwirner Gallery, New York, Nov. 8-Dec. 21, 2013.

Illustration work

Carroll, Lewis, and Yayoi Kusama. Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. London: Penguin Classics, 2012. ISBN 978-0-141-19730-2 OCLC 54167867

Chapters

Nakajima, Izumi. „Yayoi Kusama between abstraction and pathology.” Pollock, Griselda. Psychoanalysis and the Image: Transdisciplinary Perspectives. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub, 2006. pp. 127–160. ISBN 978-1-405-13460-6 OCLC 62755557

Klaus Podoll, „Die Künstlerin Yayoi Kusama als pathographischer Fall.” Schulz R, Bonanni G, Bormuth M, eds. Wahrheit ist, was uns verbindet: Karl Jaspers’ Kunst zu philosophieren. Göttingen, Wallstein, 2009. p. 119. ISBN 978-3-835-30423-9 OCLC 429664716

Cutler, Jody B. „Narcissus, Narcosis, Neurosis: The Visions of Yayoi Kusama.” Wallace, Isabelle Loring, and Jennie Hirsh. Contemporary Art and Classical Myth. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate, 2011. pp. 87–109. ISBN 978-0-754-66974-6 OCLC 640515432

Autobiography, writing

Kusama, Yayoi. A Book of Poems and Paintings. Tokyo: Japan Edition Art, 1977.

Kusama, Yayoi. Kusama Yayoi: Driving Image = Yayoi Kusama. Tōkyō: PARCO shuppan, 1986. ISBN 978-4-891-94130-7 OCLC 54943729

Kusama, Yayoi, Ralph F. McCarthy, Hisako Ifshin, and Yayoi Kusama. Violet Obsession: Poems. Berkeley: Wandering Mind Books, 1998. ISBN 978-0-965-33043-5 OCLC 82910478

Kusama, Yayoi, Ralph F. McCarthy, Yayoi Kusama, and Yayoi Kusama. Hustlers Grotto: Three Novellas. Berkeley, Calif: Wandering Mind Books, 1998. ISBN 978-0-965-33042-8 OCLC 45665616

Kusama, Yayoi. Infinity Net: The Autobiography of Yayoi Kusama. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2011. ISBN 978-0-226-46498-5 OCLC 711050927

Kusama, Yayoï, and Isabelle Charrier. Manhattan Suicide Addict. Dijon: Presses du Réel, 2005. ISBN 978-2-840-66115-3 OCLC 420073474

Catalogue raisonné, etc.

Kusama, Yayoi. Yayoi Kusama: Print Works. Tokyo: Abe Corp, 1992. ISBN 978-4-872-42023-4 OCLC 45198668

Kusama, Yayoi, and Hideki Yasuda. Yayoi Kusama Furniture by Graf: Decorative Mode No. 3. Tōkyō: Seigensha Art Publishing, 2003. ISBN 978-4-916-09470-4 OCLC 71424904

Kusama, Yayoi. Kusama Yayoi zen hangashū, 1979-2004 = All Prints of Kusama Yayoi, 1979-2004. Tōkyō: Abe Shuppan, 2006. ISBN 978-4-872-42174-3 OCLC 173274568

FOTO:Yayoi Kusama

Written by: Constantin Enache

Zoe Dumitrescu Bușulenga (n. 20 august 1920, București – d. 5 mai 2006, Mănăstirea Văratec, Neamț) a fost o personalitate a culturii române, cu o prolifică activitate de cercetător, critic și istoric literar, eseist, filozof al culturii, pedagog și politician român.

A fost membră a Academiei Române și a unor importante instituții culturale europene. După 1989 a ales să se retragă tot mai des într-o chilie a mănăstirii Văratec, călugărindu-se spre sfârșitul vieții sub numele de Maica Benedicta. A fost înmormântată la mănăstirea Putna. A fost fiica lui Nicolae Dumitrescu, jurist, și a Mariei Apostol, filolog.

Studii

Școala Centrală din București

Studii muzicale la Conservatorul „Pro-Arte”

Studii juridice și filologice (anglo-germanistică, istoria artelor)

1970, doctorat cu teza Renașterea – Umanismul – Dialogul artelor

Cariera profesională

1947 – 1948 – Președinte al Comitetului U.N.S.R. de la Institutul Pedagogic „Maxim Gorki“

1948 – 1949 – Redactor la Editura de Stat

Până în 1957, redactor la Editura pentru Literatură și cercetător la Institutul de Istorie și Teorie Literară „G.Călinescu”

1948 – 1971 – asistent universitar, lector, conferențiar și profesor universitar (din 1971), șef al Catedrei de Literatură Universală și Comparată] (din 1975) la Universitatea din București

Din 1973, director al Institutului de Istorie și Teorie Literară „George Călinescu” din București

Visiting Professor la Universitatea din Amsterdam (1972)

Membru corespondent al Academiei Române – 1 martie 1974

Membru titular al Academiei Române – 22 ianuarie 1990

Vicepreședintele Academiei Române (2 februarie 1990 – 18 februarie 1994)

Președinte al Secției de Filologie și Literatură a Academiei Române

Director al Școlii Române din Roma – (1991-1997)

Membră în Comitetul Executiv al Asociației Internaționale de Literatură Comparată (1973-1979)

Membră a Academiei de Științe și Studii Europene din Franța

Membră a Academia Europaea din Londra (1993)

Afiliații politice

Zoe Dumitrescu Bușulenga a fost membră CC al PCR în perioada 1969 -1974 și membru al Partidului Comunist Român din anul 1966.

A fost, de asemenea, și deputată în Marea Adunare Națională de două ori, prima dată în intervalul 1975 – 1980, respectiv între 1980 și 1985, pentru a doua oară.

Opera

Activitate publicistică

Zoe Dumitrescu Bușulenga a publicat articole în numeroase reviste de specialitate: Manuscriptum, Revista de istorie și teorie literară, România literară, Secolul 20, Synthesis etc. A fost director al Revistei de istorie și teorie literară și al revistei ”Synthesis.

Opera literară

Zoe Dumitrescu Bușulenga, comparatist și critic literar de formație anglo-germană, a manifestat preocupări de interdisciplinaritate și de filozofie a culturii. Este autoarea unor volume de istorie literară, literatură comparată, istoria culturii, analize stilistice și memorialistică.

Studii de istorie a culturii

Ion Creangă, București, Ed. pentru Literatură, 1963

Eminescu, București, Ed. Tineretului, col. „Oameni de seama”, 1964

Surorile Brontë, 1967

Sofocle și condiția umană, București, Ed. Albatros, col. „Contemporanul nostru”, 1974

Eminescu – cultură și creație, București, Ed. Eminescu, 1976

Renașterea, umanismul și destinul artelor, București, Ed. Univers, 1975

Eminescu și romantismul german, București, Ed. Eminescu, 1986 ed. a II-a, București, Ed. Universal Dalsi, 1999)

Eminescu. Viață – Creație – Cultură, București, Ed. Eminescu, 1989

Ștefan Luchian, 1993, (în colaborare)

Muzică și literatură, (în colaborare cu Iosif Sava), București, Ed. Cartea Românească, 1986 (vol. II, 1987; vol. III, 1994)

Studii de comparatistică

Renașterea, umanismul, și dialogul artelor, 1971; ediția a II-a, revăzută și adăugită, 1975

Valori și echivalențe umanistice, excurs critic și comparatist, București, Ed. Eminescu, col. „Sinteze”, 1973

Itinerarii prin cultură, (culegere de articole grupate în patru capitole: I. Portrete pentru o istorie a culturii române, II. Literaturi străine, III. Miscellanea, IV. Gânduri de umanist), București, Ed. Eminescu, 1982

Impresii de călătorie

Periplu umanistic, 1980, București, Ed. Sport-Turism, 1980 (însemnări eseistice despre Grecia, Italia, Anglia, Suedia, Olanda, Franța)

Memorialistică

Caietul de la Văratec. Convorbiri și cuvinte de folos, Ed. Lumea Credinței, București, 2007

Participare în volume colective

Istoria literaturii române. Studii (București, Ed. Academiei Române, 1979), ediție coordonată de Zoe Dumitrescu Bușulenga, care a fost și autoarea unor studii din cuprinsul cărții.

Miorița (ediție îngrijită și prefațată de Zoe Dumitrescu Bușulenga)

Ediții prefațate

Volume ale autorilor: Ioan Alexandru, Hans Christian Andersen, Vasile Băncila, Johannes Becher, János Bencsik, Amita Bhose, Elvira Bogdan, Ion Luca Caragiale, Mircea Cărtărescu, Adelbert von Chamisso, Geoffrey Chaucer, Ion Creangă, A.J.Cronin, Rosa del Conte, Constantin Dobrogeanu-Gherea, Iosif Constantin Drăgan, Charles Drouhet, Mircea Eliade, Mihai Eminescu, Lucreția Filipescu, Antonio Fogazzaro, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Nicolae Iorga, Nikos Kazantzakis, Rudyard Kipling, Heinrich von Kleist, George Lăzărescu, Costache Negruzzi, Radu Niculescu, Camil Petrescu, Al. Philippide, Edgar Allan Poe, Armando Palacio Valdes, Sammuel Pepys, Friedrich Schiller, William Shakespeare, Veronica Stanei, Robert Louis Stevenson, I. M. Stefan, Rabindranath Tagore, Elena Teodoreanu, Guyn Thomas, Claude Tillier, Luigi Ugolini, George Uscătescu, Vasile Voiculescu ș.a.

Cântarea cântărilor (traducere de Ioan Alexandru)

Bibliografia relațiilor literaturii române cu literaturile străine (lucrare coordonată de Ioan Lupu și Cornelia Ștefănescu)

Crestomație de literatura română veche (coordonatori: I.C. Chițimia și Stela Toma).

Premii și distincții

Premiul special al Uniunii Scriitorilor din România (1986, 1989)

Premiul internațional Herder (1988)

Premiul Adelaide Ristori (1993)

Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana în grad de Comandor (1978) și în grad de „Grande Ufficiale” (1996)

Ordinul bulgar Sf. Metodiu și Chiril (1977)

Ordinul național Pentru Merit, în grad de Ofițer (2003)

Pe 5 mai 2006, un mare om al culturii românești era înmormântat la Mănăstirea Putna, după dorința sa testamentară, fiind așezat alături de monahi, stareți și oameni bine-plăcuți lui Dumnezeu de aici. Este vorba de academicianul Zoe Dumitrescu-Bușulenga, cea care avea să fie cunoscută în ultimii ani ai vieții ca Maica Benedicta de la Văratec. De ce a ales ilustra doamnă profesoară să-și doarmă somnul de veci la câțiva pași de mormântul Sfântului Ștefan cel Mare și de bustul lui Mihai Eminescu, având alături pe starețul Iachint al Putnei și pe cei dinaintea lui? Poate puțini dintre noi înțelegem că întreg drumul vieții domniei sale, toate alegerile și gesturile ei asumate au dus la acest final firesc, la această îmbrățișare a lui Dumnezeu. Ne rămâne deci nouă să răspundem: ce fel de viață are acel om care vrea să fie înmormântat la mănăstire?

Zoe – în grecește viață – s-a născut în 1920, la București, din părinții Nicolae Dumitrescu și Maria Apostol. De mică a fost învățată cu literatura clasică franceză și germană, prin cărțile puse în mână de tatăl ei, iar de la bunicul ei, preot, s-a deprins cu spovedania, împărtășania și viața în Biserică. A trecut și ea prin îndoielile și neliniștile adolescenței, dar acestea nu au scos-o din ordinea vieții așa cum singură va mărturisi: „Toți tinerii între 15–17 ani au dubii. Dincolo de dubiile tale sau de momentele de revoltă, Duhul nu te lasă niciodată”. Împiedicată de tuberculoză să urmeze o carieră în muzică, pasiunea vieții ei, a îmbrățișat cariera părinților, urmând Dreptul și Literele la Universitatea din București. Și această cotitură a vieții a înțeles-o ca „un deget de sus care m-a mânat. Eu nu i-am spus destin, i-am spus Dumnezeu”, acceptând că vocația ei este de a forma suflete prin comunicarea ca profesor. Și aceasta va face, timp de 34 de ani (1948–1982), la catedra de Literatură Universală și Comparată a Universității din București, pe care va ajunge să o conducă. Avându-i ca modele formative pe Tudor Vianu și George Călinescu, doamna profesoară s-a străduit să insufle studenților dragostea de adevăr și simțul dreptății în deceniile tulburi ale comunismului, opunând valorile umaniste egalitarismului proletar. Într-o vreme în care, după propria mărturisire, Goga, Rebreanu și Blaga erau interziși, în care Eminescu era reinventat ca socialist, Zoe Dumitrescu-Bușulenga a găsit curajul și inteligența de a face o literatură comparată în așa fel încât studenții să înțeleagă adevărurile neoficiale din spatele mesajului oficial. Astfel a reușit să salveze integritatea operei și gândirii lui Eminescu, să-l scoată pe Titu Maiorescu din umbra lui Constantin Dobrogeanu-Gherea, să-i promoveze neconvențional pe Mircea Eliade și Mircea Vulcănescu, și chiar să introducă Biblia în bibliografia obligatorie a Literaturii Universale, apărând-o ca „cea mai mare carte a umanității”. În lumina acestei diplomații abile trebuie văzute concesiile literare ocazionale făcute regimului Ceaușescu, fiindcă doamna profesoară a înțeles că numai așa se puteau salva educația tinerilor și reperele majore ale culturii românești. „Pe studenții mei nu i-am trădat niciodată”, va mărturisi ea.

Înarmată cu simțul nuanțelor și discernământ, doamna Zoe a realizat că se putea face binele și într-o Românie comunistă. Cu acest gând a primit să fie înscrisă ca membru de partid, având binecuvântarea și chiar îndemnul duhovnicului ei. Fiindcă nu a avut copii, doamna Zoe s-a împlinit ca mamă și nașă pentru alții, prin fapte care sfidau interdicțiile regimului: „Am cununat 17 perechi și am botezat 11 copii, fără să mă jenez, ducându-mă la biserică, și parcă nu mă vedeau”. Din conștiința sa de dascăl și de creștin a venit curajul de a duce la un moment dat grupuri de elevi la biserică sau de a purta crucea la gât, sub aparența unui obiect de artă.

După 1989, viața doamnei profesoare se va împărți. Pe de o parte, va mai îndeplini unele funcții publice: vicepreședinte al Academiei Române, director la „Accademia di Romania” din Roma și altele. Pe de altă parte, se va retrage tot mai mult la Mănăstirea Văratec, unde se va dedica lecturilor duhovnicești, rugăciunii și convorbirilor spirituale cu tinerii. Din studiul de o viață întreagă al textelor sacre ale literaturii universale doamna Zoe a desprins ideea de viață pe verticală, văzând-o ca „un drum al minții spre Dumnezeu”. Acesta va fi și îndemnul ei pentru tineri: „Să vă fie gândul pe verticală!”, iar ca repere de viață a vorbit întotdeauna de două lucruri: frica de Dumnezeu și rușinea de oameni. După moartea soțului ei, Apostol, și după ani întregi petrecuți în deprinderi duhovnicești, se va călugări cu numele de Benedicta, mărturisind: „Am socotit că un creștin intelectual trebuie să-și petreacă ultimii ani ai vieții așa cum se făcea pe vremuri, și mai cu seamă soțiile care rămâneau singure, se retrăgeau la mănăstiri. Era o frumoasă obișnuință, mai ales în lumea boierească”. După o viață în slujba spiritului, la întrebarea „Ce înseamnă moartea pentru dumneavoastră?”, Maica Benedicta a ajuns la acest răspuns: „Lepădarea acestui trup vremelnic și trecerea în lumea celor vii. Nădăjduiesc. Dacă merit – asta numai Mântuitorul știe”.

FOTO:Zoe Dumitrescu-Bușulenga

Redactare: Constantin Enache

Mihai Eminescu (născut Mihail Eminovici; n. 15/27 ianuarie 1850,Botoșani, România – d. 15/27 iunie 1889,București, România) a fost un poet, prozator și jurnalist român, socotit de cititorii români și de critica literară postumă drept cea mai importantă voce poetică din literatura română. Receptiv la romantismele europene de secol XVIII și XIX, a asimilat viziunile poetice occidentale, creația sa aparținând unui romantism literar relativ întârziat. În momentul în care Mihai Eminescu a recuperat temele tradiționale ale Romantismului european, gustul pentru trecut și pasiunea pentru istoria națională, căreia a dorit chiar să-i construiască un Pantheon de voievozi, nostalgia regresivă pentru copilărie, melancolia și cultivarea stărilor depresive, întoarcerea în natură etc., poezia europeană descoperea paradigma modernismului, prin Charles Baudelaire sau Stéphane Mallarmé, bunăoară. Poetul avea o bună educație filosofică, opera sa poetică fiind influențată de marile sisteme filosofice ale epocii sale, de filosofia antică, de la Heraclit la Platon, de marile sisteme de gândire ale romantismului, de teoriile lui Arthur Schopenhauer, Immanuel Kant (de altfel Eminescu a lucrat o vreme la traducerea tratatului acestuia Critica rațiunii pure, la îndemnul lui Titu Maiorescu, cel care îi ceruse să-și ia doctoratul în filosofia lui Kant la Universitatea din Berlin, plan nefinalizat până la urmă) și de teoriile lui Hegel.

Rădăcina ideologică principală a gândirii sale economice sau politice era conservatoare; prin articolele sale publicate mai ales în perioada în care a lucrat la Timpul a reușit să-i deranjeze pe cîțiva lideri importanți din acest mare partid care au lansat sloganul, celebru în epocă, „Ia mai opriți-l pe Eminescu ăsta!”. Publicistica eminesciană oferă cititorilor o radiografie a vieții politice, parlamentare sau guvernamentale din acea epocă; în plus ziaristul era la nevoie și cronicar literar sau teatral, scria despre viața mondenă sau despre evenimente de mai mică importanță, fiind un veritabil cronicar al momentului.

Eminescu a fost activ în societatea politico-literară Junimea, și a lucrat ca redactor la Timpul, ziarul oficial al Partidului Conservator. A publicat primul său poem la vârsta de 16 ani, iar la 19 ani a plecat să studieze la Viena. Manuscrisele poetului Mihai Eminescu, 46 de volume, aproximativ 14.000 de file, au fost dăruite Academiei Române de Titu Maiorescu, în ședinta din 25 ianuarie 1902. Eminescu a fost internat în 3 februarie 1889 la spitalul Mărcuța din București și apoi a fost transportat la sanatoriul Caritas. În data de 15 iunie 1889, în jurul orei 4 dimineața, poetul a murit în sanatoriul doctorului Șuțu. În 17 iunie Eminescu a fost înmormântat la umbra unui tei din cimitirul Bellu din București. A fost ales post-mortem (28 octombrie 1948) membru al Academiei Române.

Familia

Strămoșii paterni ai poetului se presupune că provin dintr-o familie românească din Banatul ocupat de turci. Acolo la 1675 s-a născut un copil care adult fiind a fost poreclit Iminul, fiul lui Iminul a fost Iovul lui Iminul, născut la 1705, care a fost hirotonisit ca preot sub numele sârbizat de Iovul Iminovici, în conformitate cu uzul limbii slavone al cancelariei mitropoliei de la Carloviț.

Din cauza războiului ruso-austriaco-turc din 1735-1739, în urma căruia Banatul și alte regiuni, abia cucerite de la turci în 1716-1718, reintrau sub suzeranitate turcă, și în urma apelului episcopului Inocențiu Micu-Klein către românii de pretutindeni de a se stabili la Blaj, preotul Iovul Iminovici pleacă din Banat spre Blaj pe la 1738-1740, beneficiind de libertăți cetățenești, lot agricol contra unei taxe, învățământ gratuit în limba română pentru copii, condiționat fiind însă de a se mărturisi unit. Iovul Iminovici a avut doi fii, Iosif, elev de 10 ani la 1755, și Petrea Iminovici.

Petrea Eminovici, străbunicul poetului, s-a născut probabil în 1735, iar din căsătoria acestuia cu Agafia Șerban, născută în 1736, au apărut mai mulți urmași, cunoscută cu certitudine fiind doar existența mezinului Vasile, bunicul poetului. Vasile Iminovici, născut la 1778, a făcut școala normală din Blaj și se însoară cu Ioana Sărghei. După un timp, soții Petrea și Agafia se despart, Petrea decedând la Blaj în 1811, iar Agafia însoțind familia fiului Vasile în Bucovina și stingându-se la Călineștii Cuparencu în anul 1818 la vărsta de 83 de ani.

Vasile Iminovici, în vârstă de 26 ani, atras de condițiile economice și sociale oferite de Imperiul Austro-Ungar imigranților stabiliți în Bucovina, se mută cu familia la Călineștii Cuparencu în 1804, unde primește post de dascăl de biserică și lot agricol din rezerva religionară. A avut patru fete și trei feciori. Cel mai mare dintre feciori, Gheorghe, născut la 10 februarie 1812, a fost tatăl lui Mihai Eminescu. Vasile Iminovici a decedat la 20 februarie 1844.

Gheorghe Eminovici a făcut vreo trei ani de școală la dascălul Ioniță din Suceava, a fost în slujba boierului Ioan Ienacaki Cârstea din Costâna, apoi scriitoraș la baronul Jean Mustață din Bucovina, iar mai apoi la boierul Alexandru Balș. După moartea boierului, fiul acestuia, Costache, îl numește administrator al moșiei Dumbrăveni și îi capătă de la vodă titlul de sulger.

Strămoșii din partea mamei, Jurăsceștii, proveneau din zona Hotinului. Stolnicul Vasile Jurașcu din Joldești s-a căsătorit cu Paraschiva, fiica lui Donțu, un muscal sau cazac, care se așezase pe malul Siretului, nu departe de satul Sarafinești și luase în căsătoria pe fata țăranului Ion Brehuescu, Catrina. Raluca, mama poetului, a fost a patra fiică a lui Vasile și a Paraschivei Jurașcu.

Gheorghe Eminovici s-a căsătorit cu Raluca Jurașcu în primăvara anului 1840, primind o zestre substanțială, iar la 12 mai 1841 a primit titlul de căminar de la vodă Mihail Grigore Sturza.

Mihai Eminescu a fost al șaptelea dintre cei unsprezece copii ai lui Gheorghe Eminovici și al Ralucăi. Primul născut dintre băieți, Șerban (n.1841), studiază medicina la Viena, se îmbolnăvește de tuberculoză și moare alienat la Berlin la 30 noiembrie 1874. Niculae, născut în 1843, se va sinucide în Ipotești, în 1884. Iorgu (n. 1844) studiază la Academia Militară din Berlin. Are o carieră de succes, dar moare în 1873 din cauza unei răceli contractate în timpul unei misiuni. Ruxandra se naște în 1845, dar moare în copilărie. Ilie (n. 1846) a fost tovarășul de joacă al lui Mihai, descris în mai multe poeme. Moare în 1863 în urma unei epidemii de tifos. Maria (n. 1848[21] sau 1849) trăiește doar șapte ani și jumătate. Aglae (n. 1852, d. 1906) a fost căsătorită de două ori și are doi băieți, pe Ioan și pe George. A suferit de boala Basedow-Graves. După el s-a născut în jur de 1854 Henrieta (Harieta), sora mai mică a poetului, cea care l-a îngrijit după instaurarea bolii. A murit cu semne de tuberculoză. Matei (n. 1856) este singurul care a lăsat urmași direcți cu numele Eminescu. A studiat Politehnica la Praga și a devenit căpitan în armata română. S-a luptat cu Titu Maiorescu, încercând să împiedice publicarea operei postume. Ultimul copil, Vasile, a murit la un an și jumătate, data nașterii sau a morții nefiind cunoscute.

Data și locul nașterii

La 31 martie 1889, Mihail Chințescu, un conferențiar susținea la Ateneul Român că Eminescu s-a născut la Soleni, un sat din Moldova. Într-un registru al membrilor Junimii Eminescu însuși a notat ca loc al nașterii Botoșani, iar ca dată a trecut 20 decembrie 1849. În registrul școlii primare a fost consemnată data de 6 decembrie 1850, iar în documentele gimnaziului din Cernăuți este trecută data de 14 decembrie 1849. Sora poetului, Aglae Drogli, într-o scrisoare către Titu Maiorescu susținea ca dată a nașterii 20 decembrie 1849, iar loc al nașterii Ipotești. Fratele poetului, Matei, a susținut o altă dată 8 noiembrie 1848 și ca localitate Dumbrăvenii, iar mai târziu a susținut că a găsit o psaltire veche unde tatăl poetului notase: „Astăzi, 20 decembrie, anul 1849, la patru ceasuri și cinsprezece minute evropienești, s-a născut fiul nostru Mihai.”

Totuși, data și locul nașterii lui Mihai Eminescu au fost acceptate la 15 ianuarie 1850, în Botoșani, precum a fost consemnat în registrul de nașteri și botez în arhiva bisericii Uspenia (Domnească) din Botoșani; în acest dosar data nașterii este trecută ca „15 ghenarie 1850”, iar a botezului la data de 21 în aceeași lună a aceluiași an.

Poetul a fost botezat de preotul Ion Stamate, ajutat de fiul său, Dimitrie, diacon, la botez fiind prezenți în afară de părinți, stolnicul Vasile Jurașcu, naș, și maica Ferovnia Jurașcu de la schitul Agafton, soră cu mama.

Copilăria

Clădirea National-Hauptschule din Cernăuți, unde Mihai Eminescu a studiat în perioada 1858-60. În prezent clădirea adăpostește o școală auto. Strada Shkilna (Școlii) nr. 4.

Copilăria a petrecut-o la Botoșani și Ipotești, în casa părintească și prin împrejurimi[18], într-o totală libertate de mișcare și de contact cu oamenii și cu natura, stare evocată cu adâncă nostalgie în poezia de mai târziu (Fiind băiet… sau O, rămâi).

Nu se cunoaște unde face primele două clase primare. Începând cu clasa a III-a în 1858 a urmat școala primară National Hauptschule (Școala primară ortodoxă orientală) la Cernăuți. La finalul clasei a III-a este clasificat al 15-lea dintre cei 72 de elevi. Frecventează aici și clasa a IV-a în anul scolar 1859/1860. Are ca învățători pe Ioan Litviniuc și Ioan Zibacinschi, iar director pe Vasile Ilasievici.[34] Cadre didactice cu experiență, învățătorii săi participă la viața culturală și întocmesc manuale școlare. Termină școala primară cu rezultate bune la învățătură. A terminat clasa a IV-a clasificat al 5-lea din 82 de elevi.

Clădirea Obergymnasium din Cernăuți, unde poetul și-a făcut studiile în perioada 1860-63. Tot acolo a predat Aron Pumnul. În prezent este școala generală nr. 1.

Între 1860 și 1861 a fost înscris la Obergymnasium din Cernăuți, liceu german înființat în 1808, singura instituție de învățământ liceal la acea dată din Ducatul Bucovinei, din 1775 parte a Imperiului Habsburgic. Se impune în cursul anilor prin buna organizare administrativă și marea severitate în procesul de învățământ. Profesorii proveneau cu precădere din Austria, întocmeau studii și colaborau la publicațiile vremii. Se înființează și o catedră de română, destul de târziu, după 1848. Este ocupată de Aron Pumnul. Cunoscut prin Lepturariu românesc, în patru tomuri, tipărit la Viena între 1862 și 1865, cea dintâi istorie a literaturii române în texte. Frecventează cursurile la Obergymnasium și frații săi, Șerban, Nicolae, Gheorghe și Ilie. Termină clasa I cu rezultate bune la învățătură. Nu are notă la română pe primul semestru și este clasificat de Miron Călinescu, erudit în istoria bisericii ortodoxe române. Elevul Eminovici Mihai a promovat clasa I, fiind clasificat al 11-lea în primul semestru și al 23-lea în cel de-al doilea semestru. În clasa a II-a, pe care a repetat-o, l-a avut ca profesor pe Ion G. Sbiera, succesorul lui Aron Pumnul la catedră, culegător din creație populară și autor de studii de ținută academică. Aron Pumnul l-a calificat, în ambele semestre, cu note maxime la română. A obținut insuficient pe un semestru la Valentin Kermanner (la limba latină) și la Johann Haiduk, pe ambele semestre (la matematică). Mai târziu a mărturisit că îndepărtarea sa de matematică se datora metodei rele de predare.

În 16 aprilie 1863 a părăsit definitiv cursurile, deși avea o situație bună la învățătură. Avea note foarte bune la toate materiile. Ion G. Sbiera i-a dat la română calificativul vorzüglich (eminent). Plecând de vacanța Paștelui la Ipotești, nu s-a mai întors la școală.

În 1864 elevul Eminovici Mihai a solicitat Ministerul Învățământului din București o subvenție pentru continuarea studiilor sau un loc de bursier. A fost refuzat, „nefiind nici un loc vacant de bursier“. În 21 martie 1864, prin adresa nr. 9816 către gimnaziul din Botoșani, i s-a promis că va fi primit „negreșit la ocaziune de vacanță, după ce, însă, va îndeplini condițiunile concursului“. Elevul Eminovici a plecat la Cernăuți unde trupa de teatru Fanny Tardini-Vladicescu dădea reprezentații. La 5 octombrie 1864, Eminovici a intrat ca practicant la Tribunalul din Botoșani, apoi, peste puțin timp, a fost copist la comitetul permanent județean.

La 5 martie 1865 Eminovici a demisionat, cu rugămintea ca salariul cuvenit pe luna februarie să fie înmânat fratelui său Șerban. În 11 martie tânărul M. Eminovici a solicitat pașaport pentru trecere în Bucovina. În toamnă s-a aflat în gazdă la profesorul său, Aron Pumnul, ca îngrijitor al bibliotecii acestuia. Situația lui școlară era de „privatist“. Cunoștea însă biblioteca lui Pumnul până la ultimul tom.

Debutul în literatură

1866 este anul primelor manifestări literare ale lui Eminescu. În 12/24 ianuarie moare profesorul de limba română Aron Pumnul. Elevii scot o broșură, Lăcrămioarele învățăceilor gimnaziști (Lăcrimioare… la mormântul prea-iubitului lor profesoriu), în care apare și poezia La mormântul lui Aron Pumnul semnată M. Eminoviciu, privatist. La 25 februarie/9 martie (stil nou) debutează în revista Familia, din Pesta, a lui Iosif Vulcan, cu poezia De-aș avea. Iosif Vulcan îl convinge să-și schimbe numele în Eminescu și mai târziu adoptat și de alți membri ai familiei sale. În același an îi mai apar în „Familia” alte cinci poezii.

Sufleor și copist

Din 1866 până în 1869, a pribegit pe traseul Cernăuți – Blaj – Sibiu – Giurgiu – București. De fapt, sunt ani de cunoaștere prin contact direct a poporului, a limbii, a obiceiurilor și a realităților românești, un pelerinaj transilvănean al cărui autor moral a fost Aron Pumnul. „Cât de clar este, respectând documentele epocii cernăuțene, respectând adevărul istoric atât cât există în ele, cât de cert este că drumul lui Eminescu în Transilvania, departe de a fi o «împrejurare boemă», «un imbold romantic al adolescenței», a fost – în fond – încheierea sublimă a unei lecții pentru toată viața: ideea unității naționale și a culturii române aplicată programatic și sistematic, cu strategie și tactică, după toate normele și canoanele unei campanii ideologice.” (Sânziana Pop în Formula AS nr. 367)

A intenționat să-și continue studiile, dar nu și-a realizat proiectul. În iunie 1866 a părăsit Bucovina și s-a stabilit la Blaj cu intenția mărturisită de a-și reîncepe studiile. În perioada 27 – 28 august 1866, a participat la adunarea anuală a ASTREI, la Alba Iulia. În toamnă, a părăsit Blajul și a mers la Sibiu, unde a fost prezentat lui Nicolae Densușianu. De aici a trecut munții și a ajuns la București.

În 1867 a intrat ca sufleor și copist de roluri în trupa lui Iorgu Caragiale, apoi secretar în formația lui Mihail Pascaly și, la recomandarea acestuia, sufleor și copist la Teatrul Național, unde îl cunoaște pe I. L. Caragiale. Cu această trupă face turnee la Brăila, Galați, Giurgiu, Ploiești. A continuat să publice în Familia; a scris poezii, drame (Mira (dramă)), fragmente de roman (Geniu pustiu), rămase în manuscris; a făcut traduceri din germană (Arta reprezentării dramatice, de Heinrich Theodor Rötscher).

Este angajat în 1868 ca sufleor în trupa lui Mihail Pascaly, care concentrase mai multe forțe teatrale: Matei Millo, Fanny Tardini-Vladicescu și actori din trupa lui Iorgu Caragiale. În timpul verii, aceasta trupă a jucat la Brașov, Sibiu, Lugoj, Timișoara, Arad și la Teatrul din Oravița. Iosif Vulcan l-a întâlnit cu ocazia acestui turneu și a obținut de la Eminescu poeziile La o artistă și Amorul unei marmure, publicate apoi în Familia din 18/30 august și 19 septembrie/1 octombrie. Văzând aceste poezii în Familia, căminarul Gheorghe Eminovici află de soarta fiului său, rătăcitor în lume. Stabilit în București, Eminescu a făcut cunoștință cu I. L. Caragiale. Pascaly, fiind mulțumit de Eminescu, l-a angajat ca sufleor a doua oară și copist al Teatrului Național. În 29 septembrie, Eminescu semnează contractul legal în această calitate. Obține de la Pascaly o cameră de locuit, în schimb, însă, se obligă să traducă pentru marele actor Arta reprezentării dramatice – Dezvoltată științific și în legătura ei organică de profesorul Heinrich Theodor Rötscher (după ediția a II-a). Traducerea, neterminată, scrisă pe mai multe sute de pagini, se află printre manuscrisele rămase. Acum începe și proiectul său de roman Geniu pustiu.

Student la Viena și Berlin

Între 1869 și 1872 este student la Viena. Urmează ca „auditor extraordinar” Facultatea de Filozofie și Drept (dar audiază și cursuri de la alte facultăți). Activează în rândul societății studențești (printre altele, participă la pregătirea unei serbări și a unui Congres studențesc la Putna, cu ocazia împlinirii a 400 de ani de la zidirea mănăstirii de către Ștefan cel Mare), se împrietenește cu Ioan Slavici; o cunoaște, la Viena, pe Veronica Micle; începe colaborarea la Convorbiri literare; debutează ca publicist în ziarul Albina, din Pesta. Apar primele semne ale „bolii”.

Între 1872 și 1874 a fost student „extraordinar” la Berlin. Junimea i-a acordat o bursă cu condiția să-și ia doctoratul în filozofie. A urmat cu regularitate două semestre, dar nu s-a prezentat la examene.

La 1 aprilie 1869 a înființat împreună cu alți tineri, cercul literar Orientul, care avea ca scop, între altele, strângerea basmelor, poeziilor populare și a documentelor privitoare la istoria și literatura patriei. În data de 29 iunie, se fixează comisiile de membri ale Orientului, care urmau să viziteze diferitele provincii. Eminescu era repartizat pentru Moldova. În vară se întâlnește întâmplător în Cișmigiu cu fratele său Iorgu, ofițer, care l-a sfătuit să reia legăturile cu familia. Poetul a refuzat hotărât. În vară, a plecat cu trupa Pascaly în turneu la Iași și Cernăuți. Cu ocazia ultimului turneu, Eminescu se împacă cu familia, iar tatăl său i-a promis o subvenție regulată pentru a urma cursuri universitare la Viena, unde se aflau mai toți colegii lui de la Cernăuți. În 2 octombrie, Eminescu s-a înscris la Facultatea de Filosofie ca student extraordinar, ca simplu auditor deci, deoarece i-a lipsit bacalaureatul. Aici a făcut cunoștință cu Ioan Slavici și cu alți studenți români din Transilvania și din Bucovina. A reluat legăturile cu vechii colegi de la Cernăuți și de la Blaj. S-a înscris în cele două societăți studențești existente, care apoi s-au contopit într-una singură – România jună. A început să crească numărul scrisorilor și telegramelor către părinți pentru trimiterea banilor de întreținere.

Împreună cu o delegație de studenți, Eminescu îl vizitează de Anul Nou, 1870, pe fostul domnitor Alexandru Ioan Cuza, la Döbling. În semestrul de iarnă 1869-1870 Eminescu a urmat cu oarecare regularitate cursurile. După aceasta, Eminescu nu s-a mai înscris până în iarna lui 1871-1872, când a urmat două semestre consecutive. În schimb, setea lui de lectură era nepotolită. Frecventa, cu mult interes, biblioteca Universității. Îl preocupau și unele probleme cu care avea să iasă în publicistică.

Sosit incognito la Viena, Iacob Negruzzi îi comunică lui Eminescu impresia puternică provocată de poet în sânul societății Junimea din Iași, prin poeziile publicate de acesta în Convorbiri literare. Îi propune ca după terminarea studiilor să se stabilească la Iași.

La 6 august 1871 i se adresează din Ipotești lui Titu Maiorescu, dându-i oarecare relații privitoare la organizarea serbării. Printre tinerii de talent, participanți activi la serbare, s-au remarcat pictorul Epaminonda Bucevski și compozitorul Ciprian Porumbescu.

În toamna anului 1871, din cauza unor curente contradictorii în sânul societății România jună, Eminescu demisionează împreună cu Slavici din comitetul de conducere. Amândoi sunt acuzați că sunt atașați ideilor Junimii din Iași. În studiul său despre Direcția nouă, Titu Maiorescu evidențiază meritele de poet, „poet în toată puterea cuvântului“, ale lui Eminescu, citându-l imediat după Alecsandri. Studiul se tipărește cu începere din acest an în Convorbiri literare. La 16 decembrie 1871, într-o scrisoare către Șerban, care se afla în țară, i-a scris necăjit că duce o mare lipsă de bani, având datorii pentru chirie, apoi „la birt, la cafenea, în fine, pretutindenea“. Din această cauză, intenționează să se mute la o altă universitate, în provincie.

1872 este anul probabil al întâlnirii cu Veronica Micle, la Viena. În data de 10 februarie a aceluiași an, într-o scrisoare către părinți, se plânge că a fost bolnav, din care cauză se află într-o stare sufletească foarte rea, agravată și de știrile triste primite de acasă. În 18 martie, a ajuns să constate că „anul acesta e într-adevăr un an nefast“ din cauza bolii și a lipsurilor de tot felul, iar în 8 aprilie a cerut bani pentru a se înscrie în semestrul al II-lea. Se plânge și de lipsa unui pardesiu.

Mihai Eminescu în prima jumătate a anilor 1870

În aceste împrejurări a părăsit Viena și s-a întors în țară. În 18 decembrie s-a înscris la Universitatea din Berlin, ajuns aici cu ajutorul unei subvenții lunare de 10 galbeni, din partea Junimii. De data aceasta Eminescu era înmatriculat ca student, pe baza unui certificat de absolvire de la liceul din Botoșani. Cursurile la care se înscrisese, sau pe care și le notase să le urmeze, erau foarte variate: din domeniul filozofiei, istoriei, economiei și dreptului.

În 26 iulie 1873 i s-a eliberat certificatul dorit. Rosetti i-a înlesnit însă rămânerea mai departe la Berlin, prin mărirea salariului. În 8 decembrie s-a reînscris la Universitate pentru semestrul de iarnă.

În perioada 17/29 ianuarie – 7 mai 1874, a avut loc o bogată corespondență între Maiorescu și Eminescu, în care i se propunea poetului să-și obțină de urgență doctoratul în filosofie pentru a fi numit profesor la Universitatea din Iași. Ministrul Învățământului i-a trimis la Berlin suma de 100 galbeni pentru depunerea doctoratului. În timpul verii i s-a dat sarcina de a cerceta oficial, pentru statul român, documentele din Königsberg. Toamna a petrecut-o în tovărășia lui Ioan Slavici, găzduit la Samson Bodnărescu.

Poetul a început să sufere de o inflamație a încheieturii piciorului. În 1 septembrie a fost numit în postul de director al Bibliotecii Centrale din Iași. Pe lângă sarcinile de la bibliotecă, Eminescu a predat acum lecții de logică la Institutul academic în locul lui Xenopol. În 19 septembrie, printr-o scrisoare adresată secretarului agenției diplomatice din Berlin, a motivat de ce a abandonat această sarcină și de ce a luat drumul către țară. În 7 octombrie, Maiorescu a luat cunoștință prin Al. Lambrior că Eminescu nu poate pleca așa curând în străinătate ca să facă doctoratul, fiind oprit de întâmplări grave în familie: două surori se îmbolnăviseră de tifos la băi în Boemia. În 10 octombrie, Șerban, fratele poetului, care dăduse semne de o alienație mintală, s-a internat în spital prin intervenția agenției române din Berlin.

S-a întors în noiembrie 1874 la Berlin pentru examene, iar în 8 noiembrie a promis că va veni într-o joi la serata literară de la Veronica Micle, pentru a citi o poezie cu subiect luat din folclor. În 28 noiembrie, agenția din Berlin a anunțat moartea lui Șerban, fratele poetului.

Reîntoarcerea în țară. Rătăciri

În prima parte a anului 1875 a pus ordine în bibliotecă și a propus îmbogățirea ei cu manuscrise și cărți vechi românești. Tot în acest an a început traducerea din germană a unei gramatici paleoslave. L-a introdus pe Ion Creangă în societatea Junimea. Rămas fără serviciu, Eminescu a primit postul de corector și redactor al părții neoficiale la ziarul local Curierul de lași, unde numeroase rubrici redactate de el au fost publicate fără semnătură. A frecventat cu regularitate ședințele Junimii. De multe ori l-a vizitat pe Creangă în bojdeuca sa. A făcut un drum la București, unde, prin Maiorescu, s-a împrietenit cu Mite Kremnitz, Veronica Micle a rămas, însă, idolul său.

În 6 martie, într-un raport adresat lui Maiorescu, ministrul Învățământului, a înaintat o listă bogată de tipărituri și manuscrise vechi pentru achiziționare, iar în 14 martie, în cadrul prelegerilor publice ale Junimii a rostit conferința pe care a tipărit-o în Convorbiri literare din 1 august sub titlul Influența austriacă asupra românilor din principate.

În 26 mai a înaintat Ministerului un raport elogios asupra unei cărți didactice alcătuită de Ion Creangă și alții. În 3 iunie, schimbându-se guvernul, Eminescu a fost pus în disponibilitate prin decretul domnesc nr. 1013. În 15 iunie a primit scrisoarea lui Maiorescu prin care i s-a propus funcția de revizor școlar pentru districtele Iași și Vaslui. În 22 iunie, prin raportul său către Ministerul Învățământului, D. Petrino a cerut ca Eminescu, fost bibliotecar, să fie urmărit pentru obiecte și cărți „sustrase”. Ministerul a înaintat raportul Parchetului din Iași.

În 1 iulie a fost invitat să-și ia în primire noul post de revizor, iar în ziua următoare a predat biblioteca lui D. Petrino, autorul broșurii criticate de Eminescu prin articolul său O scriere critică. Tot în această vreme a fost înlocuit și la școală, din cauza grevei declarate de elevii unor clase. În 10 august a înaintat Ministerului un raport asupra constatărilor făcute cu ocazia conferințelor cu învățătorii din județul Iași. A remarcat pe institutorul Ion Creangă de la Școala nr. 2 din Păcurari, Iași. În 15 august s-a stins din viată la Ipotești, mama poetului, Raluca Eminovici.

În 5 septembrie a trimis un raport cu propuneri de reorganizare a școlilor din județul Vaslui, iar în 17 decembrie, judecătorul de instrucție în cazul raportului înaintat la Parchet de către D. Petrino, a declarat că „nu este loc de urmare”. În 20 septembrie 1877, i-a comunicat lui Slavici că se simte din ce în ce mai singur, iar în 12 octombrie a precizat, către același, că Iașii i-au devenit „nesuferiți”. În a doua jumătate a lunii octombrie, fiind invitat să intre în redacția ziarului Timpul, Eminescu a părăsit Iașii și a venit la București, unde s-a dedicat gazetăriei.

În 6 august 1879 a murit Ștefan Micle. Văduva lui Micle a venit la București și l-a rugat să intervină pentru urgentarea pensiei sale. Împreună au făcut planuri de căsătorie nerealizabile.

Într-o scrisoare din 1880 către Henrieta Eminescu, sora sa, s-a plâns că are mult de lucru și că este bolnav trupește, dar mai mult sufletește. Din partea familiei a primit numai imputări, în special adresate de tatăl său. Nu a avut nici timp, nici dispoziție să-l felicite măcar pe Matei Eminescu, care-i trimisese invitație de nuntă. Nu a publicat decât o poezie. Negruzzi îi scrie imputându-i că nu-i mai trimite nici o colaborare. A renunțat la căsătoria proiectată cu Veronica Micle.

S-a reîntors în țară, trăind la Iași între 1874-1877. A fost director al Bibliotecii Centrale, profesor suplinitor, revizor școlar pentru județele Iași și Vaslui, redactor la ziarul Curierul de Iași. A continuat să publice în Convorbiri literare. A devenit bun prieten cu Ion Creangă, pe care l-a determinat să scrie și l-a introdus la Junimea. Situația lui materială era nesigură; a avut necazuri în familie (i-au murit mai mulți frați, i-a murit și mama). S-a îndrăgostit de Veronica Micle. Mandache Leocov sugerează că în această perioadă poetul s-ar fi atașat de un tei multisecular din Grădina Copou, arbore ulterior devenit celebru sub numele de Teiul lui Eminescu: „Aici, la umbra teiului, ieșenii îl întâlneau frecvent pe marele nostru poet, fie alături de Veronica Micle, fie alături de bunul său prieten, Ion Creangă. […] După plecarea lui la București, ieșenii au botezat acest tei Teiul lui Eminescu”.

În 1877 s-a mutat la București, unde până în 1883 a fost redactor, apoi redactor-șef (în 1880) la ziarul Timpul. A desfășurat o activitate publicistică excepțională, care i-a ruinat însă sănătatea. Acum a scris marile lui poeme (seria Scrisorile, Luceafărul etc.).

Nu a publicat nici o poezie în tot timpul anului 1882. În schimb a citit în mai multe rânduri „Luceafărul” pe care Mite Kremnitz l-a tradus în germană, în ședințele Junimii de la Titu Maiorescu. Este semnalat adeseori în casă la Maiorescu. În 1 ianuarie, la gazetă, Eminescu este flancat de un director și un comitet redacțional care urmau să-i tempereze avântul său polemic. Reorganizarea redacției este însă inoperantă, fiindcă poetul continuă să scrie în stilul său propriu. În 13 septembrie, în absența poetului, probabil, se citesc „iarăși vecinic frumoasele poezii de Eminescu” în casa lui Maiorescu.

În luna ianuarie a anului 1883, Eminescu este internat pentru o vreme în spital. În lipsa lui se citește la Maiorescu, în două rânduri, „Luceafărul” în limba germană.

Poesii – 1884

La București, în 23 iunie, pe o căldură înăbușitoare, Eminescu a dat semne de alienare mintală, iar la 28 iunie, boala a izbucnit din plin. În aceeași zi a fost internat în sanatoriul doctorului Șuțu, cu diagnosticul de „manie acută”. Conform părerii dr. Ion Nica, exprimată în cartea „Eminescu, structura somato-psihică” (1972), poetul suferea de psihoză maniaco-depresivă – opinie adoptată și de criticul Nicolae Manolescu.

Maiorescu a fost vizitat în 12 august de Gheorghe Eminovici și de fratele poetului (locotenentul), care au cerut relații asupra bolnavului. Fondurile strânse din vânzarea biletelor, în valoare de 2,000 lei, au fost adăugate contribuției amicilor pentru plecarea lui Eminescu. Eminescu a fost trimis la Viena în 20 octombrie și internat în sanatoriul de la Oberdöbling, fiind însoțit pe drum de un vechi prieten, Alexandru Chibici Revneanu.

În 1 ianuarie 1884 Eminescu a fost vizitat de Maiorescu și de vărul acestuia, C. Popazu, din Viena, care aveau sarcina să-l vadă cât mai des la sanatoriu. În 8 ianuarie a murit la Ipotești, Gheorghe Eminovici, tatăl poetului. În 12 ianuarie Eminescu i-a scris lui Chibici că dorește să se întoarcă în țară, iar în 4 februarie i-a scris lui Maiorescu, exprimându-i aceeași dorință. Doctorul Obersteiner a recomandat la 10 februarie ca pacientul să facă o călătorie prin Italia. În 26 februarie Eminescu a plecat în călătoria recomandată, însoțit de Chibici.

În 7 martie la Ipotești, fratele lui, Neculai Eminovici (Nicu) s-a sinucis prin împușcare.

Eminescu a sosit la București în 27 martie, primit la gară de mai mulți amici. A plecat în 7 aprilie la Iași, cu același însoțitor. În 24 septembrie a fost numit în postul de sub-bibliotecar al Bibliotecii Centrale din Iași. În 25 octombrie a fost prezent la banchetul anual al Junimii, iar în noiembrie a fost internat în Spitalul Sfântul Spiridon din Iași. În luna decembrie a primit vizita lui Alexandru Vlahuță, care l-a găsit în putere creatoare, chiar binedispus.

În perioada iulie–august 1885 a urmat o cură la Liman, lângă Odessa, de unde a scris cerând bani pentru plata taxelor. La începutul lunii septembrie încă nu venise la Iași. Editura Socec i-a dat 500 lei în contul volumului de poezii.

În anul 1886 a fost menținut în serviciul bibliotecii, unde a îndeplinit roluri șterse: a scris statele de plată, adresele pentru înaintarea lor, diverse circulare pentru restituirea cărților împrumutate și pentru convocarea comisiei bibliotecii. În 15 martie, Albumul literar al societății studenților universitari Unirea i-a publicat poezia Nu mă-nțelegi. A fost înlocuit în 9 noiembrie din postul de la bibliotecă și, în urma unui consult medical, este transportat la ospiciul de la Mănăstirea Neamț.

În primăvara lui 1887 Eminescu a plecat la Botoșani, la sora sa Henrieta, și a fost internat în spitalul local Sfântul Spiridon. În timpul acesta, la Iași s-au organizat comitete de ajutorare, care au lansat liste de subscripție publică pentru întreținerea și îngrijirea poetului. În 13 iulie a mers la Iași pentru un consult medical. Aceștia au recomandat trimiterea pacientului la Viena și Hall în Tirol, iar în 15 iulie Eminescu a plecat înspre destinațiile recomandate, însoțit de doctorandul Grigore Focșa. În 1 septembrie s-a întors de la Hall la Botoșani, unde a stat sub îngrijirea doctorului Iszak și a surorii sale, Henrieta. Trupa de teatru a fraților Vlădicescu, cunoscuți poetului, a dat în luna decembrie la Botoșani, un spectacol în beneficiul bolnavului.

Eminescu a dorit în 1888 să-și termine unele lucrări de care și-a amintit că le-a lăsat în manuscris. I-a amintit Henrietei de gramatica limbii sanscrite, rămasă în manuscris la Biblioteca Centrală din Iași. Prin scrisoare recomandată i-a cerut lui Maiorescu să-i trimită biblioteca și manuscrisele rămase la București. Criticul însă nu a dat niciun răspuns acestei scrisori. Iacob Negruzzi a depus pe biroul Camera Deputaților o petiție din partea unui număr de cetățeni din toate părțile țării, pentru un proiect de lege prin care să se acorde poetului, de către stat, o pensie viageră. Propunerea a fost susținută și de Mihail Kogălniceanu. Camera a votat un ajutor lunar de 250 lei. Veronica Micle a venit la Botoșani și l-a determinat pe Eminescu să se mute definitiv la București. În 15 aprilie, poetul s-a stabilit definitiv la București. Aici a avut un modest început de activitate literară. În 23 noiembrie proiectul de lege a trecut la Senat, unde a fost susținut de Nicolae Gane ca raportor. Legea s-a votat abia în luna aprilie a anului următor.

Eminescu a fost internat în 3 februarie 1889 la spitalul Mărcuța din București și apoi a fost transportat la sanatoriul Caritas. Medicul Zaharia Petrescu, împreună cu dr. Alexandru Șuțu, l-a examinat pe Mihai Eminescu, la 20 martie 1889. Concluzia raportului medical a fost următoarea: “dl. Mihail Eminescu este atins de alienație mintală în formă de demență, stare care reclamă șederea sa într-un institut”. În 13 aprilie s-a instituit o curatelă pentru asistența judiciară a bolnavului.

Serviciul funerar

Moartea lui Eminescu s-a produs pe data de 15 iunie 1889, în jurul orei 4 dimineața, după ce la începutul anului boala sa devenise tot mai violentă, în casa de sănătate a doctorului Șuțu din strada Plantelor nr. 9, București. Ziarul Românul anunța ziua următoare la știri: Eminescu nu mai este. Corpul poetului a fost expus publicului în biserica Sf. Gheorghe, pe un catafalc simplu, împodobit cu cetină de brad. Un cor dirijat de muzicianul C. Bărcănescu a interpretat litania „Mai am un singur dor”. După slujba ortodoxă și discursul lui Grigore Ventura, carul funebru, la care fuseseră înhămați doar doi cai, s-a îndreptat spre Universitate, unde Dimitrie Laurian rostește al doilea discurs funebru. Apoi cortegiul, la care se adaugă diverși trecători o pornește pe Calea Victoriei, Calea Rahovei și se îndreaptă spre cimitirul Șerban Vodă, denumit azi Bellu. Patru elevi ai Școala normală de institutori din București au purtat pe umeri sicriul pînă la mormînt, unde a fost îngropat sub „teiul sfînt” din cimitirul Bellu, după cum scria chiar Caragiale în necrologul În Nirvana.

George Călinescu a scris despre moartea poetului: „Astfel se stinse în al optulea lustru de viață cel mai mare poet, pe care l-a ivit și-l va ivi vreodată, poate, pământul românesc. Ape vor seca în albie și peste locul îngropării sale va răsări pădure sau cetate, și câte o stea va veșteji pe cer în depărtări, până când acest pământ să-și strângă toate sevele și să le ridice în țeava subțire a altui crin de tăria parfumurilor sale.”

Tudor Vianu a spus: „fără Eminescu am fi mai altfel și mai săraci”.

Ipoteza asasinării

Există o teorie a conspirației, care pune în circulație ipoteza asasinării poetului Mihai Eminescu. Această ipoteză consideră îmbolnăvirea sa psihică drept fiind o înscenare, aplicarea unui tratament bazat pe injecții cu mercur în cadru sanatoriului doctorului Alexandru Șuțu conducând deliberat – conform acestei teorii, la moartea poetului – instrumentată astfel politic.[44] În acest complot se susține că ar fi participat chiar și prietenul lui, Titu Maiorescu, fapt ce l-a făcut pe Eminescu să creadă că are „amici reci și dușmănoși”. Conform lui Theodor Codreanu, principala cauză a morții este tratamentul cu mercur aplicat de doctorul Șuțu: „Acum nu mai încape îndoială: acela care i-a grăbit moartea lui Eminescu (psihică și fizică) a fost doctorul Șuțu, medicul ales de Titu Maiorescu pentru a-l vindeca pe poet”. Diverse personalități, cum ar fi Xenopol, Alexandru C. Cuza, Tudor Vianu și George Călinescu „au avut gânduri protectoare pentru poet”, iar A. C. Cuza chiar a susținut că acesta nu a fost nebun. Există surse conform cărora Eminescu, datorită poziției luate prin intermediul ziarului Timpul și a deranjării influențelor politice ale vremii, ar fi fost urmărit de Casa de Austria. Iar în acest caz, Theodor Codreanu afirmă că Eminescu „avea conștiința sechestrării sale ilegale” și că suporta „condiția de deținut politic”. În această situație Titu Maiorescu, plecat la Viena, îi trimite o scrisoare prin care într-un final Eminescu este trimis la Iași, dar care este considerată „manevrarea sa până la moarte”. Iar în acest context A. C. Cuza, un admirator al marelui poet, afirmă: „Eminescu a fost un om pe deplin sănătos, un sfânt dezbrăcat de orice interes egoist […] un geniu, din cele ce se nasc la câteva secole unul”.

Din cauza tratamentului aplicat de doctorul Alexandru Șuțu, Eminescu moare pe 15 iunie 1889 intoxicat cu mercur.

De remarcat că George Călinescu a susținut diagnosticul de sifilis într-o carte din 1932. Grupul de autori care au scris Maladiile lui Eminescu și maladiile imaginare ale eminescologilor a susținut că Eminescu a fost diagnosticat greșit, fiind vorba de fapt de sindrom maniaco-depresiv (sau puseu de manie psihotică). Eugen Simion a declarat la lansarea volumului, referindu-se la ipoteza asasinării: „Trebuie să ai, după părerea mea, un grad imens de iresponsabilitate, ca să nu zic nesimțire, să bănuiești, să accepți faptul că Maiorescu ar fi putut să participe la un asemenea complot”.

Personalitate

Cea mai realistă analiză psihologică a lui Eminescu i-o datorăm lui I.L. Caragiale care după moartea poetului a publicat trei scurte articole pe această temă: În Nirvana, Ironie și Două note. După părerea lui Caragiale trăsătura cea mai caracteristică a lui Eminescu era faptul că „avea un temperament de o excesivă neegalitate”. Viața lui Eminescu a fost o continuă oscilare între atitudini introvertite și extravertite.

„Așa l-am cunoscut atuncea, așa a rămas până în cele din urmă momente bune: vesel și trist; comunicativ și ursuz; blând și aspru; mulțumindu-se cu nimica și nemulțumit totdeauna de toate; aci de o abstinență de pustnic, aci apoi lacom de plăcerile vieții; fugind de oameni și căutându-i; nepăsător ca un bătrân stoic și iritabil ca o fată nervoasă. Ciudată amestecătură! – fericită pentru artist, nefericită pentru om!”

Criticul Titu Maiorescu, cel care l-a sprijinit moral și material pe parcursul întregii vieți dar mai ales după tragicul moment al declanșării bolii sale, s-a ocupat de poezia sa în două dintre articolele sale, Direcția nouă în poezia și proza românească(1872), în care va analiza doar cîteva poezii publicate în revista Convorbiri literare pînă în momentul tipăririi articolului, este vorba despre Venere și Madonă, Mortua Est, și Epigonii și va reveni ulterior după moartea poetului asupra întregului set de poezii publicate antum în studiul Eminescu și poeziile sale, publicat la scurtă vreme după moartea sa prematură. Dar poate documentul cel mai uman, cel mai cald este scrisoarea pe care i-o trimite în perioada în care poetul se îngrijea de sănătate, în străinătate, într-un sanatoriu din Viena, asigurîndu-l că volumul său de Poesii, editat de Socec în ediție princeps în 1883, se bucură de o bună recepție, fiind citit atît de locuitorii mahalalei Tirchileștilor cît și de doamnele de la Curtea Reginei Carmen Sylva, o altă admiratoare declarată a poetului, cea care a intervenit pe lîngă regele Carol I pentru a-i fi acordată distincția „Bene merenti”, refuzată totuși de poet din motive politice. În portretul pe care i l-a făcut poetului în studiul Eminescu și poeziile sale(1889), Titu Maiorescu accentuează trăsăturile introvertite ale lui Eminescu, care de altfel erau dominante. Maiorescu a promovat imaginea unui visător rupt de realitate, care nu suferea din cauza condițiilor materiale în care trăia, indiferent la ironiile și laudele semenilor, caracteristica lui principală fiind „seninătatea abstractă”.

„Ceea ce caracterizează mai întâi de toate personalitatea lui Eminescu este o așa covârșitoare inteligență, ajutată de o memorie căreia nimic din cele ce-și întipărise vreodată nu-i mai scăpa (nici chiar în perioadele bolnave declarate), încât lumea în care trăia el după firea lui și fără nici o silă era aproape exclusiv lumea ideilor generale ce și le însușise și le avea pururea la îndemână. În aceeași proporție tot ce era caz individual, întâmplare externă, convenție socială, avere sau neavere, rang sau nivelare obștească și chiar soarta externă a persoanei sale ca persoană îi era indiferentă.”

În realitate, așa cum se poate constata din poeziile sau scrisorile sale, și așa cum își amintește Caragiale, Eminescu era de multe ori sub influența unor impulsuri inconștiente nestăpânite. Viața lui Eminescu a fost o suprapunere de cicluri de diferite lungimi formate din avânturi alimentate de visuri și crize datorate impactului cu realitatea. Ciclurile puteau dura de la câteva ore sau zile, până la săptămâni sau luni, în funcție de importanța întâmplărilor, sau puteau fi chiar de mai lungă durată când erau legate de evenimentele care i-au marcat viața în mod semnificativ, ca legătura cu Veronica Micle, activitatea politică din timpul studenției, participarea la întâlnirile Junimii sau ziaristica de la Timpul. Dăm ca exemplu caracteristic acestor crize felul în care descrie el însuși accesele sale de gelozie.

„Tu trebuie să știi, Veronică, că pe cât te iubesc, tot așa – uneori – te urăsc; te urăsc fără cauză, fără cuvânt, numai pentru că-mi închipuiesc că râzi cu altul, pentru care râsul tău nu are prețul ce i-l dau eu și nebunesc la ideea că te-ar putea atinge altul, când trupul tău e al meu exclusiv și fără împărtășire. Te urăsc uneori pentru că te știu stăpână pe toate farmecele cu care m-ai nebunit, te urăsc presupunând că ai putea dărui din ceea ce e averea mea, singura mea avere. Fericit pe deplin nu aș fi cu tine, decât departe de lume, unde să n-am nici a te arăta nimănui și liniștit nu aș fi decât închizându-te într-o colivie, unde numai eu să am intrarea.”

Ioan Slavici a evocat în cîteva texte cu caracter memorialistic atît amintirile din perioada prieteniei lor vieneze, cît și sărbătoarea consacrată serbării de la Putna, organizată la propunerea societății României june, din care cei doi au făcut parte în epoca studiilor lor la Universitatea din Viena.

Cultura sa filosofică. Izvoarele operei eminesciene

Receptiv la marile romantisme europene de secol XVIII și XIX, cunoscute în literatura de specialitate sub numele High Romanticism, Romantism înalt, poetul a asimilat viziunile poetice occidentale, unii critici observînd malițios cum că creația sa ar aparține unui Romantism relativ întârziat, poetul fiind ușor desincronizat față de Occident, care străbătea în acei ani tranziția către Modernism. În momentul în care Mihai Eminescu a recuperat temele tradiționale ale Romantismului european, gustul pentru trecut și pasiunea pentru istoria națională, căreia a dorit chiar să-i construiască un Pantheon de voievozi, mai ales în fragmentele unor piese de teatru, neterminate, unde-l avea drept model principal pe William Shakespeare, numit într-o poezie postumă, Cărțile, „prieten drag al sufletului meu”, nostalgia regresivă pentru copilărie, melancolia și cultivarea stărilor depresive, întoarcerea în natură etc., poezia europeană descoperea paradigma Modernismului, prin Charles Baudelaire sau Stephane Mallarme, bunăoară. Poetul avea o bună educație filozofică, opera sa poetică a fost influențată de marile sisteme filozofice ale epocii sale, de filosofia antică, de la Heraclit la Platon și de marile sisteme de gândire ale Romantismului, în special de tratatul lui Arthur Schopenhauer, Lumea ca voință și reprezentare, de idealismul lui Fichte și Schelling sau de categoriile din tratatele lui Immanuel Kant, de altfel a lucrat o vreme la traducerea tratatului său Critica rațiunii pure, iar la îndemnul lui Titu Maiorescu, cel care îi ceruse să-și ia doctoratul în filosofia lui Kant la Universitatea din Berlin, plan nefinalizat până la urmă, sau de ideile lui Hegel. Pentru acest înalt conținut filozofic al operei sale Constantin Noica, un cunoscut eseist și filosof român din perioada interbelică și apoi postbelică l-a denumit pe bună dreptate omul deplin al culturii române. Pe plan poetic sau în opera sa în proză Mihai Eminescu era influențat de mari creatori romantici germani, de Novalis, de la care a preluat motivul „florii albastre”, de Goethe sau Lenau și de alți mari prozatori germani, de E.T.A.Hoffmann, Jean Paul etc. Eminescu era interesat și de filosofia indiană, citise Rig-Veda în traducerea germană, iar cosmogonia din incipitul Scrisorii I a fost preluată din acest vechi text indian, și i-a recomandat amicului său Ioan Slavici, Analectele lui Confucius. Mai multe fragmente din cursurile de istoria filosofiei audiate la Berlin scrise în limba germană s-au păstrat în caietele rămase de la poet și sunt studiate de specialiștii în opera sa, denumiți în mod generic eminescologi.

La Universitatea din Berlin a audiat cursuri de economie politică, filosofie, drept, egiptologie, medicină legală etc. A fost influențat de teoria metempsihozei sau reîncarnării, care a stat la rădăcina prozei sale neterminate Avatarii faraonului Tla, și de Cartea Morților din mitologia egipteană, cunoștea și utiliza figuri mitologice din mai multe culturi sau religii, din Zoroastrism, Budism, Catolicism sau Ortodoxism. În peregrinările sale a adunat o însemnată bibliotecă de cărți vechi, în alfabet chirilic, de cărți populare, cu care dorea să alcătuiască o chrestomație a culturii nostre străvechi, după moartea sa ele au intrat în arhiva Academiei Române și au fost utlizate de C.Chițimia sau de Moses Gaster. Creația populară a constituit un izvor foarte important al poeticii sale, Eminescu a scris multe poeme în metrica poeziei populare, a cules cîntece de petrecere sau basme, cărora le-a adăugat numeroase simboluri onirice sau fantastice. Luceafărul, poemul său cel mai cunoscut, o quintesență a temelor și motivelor eminesciene, a fost inspirat de o creație folclorică, de basmul popular „Fata în grădina de aur”, publicat de Richard Kunisch, un călător prin Țările Române, mai exact prin Oltenia, care reprodusese mai multe asemenea creații într-o carte de-a sa de călătorie, editată în limba germană în 1861.

Activitatea literară

Activitatea de ziarist a lui Eminescu a început în vara anului 1876, nevoit să o practice din cauza schimbărilor prilejuite de căderea guvernului conservator. Până atunci el fusese revizor școlar în județele Iași și Vaslui, funcție obținută cu sprijinul ministrului conservator al învățământului, Titu Maiorescu. Imediat după preluarea conducerii ministerului de către liberalul Chițu, Eminescu a fost demis din funcția de revizor școlar și a lucrat ca redactor la Curierul de Iași, publicație aflată atunci în proprietatea unui grup de junimiști. La inițiativa lui Maiorescu și Slavici, Eminescu a fost angajat în octombrie 1877 ca redactor la cotidianul Timpul, organul oficial al conservatorilor, unde a rămas în următorii șase ani.

Deși a ajuns jurnalist printr-un concurs de împrejurări, Eminescu nu a practicat jurnalismul ca pe o meserie oarecare din care să-și câștige pur și simplu existența. Articolele pe care le scria au constituit o ocazie de a face cititorilor educație politică, așa cum își propusese.

„Părerea mea individuală, în care nu oblig pe nimeni de-a crede, e că politica ce se face azi în România și dintr-o parte și dintr-alta e o politică necoaptă, căci pentru adevărata și deplina înțelegere a instituțiilor noastre de azi ne trebuie o generațiune ce-avem de-a o crește de-acu-nainte. Eu las lumea ca să meargă cum îi place dumisale – misiunea oamenilor ce vor din adâncul lor binele țării e creșterea morală a generațiunii tinere și a generațiunii ce va veni. Nu caut adepți la ideea cea întâi, dar la cea de a doua sufletul meu ține ca la el însuși.”

Pentru Eminescu legea supremă în politică era conservarea naționalității și întărirea statului național: „ … toate dispozițiile câte ating viața juridică și economică a nației trebuie să rezulte înainte de toate din suprema lege a conservării naționalității și a țării, cu orice mijloc și pe orice cale, chiar dacă și mijlocul și calea n-ar fi conforme cu civilizația și umanitarismul care azi formează masca și pretextul sub care apusul se luptă cu toate civilizațiile rămase îndărăt sau eterogene.”

De aceea o politică eficientă putea fi realizată numai ținând seamă „de calitățile și defectele rasei noastre, de predispozițiile ei psihologice”. Prin atitudinea sa, Eminescu nu dorea să constrângă cetățenii de altă etnie să devină români sau să-i excludă din viața publică. Ceea ce își dorea era ca interesul național să fie dominant, nu exclusiv. „Dar ceea ce credem, întemeiați pe vorbele bătrânului Matei Basarab e că țara este, în linia întâia, elemental național și că e scris în cartea veacurilor ca acest element să determine soarta și caracterul acestui stat.”

Publicistica lui Eminescu acoperă perioada Războiului de Independență, a proclamării independenței, a satisfacerii condițiilor impuse de Congresul de la Berlin pentru recunoașterea independenței și proclamarea regatului. Pe lângă aceste mari evenimente politice și sociale el s-a ocupat în articolele sale de toate problemele societății românești din acea vreme: răscumpărarea căilor ferate, noua constituție și legea electorală, bugetul, înființarea Băncii Naționale, dările, inamovibilitatea magistraților, politica externă etc. Majoritatea articolelor scrise de Eminescu fac parte dintr-o polemică continuă dusă cu ziarele liberale și în principal cu Românul condus de C.A. Rosetti, liberalii aflându-se atunci la guvernare.

Receptarea operei eminesciene

Opera poetică eminesciană a fost divizată de destinul poetului în două secțiuni, prima, cea antumă a fost publicată în timpul vieții poetului de Titu Maiorescu la editura Socec, cu puțin timp înainte ca mintea acestuia să se întunece în 1880. Cea mai mare parte a creației sale a rămas în manuscris, predate de Titu Maiorescu Bibliotecii Academiei Române, unde au fost folosite inițial de Perpessicius pentru ediția critică, inițiată în 1939 la Editura Fundațiilor Regale Regele Carol al II-lea, și finalizată abia în anul 2000. Manuscrisele au rămas multă vreme nefolosite, criticii au considerat că ele conțin bruioane sau simple schițe ale operelor neterminate, din acest motiv Titu Maiorescu nici nu și-a pus problema posibilei lor editări. Criticul literar care le-a pus într-o lumină cu totul specială a fost George Călinescu, cel care își va susține doctoratul în literatură pornind de la nuvela postumă Avatarii faraonului Tla și care va recompune imaginea întregii opere în magistrala sa monografie Opera lui Mihai Eminescu, un studiu în patru volume, editat inițial la Editura Fundațiilor Regale Regele Carol al II-lea pentru Literatură și Artă, în perioada 1934-1936.

După schimbarea de regim politic din 1947 poezia lui Mihai Eminescu a fost grav cenzurată, în manualele școlare au pătruns doar cîteva texte, printre ele poezia „Împărat și proletar”, iar poezia lui a fost redusă la o suprafață foarte mică și înlocuită de poetica poeziei proletcultiste, specifică acelei epoci de tristă amintire. Exegeza eminesciană a revenit la nivelul ei abia după 1965 prin cîteva momente semnificative, trebuind menționate în acest context studiile unor eminescologi ca Ion Negoițescu, Rosa del Conte, Ioana Em. Petrescu, Zoe Dumitrescu Bușulenga, Petru Creția, Ilina Gregori care s-au adăugat canonului eminescologiei interbelice, la care și-au adus contribuția mari critici sau stilisticieni literari cum ar fi Tudor Vianu, Perpessicius, Dumitru Caracostea etc.

Un moment semnificativ al contestării poetului de către un grup de critici literari consacrați, din care făceau parte Nicolae Manolescu, Ion Bogdan Lefter, Mircea Cărtărescu, un politolog – profesorul de științe politice Cristian Preda, dar și de un număr de tineri scriitori, și anume de cel care coordonase numărul, redactorul Cezar Paul-Bădescu, Răzvan Rădulescu, T.O.Bobe, studentul Marius Chivu, l-a constituit numarul 265 din 1998 al revistei „Dilema”, care a stîrnit o reacție foarte puternică a lumii culturale românești dar și a jurnaliștilor de la diverse publicații, toate aceste reacții fiind adunate de Cezar Paul-Bădescu într-o antologie intitulată „Cazul Eminescu”. Acesta a selectat numai reacțiile emoționale și a trecut cu vederea pe cele avizate care veneau din partea unor eminescologi ca Ilina Gregori, Eugen Simion, Ștefan Cazimir etc.

„În universul operei, proza se arată ca o densă complementaritate de idei și imagini a poeziei, pe care, în numeroase feluri, o duce mai departe și o explică. Ne întrebăm adesea cum s-ar înțelege structura roului titanic ori demonic din poezia eminesciană dacă n-ar interveni paginile cu motivări ample și coerente adânc din Geniu pustiu ori Sărmanul Dionis? Sau cum s-ar pătrunde în lupta eroului cu categoriile de spațiu și timp fără elucidările filosofice din Sărmanul Dionis? Trecerile de la o ipostază filosofică la alta, modificările în concepția despre lume și erou a poetului, raportul dintre gândul filosofic și ideea mito-poetică sau imagine se limpezesc numai luminate de proză, care oferă adesea și valori estetice de mâna întâi.” (Zoe Dumitrescu-Bușulenga, Eminescu–cultură și creație)

Traduceri

Primul traducător al lui Mihai Eminescu a fost scriitorul maghiar József Sándor, care a publicat în anul 1885 traducerea poeziei Atât de fragedă…, sub titlul Cseresznyefa fehér virága (Floare albă de cireș). Al doilea traducător al unei opere eminesciene a fost preotul greco-catolic Laurențiu Bran, care a publicat de asemenea traducerea în limba maghiară a unor poezii ale lui Mihai Eminescu în anul 1889.

Teatru și film

Eminescu, Veronica, Creangă. Film de Octav Minar, 1914, casa de filme Pathé, imaginea: Victor de Bon. Loc de depozitare actual: Arhiva Națională de Filme. Durata 23′. Prima parte: docudramă, a doua parte: poem cinematografic, cu poeme recitate pe imagini exotice (Italia, Egipt).

Geniu sublim (Eminescu), scenariu de film, scris în 1966 de scriitorul Cristian Petru Bălan și achiziționat oficial de Centrul Cinematografic București, secția scenarii film, în 1967. După emigrarea autorului în America, scenariul a fost publicat în 1996, la editura Western Publishing din Chicago, câteva exemplare existând și în România (Biblioteca Academiei Române, Biblioteca Centrală Universitară din București ș.a.).

În anul 1986, revenit în RSS Moldovenească, regizorul Emil Loteanu a regizat filmul artistic de televiziune Luceafărul, despre viața și creația poetului Mihai Eminescu.

Filatelie

Marcă poștală românească (1958)

Serviciile poștale din Republica Populară Romînă au emis în 1958 o serie filatelică pe care erau gravate portrete ale diferitelor personalități, între care Mihai Eminescu, reprezentat pe o marcă poștală cu valoarea nominală de 55 de bani. (Era una dintre cele mai curente mărci poștale în epocă, fiind folosită pentru francarea unei scrisori simple). Machetele acestei serii de mărci poștale au fost realizate de gravorul Șerban Zainea.

Marcă poștală din Republica Moldova (1996)

Serviciile poștale din Republica Moldova au pus în circulație, în 1996 o marcă poștală, pe care este gravat portretul lui Mihai Eminescu; marca poștală are valoarea nominală de 0,10 lei moldovenești.

Totodată a fost emisă și colița nr. 9, care are reprezentat arborele genealogic al lui Eminescu; valoarea nominală a coliței este de 1,40 lei moldovenești.

În 1999 serviciile poștale din Republica Moldova au emis o marcă poștală care reprezintă Medalia „Mihai Eminescu”, cu valoarea nominală de 90 de bani moldovenești.

Cu prilejul împlinirii a 150 de ani de la nașterea poetului, în anul 2000 a fost emisă, de către serviciile poștale ale Republicii Moldova, colița nr. 21: Mihai Eminescu – 150 de ani de la naștere.

Numismatică

Monedă cu valoarea nominală de 1 rublă, emisă de Uniunea Sovietică, în 1989, pentru a celebra centenarul Eminescu (revers).

Pe o monedă comemorativă, cu valoarea nominală de 1 rublă, emisă de Uniunea Sovietică în 1989, a fost gravat chipul lui Mihai Eminescu. Moneda, pusă în circulație pe 26 decembrie 1989, pentru a celebra centenarul Eminescu, a fost bătută la monetăria din Leningrad, cu un tiraj de 2 milioane de exemplare. De remarcat că prenumele poetului este scris Mihail și nu Mihai, variantă recunoscută de către eminescologi.

În anul 2000 Banca Națională a Moldovei a emis o monedă de argint, de calitate „proof”, care are gravată efigia lui Mihai Eminescu.

La 8 ianuarie 2016 Banca Națională a României, pentru a sărbători 150 de ani de la debutul lui Mihai Eminescu în revista Familia, a pus în circulație, în atenția colecționarilor, o monedă de argint cu titlul de 999‰, având valoarea nominală de 10 lei. Moneda este rotundă, are diametrul de 37 mm, greutatea de 31,103 g, având cantul zimțat. Întreaga emisiune de 200 de exemplare este de calitate proof.

Clădiri

Pe meleagurile copilăriei lui Mihai Eminescu, în satul Ipotești, județul Botoșani, se află singura biserică din Europa închinată unui scriitor. A fost ridicată de Nicolae Iorga în memoria lui Eminescu și are o pictură ieșită din comun.

Portrete

În urma lui Mihai Eminescu au rămas patru portrete fotografice. Primul, realizat la Viena în 1869, cel mai cunoscut și pe baza căruia s-a construit și mitul geniului, se pare că e un portret neretușat al unui fotograf austriac. Mai sunt alte trei portrete retușate, unul din 1878, realizat de Frantz Dushek la București, unul din 1884-1885, realizat de Nestor Heck la Iași, altul cu Eminescu , de Jean Bielig, realizat in 1887, și după acesta s-a făcut o litografie de către Th. Mayerhofer. Se pare că pe acesta din urmă l-a rupt Titu Maiorescu atunci când i-a fost arătat.

FOTO: Mihai Eminescu

Redactare: Constantin Enache

Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp (28 July 1887 – 2 October 1968) was a French, naturalized American painter, sculptor, chess player and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, conceptual art and Dada, although he was careful about his use of the term Dada and was not directly associated with Dada groups. Duchamp is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse, as one of the three artists who helped to define the revolutionary developments in the plastic arts in the opening decades of the twentieth century, responsible for significant developments in painting and sculpture. Duchamp has had an immense impact on twentieth-century and twenty first-century art. By World War I, he had rejected the work of many of his fellow artists (like Henri Matisse) as „retinal” art, intended only to please the eye. Instead, Duchamp wanted to put art back in the service of the mind.

Early life and education

Three Duchamp brothers, left to right: Marcel Duchamp, Jacques Villon, and Raymond Duchamp-Villon in the garden of Jacques Villon’s studio in Puteaux, France, 1914, (Smithsonian Institution collections).

Marcel Duchamp was born at Blainville-Crevon in Normandy, France, and grew up in a family that enjoyed cultural activities. The art of painter and engraver Émile Frédéric Nicolle (fr), his maternal grandfather, filled the house, and the family liked to play chess, read books, paint, and make music together.

Of Eugene and Lucie Duchamp’s seven children, one died as an infant and four became successful artists. Marcel Duchamp was the brother of: Jacques Villon (1875–1963), painter, printmaker, Raymond Duchamp-Villon (1876–1918), sculptor, Suzanne Duchamp-Crotti (1889–1963), painter.

As a child, with his two older brothers already away from home at school in Rouen, Duchamp was close to his sister Suzanne, who was a willing accomplice in games and activities conjured by his fertile imagination. At 8 years old, Duchamp followed in his brothers’ footsteps when he left home and began schooling at the Lycée Pierre-Corneille, in Rouen. Two other students in his class also became well-known artists and lasting friends: Robert Antoine Pinchon and Pierre Dumont.[10] For the next 8 years, he was locked into an educational regime which focused on intellectual development. Though he was not an outstanding student, his best subject was mathematics and he won two mathematics prizes at the school. He also won a prize for drawing in 1903, and at his commencement in 1904 he won a coveted first prize, validating his recent decision to become an artist.

He learned academic drawing from a teacher who unsuccessfully attempted to „protect” his students from Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, and other avant-garde influences. However, Duchamp’s true artistic mentor at the time was his brother Jacques Villon, whose fluid and incisive style he sought to imitate. At 14, his first serious art attempts were drawings and watercolors depicting his sister Suzanne in various poses and activities. That summer he also painted landscapes in an Impressionist style using oils.

Early work

Duchamp’s early art works align with Post-Impressionist styles. He experimented with classical techniques and subjects. When he was later asked about what had influenced him at the time, Duchamp cited the work of Symbolist painter Odilon Redon, whose approach to art was not outwardly anti-academic, but quietly individual.

Marcel Duchamp, Nude (Study), Sad Young Man on a Train (Nu [esquisse], jeune homme triste dans un train), 1911–12, oil on cardboard mounted on Masonite, 100 x 73 cm (39 3/8 × 28 3/4 in), Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice. This painting was identified as a self-portrait by the artist. Duchamp’s primary concern in this painting is the depiction of two movements; that of the train in which there is a young man smoking, and that of the lurching figure itself.

He studied art at the Académie Julian from 1904 to 1905, but preferred playing billiards to attending classes. During this time Duchamp drew and sold cartoons which reflected his ribald humor. Many of the drawings use verbal puns (sometimes spanning multiple languages), visual puns, or both. Such play with words and symbols engaged his imagination for the rest of his life.

In 1905, he began his compulsory military service with the 39th Infantry Regiment, working for a printer in Rouen. There he learned typography and printing processes—skills he would use in his later work.

Due to his eldest brother Jacques’ membership in the prestigious Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture Duchamp’s work was exhibited in the 1908 Salon d’Automne. The following year his work was featured in the Salon des Indépendants. Of Duchamp’s pieces in the show, critic Guillaume Apollinaire—who was to become a friend—criticized what he called „Duchamp’s very ugly nudes”. Duchamp also became lifelong friends with exuberant artist Francis Picabia after meeting him at the 1911 Salon d’Automne, and Picabia proceeded to introduce him to a lifestyle of fast cars and „high” living.

In 1911, at Jacques’ home in Puteaux, the brothers hosted a regular discussion group with Cubist artists including Picabia, Robert Delaunay, Fernand Léger, Roger de La Fresnaye, Albert Gleizes, Jean Metzinger, Juan Gris, and Alexander Archipenko. Poets and writers also participated. The group came to be known as the Puteaux Group, or the Section d’Or. Uninterested in the Cubists’ seriousness or in their focus on visual matters, Duchamp did not join in discussions of Cubist theory, and gained a reputation of being shy. However, that same year he painted in a Cubist style, and added an impression of motion by using repetitive imagery.

During this period Duchamp’s fascination with transition, change, movement and distance became manifest, and like many artists of the time, he was intrigued with the concept of depicting the fourth dimension in art. His painting Sad Young Man on a Train embodies this concern:

First, there’s the idea of the movement of the train, and then that of the sad young man who is in a corridor and who is moving about; thus there are two parallel movements corresponding to each other. Then, there is the distortion of the young man—I had called this elementary parallelism. It was a formal decomposition; that is, linear elements following each other like parallels and distorting the object. The object is completely stretched out, as if elastic. The lines follow each other in parallels, while changing subtly to form the movement, or the form of the young man in question. I also used this procedure in the Nude Descending a Staircase.

Works from this period included his first „machine” painting, Coffee Mill (Moulin à café) (1911), which he gave to his brother Raymond Duchamp-Villon. The Coffee Mill shows similarity to the „grinder” mechanism of the Large Glass he was to create years later.

In his 1911, Portrait of Chess Players (Portrait de joueurs d’échecs) there is the Cubist overlapping frames and multiple perspectives of his two brothers playing chess, but to that Duchamp added elements conveying the unseen mental activity of the players. (Notably, „échec” is French for „failure”.)

Marcel Duchamp. Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 (1912). Oil on canvas. 57 7/8″ x 35 1/8″. Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Duchamp’s first work to provoke significant controversy was Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 (Nu descendant un escalier n° 2) (1912). The painting depicts the mechanistic motion of a nude, with superimposed facets, similar to motion pictures. It shows elements of both the fragmentation and synthesis of the Cubists, and the movement and dynamism of the Futurists.

He first submitted the piece to appear at the Cubist Salon des Indépendants, but Albert Gleizes (according to Duchamp in an interview with Pierre Cabanne, p. 31) asked Duchamp’s brothers to have him voluntarily withdraw the painting, or to paint over the title that he had painted on the work and rename it something else. Duchamp’s brothers did approach him with Gleizes’ request, but Duchamp quietly refused. However, there was no jury at the Salon des Indépendants and Gleizes was in no position to reject the painting. The controversy, according to art historian Peter Brooke, was not whether the work should be hung or not, but whether or not it should be hung with the Cubist group.

Of the incident Duchamp later recalled, „I said nothing to my brothers. But I went immediately to the show and took my painting home in a taxi. It was really a turning point in my life, I can assure you. I saw that I would not be very much interested in groups after that.” Yet Duchamp did appear in the illustrations to Du „Cubisme”, he participated in the La Maison Cubiste (Cubist House), organized by the designer André Mare for the Salon d’Automne of 1912 (a few months after the Indépendants); he signed the Section d’Or invitation and participated in the Section d’Or exhibition during the fall of 1912. The impression is, Brooke writes, „it was precisely because he wished to remain part of the group that he withdrew the painting; and that, far from being ill treated by the group, he was given a rather privileged position, probably through the patronage of Picabia”.

He later submitted the painting to the 1913 „Armory Show” in New York City. In addition to displaying works of American artists, this show was the first major exhibition of modern trends coming out of Paris, encompassing experimental styles of the European avant-garde, including Fauvism, Cubism, and Futurism. American show-goers, accustomed to realistic art, were scandalized, and the Nude was at the center of much of the controversy.

Leaving „retinal art” behind

At about this time, Duchamp read Max Stirner’s philosophical tract, The Ego and Its Own, the study of which he considered another turning point in his artistic and intellectual development. He called it „a remarkable book … which advances no formal theories, but just keeps saying that the ego is always there in everything.”

While in Munich in 1912, he painted the last of his Cubist-like paintings and he started „Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even” image, and began making plans for The Large Glass – scribbling short notes to himself, sometimes with hurried sketches. It would be over 10 years before this piece was completed. Not much else is known about the two-month stay in Munich except that the friend he visited was intent on showing him the sights and the nightlife and that he was influenced by the works of the 16th century German painter Lucas Cranach the Elder in Munich’s famed Alte Pinakothek, known for its Old Master paintings. Duchamp recalled that he daily took the short walk to visit this museum. Duchamp scholars have long recognized in Cranach the subdued ochre and brown color range Duchamp later employed.

The same year, Duchamp also attended a performance of a stage adaptation of Raymond Roussel’s 1910 novel, Impressions d’Afrique which featured plots that turned in on themselves, word play, surrealistic sets and humanoid machines. He credited the drama with having radically changed his approach to art, and having inspired him to begin the creation of his The Bride Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors, Even, also known as The Large Glass. Work on The Large Glass continued into 1913, with his invention of inventing a repertoire of forms. He made notes, sketches and painted studies, and even drew some of his ideas on the wall of his apartment.

Towards the end of 1912, he traveled with Picabia, Apollinaire and Gabrielle Buffet-Picabia through the Jura mountains, an adventure that Buffet-Picabia described as one of their „forays of demoralization, which were also forays of witticism and clownery … the disintegration of the concept of art”. Duchamp’s notes from the trip avoid logic and sense, and have a surrealistic, mythical connotation.

Duchamp painted few canvases after 1912, and in those he did, he attempted to remove „painterly” effects, and instead to use a technical drawing approach.

His broad interests led him to an exhibition of aviation technology during this period, after which Duchamp said to his friend Constantin Brâncuși, „Painting is washed up. Who will ever do anything better than that propeller? Tell me, can you do that?”. Brâncuși later sculpted bird forms, which U.S. Customs officials mistook for aviation parts and for which they attempted to collect import duties.

In 1913, Duchamp withdrew from painting circles and began working as a librarian in the Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève to be able to earn a living wage while concentrating on scholarly realms and working on his Large Glass. He studied math and physics – areas in which exciting new discoveries were taking place. The theoretical writings of Henri Poincaré particularly intrigued and inspired Duchamp. Poincaré postulated that the laws believed to govern matter were created solely by the minds that „understood” them and that no theory could be considered „true”. „The things themselves are not what science can reach…, but only the relations between things. Outside of these relations there is no knowable reality”,Poincaré wrote in 1902. Reflecting the influence of Poincaré’s writings, Duchamp tolerated any interpretation of his art by regarding it as the creation of the person who formulated it, not as truth.

Duchamp’s own art-science experiments began during his tenure at the library. To make one of his favorite pieces, 3 Standard Stoppages (3 stoppages étalon), he dropped three 1-meter lengths of thread onto prepared canvases, one at a time, from a height of 1 meter. The threads landed in three random undulating positions. He varnished them into place on the blue-black canvas strips and attached them to glass. He then cut three wood slats into the shapes of the curved strings, and put all the pieces into a croquet box. Three small leather signs with the title printed in gold were glued to each of the „stoppage” backgrounds. The piece appears to literally follow Poincaré’s School of the Thread, part of a book on classical mechanics.

In his studio he mounted a bicycle wheel upside down onto a stool, spinning it occasionally just to watch it. Although it is often assumed that the Bicycle Wheel represents the first of Duchamp’s „Readymades”, this particular installation was never submitted for any art exhibition, and it was eventually lost. However, initially, the wheel was simply placed in the studio to create atmosphere: „I enjoyed looking at it just as I enjoy looking at the flames dancing in a fireplace.”

After World War I was declared in 1914, with his brothers and many friends in military service and himself exempted, Duchamp felt uncomfortable in Paris. Meanwhile, Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2 had scandalized Americans at the Armory Show, and helped secure the sale of all four of his paintings in the exhibition. Thus, being able to finance the trip, Duchamp decided to emigrate to the United States in 1915. To his surprise, he found he was a celebrity when he arrived in New York in 1915, where he quickly befriended art patron Katherine Dreier and artist Man Ray. Duchamp’s circle included art patrons Louise and Walter Conrad Arensberg, actress and artist Beatrice Wood and Francis Picabia, as well as other avant-garde figures. Though he spoke little English, in the course of supporting himself by giving French lessons and through some library work, he quickly learned the language. Duchamp became part of an artist colony in Ridgefield, New Jersey, across the Hudson River from New York City.

For two years the Arensbergs, who would remain his friends and patrons for 42 years, were the landlords of his studio. In lieu of rent, they agreed that his payment would be The Large Glass. An art gallery offered Duchamp $10,000 per year in exchange for all of his yearly production, but Duchamp declined the offer, preferring to continue his work on The Large Glass.

Société Anonyme

Duchamp created the Société Anonyme in 1920, along with Katherine Dreier and Man Ray. This was the beginning of his lifelong involvement in art dealing and collecting. The group collected modern art works, and arranged modern art exhibitions and lectures throughout the 1930s.

By this time Walter Pach, one of the coordinators of the 1913 Armory Show, sought Duchamp’s advice on modern art. Beginning with Société Anonyme, Dreier also depended on Duchamp’s counsel in gathering her collection, as did Arensberg. Later Peggy Guggenheim, Museum of Modern Art directors Alfred Barr and James Johnson Sweeney consulted with Duchamp on their modern art collections and shows.

Dada

Fountain 1917

Dada or Dadaism was an art movement of the European avant-garde in the early 20th century. It began in Zurich, Switzerland in 1916, spreading to Berlin shortly thereafter.[26] To quote Dona Budd’s The Language of Art Knowledge,

Dada was born out of negative reaction to the horrors of World War I. This international movement was begun by a group of artists and poets associated with the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich. Dada rejected reason and logic, prizing nonsense, irrationality and intuition. The origin of the name Dada is unclear; some believe that it is a nonsensical word. Others maintain that it originates from the Romanian artists Tristan Tzara and Marcel Janco’s frequent use of the words da, da, meaning yes, yes in the Romanian language. Another theory says that the name „Dada” came during a meeting of the group when a paper knife stuck into a French-German dictionary happened to point to ‘dada’, a French word for ‘hobbyhorse’.

The movement primarily involved visual arts, literature, poetry, art manifestoes, art theory, theatre, and graphic design, and concentrated its anti-war politics through a rejection of the prevailing standards in art through anti-art cultural works. In addition to being anti-war, Dada was also anti-bourgeois and had political affinities with the radical left.

Dada activities included public gatherings, demonstrations, and publication of art/literary journals; passionate coverage of art, politics, and culture were topics often discussed in a variety of media. Key figures in the movement included Hugo Ball, Emmy Hennings, Hans Arp, Raoul Hausmann, Hannah Höch, Johannes Baader, Tristan Tzara, Francis Picabia, Richard Huelsenbeck, Georg Grosz, John Heartfield, Marcel Duchamp, Beatrice Wood, Kurt Schwitters, and Hans Richter, among others. The movement influenced later styles like the avant-garde and downtown music movements, and groups including surrealism, Nouveau réalisme, pop art and Fluxus.

Dada is the groundwork to abstract art and sound poetry, a starting point for performance art, a prelude to postmodernism, an influence on pop art, a celebration of antiart to be later embraced for anarcho-political uses in the 1960s and the movement that lay the foundation for Surrealism.

New York Dada had a less serious tone than that of European Dadaism, and was not a particularly organized venture. Duchamp’s friend Francis Picabia connected with the Dada group in Zürich, bringing to New York the Dadaist ideas of absurdity and „anti-art”. Duchamp and Picabia first met in September 1911 at the Salon d’Automne in Paris, where they were both exhibiting. Duchamp showed a larger version of his Young Man and Girl in Spring 1911, a work that had an Edenic theme and a thinly veiled sexuality also found in Picabia’s contemporaneous Adam and Eve 1911. According to Duchamp, „our friendship began right there”. A group met almost nightly at the Arensberg home, or caroused in Greenwich Village. Together with Man Ray, Duchamp contributed his ideas and humor to the New York activities, many of which ran concurrent with the development of his Readymades and ‘The Large Glass.’

The most prominent example of Duchamp’s association with Dada was his submission of Fountain, a urinal, to the Society of Independent Artists exhibit in 1917. Artworks in the Independent Artists shows were not selected by jury, and all pieces submitted were displayed. However, the show committee insisted that Fountain was not art, and rejected it from the show. This caused an uproar amongst the Dadaists, and led Duchamp to resign from the board of the Independent Artists.

Along with Henri-Pierre Roché and Beatrice Wood, Duchamp published a Dada magazine in New York, titled The Blind Man, which included art, literature, humor and commentary. When he returned to Paris after World War I, Duchamp did not participate in the Dada group.

Readymades of Marcel Duchamp

„Readymades” were found objects which Duchamp chose and presented as art. In 1913, Duchamp installed a Bicycle Wheel in his studio. However, the idea of Readymades did not fully develop until 1915. The idea was to question the very notion of Art, and the adoration of art, which Duchamp found „unnecessary”

My idea was to choose an object that wouldn’t attract me, either by its beauty or by its ugliness. To find a point of indifference in my looking at it, you see.

Bottle Rack (1914), a bottle drying rack signed by Duchamp, is considered to be the first „pure” readymade. Prelude to a Broken Arm (1915), a snow shovel, also called In Advance of the Broken Arm, followed soon after. His Fountain, a urinal signed with the pseudonym „R. Mutt”, shocked the art world in 1917. Fountain was selected in 2004 as „the most influential artwork of the 20th century” by 500 renowned artists and historians.

L.H.O.O.Q. by Marcel Duchamp (1919)

In 1919, Duchamp made a parody of the Mona Lisa by adorning a cheap reproduction of the painting with a mustache and goatee. To this he added the inscription L.H.O.O.Q., a phonetic game which, when read out loud in French quickly sounds like „Elle a chaud au cul”. This can be translated as „She has a hot ass”, implying that the woman in the painting is in a state of sexual excitement and availability. It may also have been intended as a Freudian joke, referring to Leonardo da Vinci’s alleged homosexuality. Duchamp gave a „loose” translation of L.H.O.O.Q. as „there is fire down below” in a late interview with Arturo Schwarz. According to Rhonda Roland Shearer, the apparent Mona Lisa reproduction is in fact a copy modeled partly on Duchamp’s own face. Research published by Shearer also speculates that Duchamp himself may have created some of the objects which he claimed to be „found objects”.

The Large Glass (1915–23) Philadelphia Museum of Art Collection

Duchamp worked on his complex Futurism inspired piece The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass) from 1915 to 1923, with the exception of periods in Buenos Aires and Paris in 1918–1920. He executed the work on two panes of glass with materials such as lead foil, fuse wire, and dust. It combines chance procedures, plotted perspective studies, and laborious craftsmanship. He published notes for the piece, The Green Box, intended to complement the visual experience. They reflect the creation of unique rules of physics, and a mythology which describes the work. He stated that his „hilarious picture” is intended to depict the erotic encounter between a bride and her nine bachelors.

The piece was inspired by a performance of the stage adaptation of Roussel’s novel Impressions d’Afrique which Duchamp attended in 1912. Notes, sketches and plans for the work were drawn on Duchamp’s studio walls as early as 1913. In order to concentrate on the work free from material obligations, Duchamp found work as a librarian while living in France. After immigrating to the United States in 1915, he commenced his work on the piece financed by the support of the Arensbergs.

The piece is partially constructed as a retrospective of Duchamp’s works, including a three-dimensional reproduction of his earlier paintings Bride (1912), Chocolate Grinder (1914) and Glider containing a water mill in neighboring metals (1913–1915), which has opened for numerous interpretations. The work was formally declared „Unfinished” in 1923. Going home from its first public exhibition, the glass broke in its shipping crate and received a large crack in the glass. Duchamp repaired it, but left the cracks in the glass intact, accepting the chance element as a part of the piece. Until 1969 when the Philadelphia Museum of Art revealed Duchamp’s Étant donnés tableau, The Large Glass was thought to have been his last major work.

Kinetic works

Marcel Duchamp, 1918, A regarder d’un oeil, de près, pendant presque une heure, To Be Looked at (from the Other Side of the Glass) with One Eye, Close to, for Almost an Hour. Photograph by Man Ray, published in 391, July 1920 (N13), Museum of Modern Art, New York

Duchamp’s interest in kinetic works can be discerned as early as the notes for The Large Glass and the Bicycle Wheel readymade, and despite losing interest in „retinal art”, he retained interest in visual phenomena. In 1920, with help from Man Ray, Duchamp built a motorized sculpture, Rotative plaques verre, optique de précision („Rotary Glass Plates, Precision Optics”). The piece, which he did not consider to be art, involved a motor to spin pieces of rectangular glass on which were painted segments of a circle. When the apparatus spins, an optical illusion occurs, in which the segments appear to be closed concentric circles. Man Ray set up equipment to photograph the initial experiment, but when they turned the machine on for the second time, a belt broke, and caught a piece of the glass, which after glancing off Man Ray’s head, shattered into bits.

After moving back to Paris in 1923, at André Breton’s urging and through the financing of Jacques Doucet, Duchamp built another optical device based on the first one, Rotative Demisphère, optique de précision (Rotary Demisphere, Precision Optics). This time the optical element was a globe cut in half, with black concentric circles painted on it. When it spins, the circles appear to move backwards and forwards in space. Duchamp asked that Doucet not exhibit the apparatus as art.

Rotoreliefs were the next phase of Duchamp’s spinning works. To make the optical „play toys”, he painted designs on flat cardboard circles and spun them on a phonographic turntable. When spinning, the flat disks appeared three-dimensional. He had a printer produce 500 sets of six of the designs, and set up a booth at a 1935 Paris inventors’ show to sell them. The venture was a financial disaster, but some optical scientists thought they might be of use in restoring three-dimensional stereoscopic sight to people who have lost vision in one eye. In collaboration with Man Ray and Marc Allégret, Duchamp filmed early versions of the Rotoreliefs and they named the film Anémic Cinéma (1926). Later, in Alexander Calder’s studio in 1931, while looking at the sculptor’s kinetic works, Duchamp suggested that these should be called „mobiles”. Calder agreed to use this novel term in his upcoming show. To this day, sculptures of this type are called „mobiles”.

Musical ideas

Between 1912 and 1915, Duchamp worked with various musical ideas. At least three pieces have survived: two compositions and a note for a musical happening. The two compositions are based on chance operations. Erratum Musical, written for three voices, was published in 1934. La Mariée mise à nu par ses célibataires même. Erratum Musical is unfinished and was never published or exhibited during Duchamp’s lifetime. According to the manuscript, the piece was intended for a mechanical instrument „in which the virtuoso intermediary is suppressed”. The manuscript also contains a description for „An apparatus automatically recording fragmented musical periods”, consisting of a funnel, several open-end cars and a set of numbered balls. These pieces predate John Cage’s Music of Changes (1951), which is often considered the first modern piece to be conceived largely through random procedures.

In 1968, Duchamp and John Cage appeared together at a concert entitled „Reunion”, playing a game of chess and composing Aleatoric music by triggering a series of photoelectric cells underneath the chessboard.

Rrose Sélavy

Rrose Sélavy (Marcel Duchamp). 1921. Photograph by Man Ray. Art Direction by Marcel Duchamp. Silver print. 5-7/8″ x 3″-7/8″. Philadelphia Museum of Art.

„Rrose Sélavy”, also spelled Rose Sélavy, was one of Duchamp’s pseudonyms. The name, a pun, sounds like the French phrase Eros, c’est la vie, which may be translated as „Eros, such is life”. It has also been read as arroser la vie („to make a toast to life”). Sélavy emerged in 1921 in a series of photographs by Man Ray showing Duchamp dressed as a woman. Through the 1920s Man Ray and Duchamp collaborated on more photos of Sélavy. Duchamp later used the name as the byline on written material and signed several creations with it.

Why Not Sneeze Rrose Sélavy?

Duchamp used the name in the title of at least one sculpture, Why Not Sneeze Rose Selavy? (1921). The sculpture, a type of readymade called an assemblage, consists of an oral thermometer, a couple dozen small cubes of marble resemblingsugar cubes and a cuttlefish bone inside a birdcage. Sélavy also appears on the label of Belle Haleine, Eau de Voilette (1921), a readymade that is a perfume bottle in the original box. Duchamp also signed his film Anemic Cinema (1926) with the Sélavy name.

The inspiration of the name Rrose Sélavy has been viewed to be Belle da Costa Greene, J.P. Morgan’s librarian of The Morgan Library & Museum (formerly The Pierpont Morgan Library) who, following his death, became the Library’s director, working there for a total of forty-three years. Empowered by J.P. Morgan, and then by his son Jack, Greene built the collection buying and selling rare manuscripts, books and art.

Rrose Sélavy and the other pseudonyms Duchamp used may be read as a comment on the fallacy of romanticizing the conscious individuality or subjectivity of the artist, a theme that is also a prominent subtext of the Readymades. Duchamp said in an interview,”You think you’re doing something entirely your own, and a year later you look at it and you see actually the roots of where your art comes from without your knowing it at all.”

From 1922 the name Rrose Sélavy also started appearing in a series of aphorisms, puns, and spoonerisms by the French surrealist poet Robert Desnos. Desnos tried to portray Rrose Sélavy as a long-lost aristocrat and rightful queen of France. Aphorism 13 paid homage to Marcel Duchamp: „Rrose Sélavy connaît bien le marchand du sel” ‒ in English: „Rrose Sélavy knows the merchant of salt well”; in French the final words sound like Mar-champ Du-cel. Note that the ‘salt seller’ aphorism – „mar-chand-du-sel” – is a phonetic rearrangement of the syllables in the artist’s actual name: „mar-cel-du-champ.” (Duchamp’s compiled notes are titled ‘Salt Seller’.) In 1939 a collection of these aphorisms was published under the name of Rrose Sélavy, entitled Poils et coups de pieds en tous genres.

The late Ilmar Laaban – an Estonian poet, lecturer, polyglot and intellectual who died in exile in Sweden, often called „the father of Estonian surrealism” ‒ wrote a collection of poetry called „Rroosi Selaviste” in Estonian that is based on wordplay and puns. Published in 1957, it is without a doubt one of his major accomplishments, a playful homage to his native tongue that not only shows the suppleness of the Estonian language, but also Laaban’s virtuosity as a wordsmith.

Niandra LaDes, an alter ego of John Frusciante, was based on Rrose Sélavy. This character is also featured on the cover of Frusciante’s 1994 album Niandra LaDes and Usually Just a T-Shirt, which is a screenshot from a film by Frusciante’s then-girlfriend, Toni Oswald. This film remains unreleased, though a tradition among the avant-garde is to show the film in the proximity of items bearing a similar resemblance to a Duchampian „fountain”.

Transition from art to chess

Man Ray, 1920, Three Heads (Joseph Stella and Marcel Duchamp, painting bust portrait of Man Ray above Duchamp), gelatin silver print, 20.7 x 15.7 cm, Museum of Modern Art, New York

In 1918, Duchamp took leave of the New York art scene, interrupting his work on the Large Glass, and went to Buenos Aires, where he remained for nine months and often played chess. He carved his own chess set from wood with help from a local craftsman who made the knights. He moved to Paris in 1919, and then back to the United States in 1920. Upon his return to Paris in 1923, Duchamp was, in essence, no longer a practicing artist. Instead, his main interest was chess, which he studied for the rest of his life to the exclusion of most other activities.

Duchamp is seen, briefly, playing chess with Man Ray in the short film Entr’acte (1924) by René Clair. He designed the 1925 Poster for the Third French Chess Championship, and as a competitor in the event, finished at fifty percent (3–3, with two draws). Thus he earned the title of chess master. During this period his fascination with chess so distressed his first wife that she glued his pieces to the board. Duchamp continued to play in the French Championships and also in the Chess Olympiads from 1928–1933, favoring hypermodern openings such as the Nimzo-Indian.

Sometime in the early 1930s, Duchamp reached the height of his ability, but realized that he had little chance of winning recognition in top-level chess. In the following years, his participation in chess tournaments declined, but he discovered correspondence chess and became a chess journalist, writing weekly newspaper columns. While his contemporaries were achieving spectacular success in the art world by selling their works to high-society collectors, Duchamp observed, „I am still a victim of chess. It has all the beauty of art—and much more. It cannot be commercialized. Chess is much purer than art in its social position.” On another occasion, Duchamp elaborated, „The chess pieces are the block alphabet which shapes thoughts; and these thoughts, although making a visual design on the chess-board, express their beauty abstractly, like a poem. … I have come to the personal conclusion that while all artists are not chess players, all chess players are artists.”

In 1932, Duchamp teamed with chess theorist Vitaly Halberstadt to publish L’opposition et cases conjuguées sont réconciliées (Opposition and Sister Squares are Reconciled), known as corresponding squares. This treatise describes the Lasker-Reichhelm position, an extremely rare type of position that can arise in the endgame. Using enneagram-like charts that fold upon themselves, the authors demonstrated that in this position, the most Black can hope for is a draw.

The theme of the „endgame” is important to an understanding of Duchamp’s complex attitude towards his artistic career. Irish playwright Samuel Beckett was an associate of Duchamp, and used the theme as the narrative device for the 1957 play of the same name, Endgame. In 1968, Duchamp played an artistically important chess match with avant-garde composer John Cage, at a concert entitled „Reunion”. Music was produced by a series of photoelectric cells underneath the chessboard, triggered sporadically by normal game play.

On choosing a career in chess, Duchamp said, „If Bobby Fischer came to me for advice, I certainly would not discourage him—as if anyone could—but I would try to make it positively clear that he will never have any money from chess, live a monk-like existence and know more rejection than any artist ever has, struggling to be known and accepted.” Duchamp left a legacy to chess in the form of an enigmatic endgame problem he composed in 1943. The problem was included in the announcement for Julian Levi’s gallery exhibition Through the Big End of the Opera Glass, printed on translucent paper with the faint inscription: „White to play and win”. Grandmasters and endgame specialists have since grappled with the problem, with most concluding that there is no solution.

Later artistic involvement

Although Duchamp was no longer considered to be an active artist, he continued to consult with artists, art dealers and collectors. From 1925 he often traveled between France and the United States, and made New York’s Greenwich Village his home in 1942. He also occasionally worked on artistic projects such as the short film Anemic Cinema (1926), Box in a Valise (1935–41), Self Portrait in Profile (1958) and the larger work Étant Donnés (1946–66). In 1943, he participated with Maya Deren in her unfinished film The Witch’s Cradle, filmed in Peggy Guggenheim’s Art of This Century gallery.

From the mid-1930s onwards, he collaborated with the Surrealists; however, he did not join the movement, despite the coaxing of André Breton. From then until 1944, together with Max Ernst, Eugenio Granell and Breton, Duchamp edited the Surrealist periodical VVV, and also served as an advisory editor for the magazine View, which featured him in its March 1945 edition, thus introducing him to a broader American audience.

Duchamp’s influence on the art world remained behind the scenes until the late 1950s, when he was „discovered” by young artists such as Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns, who were eager to escape the dominance of Abstract Expressionism. He was a co-founder of the international literary group Oulipo in 1960. Interest in Duchamp was reignited in the 1960s, and he gained international public recognition. In 1963, the Pasadena Art Museum mounted his first retrospective exhibition, and there he appeared in an iconic photograph playing chess opposite nude model Eve Babitz. The photograph was later described by the Smithsonian Archives of American Art as being „among the key documentary images of American modern art”.

In 1966 the Tate Gallery hosted a large exhibit of his work. Other major institutions, including the Philadelphia Art Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, followed with large showings of Duchamp’s work. He was invited to lecture on art and to participate in formal discussions, as well as sitting for interviews with major publications. As the last surviving member of the Duchamp family of artists, in 1967 Duchamp helped to organize an exhibition in Rouen, France, called Les Duchamp: Jacques Villon, Raymond Duchamp-Villon, Marcel Duchamp, Suzanne Duchamp. Parts of this family exhibition were later shown again at the Musée National d’Art Moderne in Paris.

Exhibition design

Duchamp participated in the design of the 1938 International Surrealist Exhibition, which was held at the Galerie des Beaux-arts, Paris. The show featured more than 60 artists from different countries, including approximately 300 paintings, objects, collages, photographs, and installations. The surrealists wanted to create an exhibition which in itself would be a creative act, and André Breton named Duchamp, Wolfgang Paalen, Man Ray, Salvador Dali, and Max Ernst to help him. At the exhibition’s entrance he[who?] placed Salvador Dalí’s Rainy Taxi, a work consisting of a taxicab rigged to produce a drizzle of water down the inside of its windows, with a shark-headed creature in the driver’s seat, and a blond mannequin covered with live snails in the back. In this way Duchamp confronted guests entering the exhibition, who were in full evening dress.

Surrealist Street filled one side of the lobby with mannequins dressed by various surrealists. The main hall was a simulation of a dark subterranean cave with 1,200 empty coal bags suspended from the ceiling. The floor was covered by Paalen with dead leaves and mud from the Montparnasse Cemetery. In the middle of the grand hall underneath Duchamp´s coal sacks, Paalen installed an artificial water-filled pond with real water lilies and reeds, which he called Avant La Mare. Illumination was provided only by a single light bulb, so patrons were given flashlights with which to view the art (an idea of Man Ray), while the aroma of roasting coffee filled the air. Around midnight, the visitors witnessed the dancing shimmer of a scantily dressed girl who suddenly arose from the reeds, jumped on a bed, shrieked hysterically, then disappeared just as quickly. Much to the surrealists’ satisfaction, the exhibition scandalized many of the guests.

In 1942, for the First Papers of Surrealism show in New York, surrealists called on Duchamp to design the exhibition. He wove a three-dimensional web of string throughout the rooms of the space, in some cases making it almost impossible to see the works. Duchamp made a secret arrangement with an associate’s son to bring young friends to the opening of the show. When the formally-dressed patrons arrived, they found a dozen children in athletic clothes kicking and passing balls, and skipping rope. When questioned, the children were told to say „Mr. Duchamp told us we could play here”. Duchamp’s design of the catalog for the show included „found”, rather than posed, photographs of the artists.

Personal life

Throughout his adult life, Duchamp was a passionate smoker of Habana cigars. Duchamp became a United States citizen in 1955. In June 1927, Duchamp married Lydie Sarazin-Lavassor; however, they divorced six months later. It was rumored that Duchamp had chosen a marriage of convenience, because Sarazin-Lavassor was the daughter of a wealthy automobile manufacturer. Early in January 1928, Duchamp said that he could no longer bear the responsibility and confinement of marriage, and soon thereafter they were divorced.

In 1954, he and Alexina „Teeny” Sattler married, and they remained together until his death. Duchamp’s final major art work surprised the art world that believed he had given up art for chess 25 years earlier. Entitled Étant donnés: 1° la chute d’eau / 2° le gaz d’éclairage („Given: 1. The Waterfall, 2. The Illuminating Gas”), it is a tableau, visible only through a peep hole in a wooden door. A nude woman can be seen lying on her back with her face hidden, legs spread, and one hand holding a gas lamp in the air against a landscape backdrop. Duchamp had worked secretly on the piece from 1946 to 1966 in his Greenwich Village studio while even his closest friends thought he had abandoned art. The torso of the nude figure is based on Duchamp’s lover, the Brazilian sculptor Maria Martins, with whom he had an affair from 1946 to 1951.

Death and burial

Marcel Duchamp’s gravestone in Rouen, France with the epitaph D’ailleurs, c’est toujours les autres qui meurent (Besides, it’s always the others who die). Duchamp died suddenly and peacefully in the early morning of 2 October 1968 at his home in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France. After an evening dining at home with his friends Man Ray and Robert Lebel, Duchamp retired at 1:05 A.M., collapsed in his studio, and died of heart failure.

Duchamp was an atheist. He is buried in the Rouen Cemetery, in Rouen, France, with the epitaph, „D’ailleurs, c’est toujours les autres qui meurent” („Besides, it’s always the others who die”). Even in his death, Duchamp retained a sense of humor (a means for him of reaffirming his freedom, while undermining absolutes and certainties).

Legacy

Duchamp is considered by many critics to be one of the most important artists of the 20th century, and his output influenced the development of post–World War I Western art. He advised modern art collectors, such as Peggy Guggenheim and other prominent figures, thereby helping to shape the tastes of Western art during this period. He challenged conventional thought about artistic processes and rejected the emerging art market, through subversive anti-art.[61] He famously dubbed a urinal art and named it Fountain. Duchamp produced relatively few artworks, while remaining mostly aloof of the avant-garde circles of his time. He went on to pretend to abandon art and devote the rest of his life to chess, while secretly continuing to make art.

In 1958 Duchamp said of creativity: The creative act is not performed by the artist alone; the spectator brings the work in contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualifications and thus adds his contribution to the creative act.

Duchamp in his later life explicitly expressed negativity towards art itself. In a BBC interview with Duchamp conducted by Joan Bakewell in 1968 Duchamp compared art with religion, whereby he stated that he wished to do away with art the same way many have done away with religion. Duchamp goes on to explain to the interviewer that „the word art etymologically means to do”, that art means activity of any kind, and that it is our society that creates „purely artificial” distinctions of being an artist.

A quotation erroneously attributed to Duchamp suggests a negative attitude toward later trends in 20th-century art:

This Neo-Dada, which they call New Realism, Pop Art, Assemblage, etc., is an easy way out, and lives on what Dada did. When I discovered the ready-mades I sought to discourage aesthetics. In Neo-Dada they have taken my readymades and found aesthetic beauty in them, I threw the bottle-rack and the urinal into their faces as a challenge and now they admire them for their aesthetic beauty.

However, this was actually written in 1961 by fellow Dadaist Hans Richter, in the second person, i.e. „You threw the bottle-rack…”. Although a marginal note in the letter suggests that Duchamp generally approved of the statement, Richter did not make the distinction clear until many years later.

Duchamp’s attitude was actually more favorable, as evidenced by another statement made in 1964: Pop Art is a return to „conceptual” painting, virtually abandoned, except by the Surrealists, since [Gustave] Courbet, in favor of retinal painting…. If you take a Campbell soup can and repeat it 50 times, you are not interested in the retinal image. What interests you is the concept that wants to put 50 Campbell soup cans on a canvas.

The Prix Marcel Duchamp (Marcel Duchamp Prize), established in 2000, is an annual award given to a young artist by the Centre Georges Pompidou. In 2004, as a testimony to the legacy of Duchamp’s work to the art world, his Fountain was voted „the most influential artwork of the 20th century” by a panel of prominent artists and art historians.

FOTO: Marcel Duchamp

Written by: Constantin Enache

Biography

Dimitris Papaioannou (born 21 June 1964) is a Greek experimental theater stage director, choreographer and visual artist who drew media attention and acclaim with his creative direction of the Opening Ceremony of the Athens 2004 Olympic Games. His varied career spans three decades and has seen him conceive and direct stage works for the Athens Concert Hall, Edafos Dance Theatre and Elliniki Theamaton, work as a costume, set and make-up designer, and published over 40 comics.

Fine arts training

Born in Athens, Papaioannou, an Athens College graduate, showed a flair for fine art from an early age, and studied under the renowned Greek painter Yannis Tsarouchis for three years in his mid-teens. At 19, he earned himself a place at the Athens School of Fine Arts, entering the institution with the highest marks attained by any student, and there studying under Dimitris Mytaras and Rena Papaspyrou.

Early recognition

Papaioannou first attracted attention as a visual artist, illustrator and comic book creator. He presented his art work at a number of exhibitions, produced illustrations for numerous magazines, and designed and co-edited the countercultural fanzine Kontrosol sto Haos (1986–1992), one of the few publications to include openly gay content at that time in Greece. He also contributed to the Greek gay activist magazine To Kraximo (1981–1994) in the early 1980s, and gave an interview to the publication in 1993. Moreover, he published over 40 comics in Greek alternative comics magazines such as Babel and Para Pende, many of which incorporated gay themes and explicit images (such as 1986’s Rock ‘n’ Roll, 1988’s My Ex-Boyfriend, and 1993’s Heart-Shaped Earth). He was awarded first prize in a competition organised by Marseille Public Transport Authority at the 5th Biennial of Young Artists from Europe and the Mediterranean, held in Marseille in 1990, for his comic Un Bon Plan.

Dance training

Papaioannou began to take an interest in dance and the performing arts while still at the Athens School of Fine Arts, training and experimenting as a performer and choreographer, as well as a costume, set and make-up designer with dance companies in Greece. In 1986, Papaioannou took a trip to New York City where he was introduced to the Erick Hawkins Technique at the dancer and choreographer’s studio, and where he attended seminars on Butoh given by Maureen Fleming at La MaMa E.T.C. While in the United States, he choreographed and performed in the 1986 opera The Monk and the Hangman’s Daughter, directed by Ellen Stewart and presented in Baltimore.

Edafos Dance Theatre (1986–2002)

Upon his return to Athens in 1986, he founded Edafos Dance Theatre (έδαφος meaning „ground” in Greek) with Angeliki Stellatou, and went on to conceive, direct, choreograph and produce all 17 of the company’s productions over its 16 years of life (the company disbanded in 2002). The group’s four early works – The Mountain–The Raincoat in 1987, and Room I–Room II in 1988 – represented Greece at the 3rd and 4th Biennials of Young Artists from Europe and the Mediterranean, held in Barcelona and Bologna respectively, and were warmly received by the press – Stefano Casi of the Italian L’Unità described the company as “the revelation of the Festival” in 1988.

In 1989, Papaioannou left Greece for Germany to work as an unpaid trainee assistant to Robert Wilson in Hamburg as he prepared The Black Rider: The Casting of the Magic Bullets with Tom Waits and William S. Burroughs. He then accompanied Wilson to Berlin to act as a stand-in for the lights for his production of Orlando.

Papaioannou, once back in Athens, created The Last Song of Richard Strauss in collaboration with the visual artist Nikos Alexiou in 1990, the first in a series of critical successes for the Edafos Dance Theatre company. The Last Song was incorporated into the 1991 trilogy The Songs, which was selected to represent Greece the following year at both the 6th Biennial from Young Artists of Europe and the Mediterranean in Valencia and at the Seville Expo ’92. The Songs was also seen by the then Greek Minister for Culture Melina Mercouri, who secured regular state funding for the company.

Moons followed in 1992, a two-part work that drew upon the poetry of Sappho and the ballet Le Spectre de la Rose, but it was 1993’s Medea that was to prove the company’s greatest success. This dance-theatre retelling of the Medea myth was performed 52 times by the year 2000, touring festivals and venues across Europe and the Mediterranean region, visiting New York City, and representing Greece at the Lisbon Expo ’98. In her review of the 1998 performance of Medea at the 12th Lyon Dance Biennial, Anna Kisselgoff of The New York Times describes the production as „the festival’s big surprise”, praising its „extraordinary passion” and „striking intensity”. Medea was named „Best Choreography” at the Greek National Awards for Dance in 1994.

Other major Edafos Dance Theatre works include:

1995’s A Moment’s Silence, the first Greek stage work to deal directly with the issue of AIDS (a topic Papaioannou also tackled in his 1987 comic The Red Freckles on Your Skin), presented the world première of The Songs of Sin, a cycle of songs written by the Oscar-winning composer Manos Hadjidakis, and of the specially commissioned Requiem for the End of Love by composer Yorgos Koumendakis. A Moment’s Silence was dedicated to the memory of Alexis Bistikas, who died of AIDS in 1995.

1995’s Xenakis’ Oresteia – The Aeschylus Suite, a retelling of Aeschylus’ Oresteia set to the music of Iannis Xenakis and performed at the Ancient Epidaurus Theatre as part of the Epidaurus Festival.

1999’s Human Thirst, a collection of six short choreographies that included 1990’s The Last Song of Richard Strauss, won awards for „Best Production” and „Best Female Performance” (Angeliki Stellatou) at the Greek National Awards for Dance. Outside Greece, the production was performed in Cyprus, France and the United Kingdom.

2001’s For Ever, a non-narrative work that proved to be the last Edafos Dance Theatre production, was performed for the final time in Athens in the summer of 2002. The work was named „Best Production” at the Greek National Awards for Dance.

Other work (1986–2000)

Beyond his work with Edafos Dance Theatre, Papaioannou undertook a number of other projects between 1986 and 2000.

He directed two operas for the Athens Megaron Concert Hall: Thanos Mikroutsikos’s The Return of Helen in 1999 (which was also performed at the Montpellier Opera in France and the Teatro Verdi in Florence, Italy), and Bellini’s La Sonnambula in 2000. He also directed two stage shows for the Greek singer Haris Alexiou (1995’s Nefeli and 1998’s Tree), and two for Alkistis Protopsalti (1998’s Volcano and 2000’s A Tale).

As a choreographer, Papaioannou worked with the Greek National Theatre, the National Theatre of Northern Greece, Lefteris Vogiatzis’ nea SKINI theatre company, and the Athens Festival (a 1994 show with George Dalaras), and created choreographies for two works directed by the Oscar-nominated director Michael Cacoyannis: 1994’s Theodora, written and performed by Irene Papas, and the 1995 production of Luigi Cherubini’s opera Medea, for which he also produced the costumes. He also designed sets and costumes for the Greek National Opera, and a number of Greek theatre and dance companies. As a performer, he worked with numerous Greek dance companies, including OKTANA Dance Theatre.

His film work included performances in Menelaos Karamagiolis’ 1998 feature film Black Out p.s. Red Out and the 1990 film short The Kiss by Alexis Bistikas (which saw him engage in an on-screen kiss with the actor Stavros Zalmas), and sets for Bistikas’ 1989 film short The Marbles.

Post-Edafos work

Athens 2004 Olympic Ceremonies

In 2001, Papaioannou was appointed Artistic Director of the Opening and Closing Ceremonies of the Athens 2004 Olympic Games by Gianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki, President of the Athens 2004 Organising Committee for the Olympic Games. Three years in the making, the Opening Ceremony was hailed a „triumph” by Time magazine and The Times of London.

In 2005, following the success of the Athens 2004 Olympic Ceremonies, Papaioannou received the Golden Cross of the Order of Honour, awarded by the President of the Hellenic Republic for outstanding artistic achievement.

2

On 24 November 2006, Papaioannou premièred 2 in Athens, his first work following his creative direction of the Opening and Closing Ceremonies of the Athens 2004 Olympic Games. 2 was produced in collaboration with the electronic music composer K.BHTA for the production company Elliniki Theamaton. A „dissection of the male psyche”, the production commanded a large of amount of Greek press attention, not least for its open references to homosexuality.

The work seems to draw upon a range of influences, including the work of Jean Genet, René Magritte and Robert Wilson. Inspiration for the show also came partly from Papaioannou’s experiences as a gay man in Greece. Contemporary magazine described 2 as an „inspiring” work that „captures the zeitgeist”.

INSIDE

Inside is a large-scale on-stage experiment by Dimitris Papaioannou that took place in a room set inside the Pallas Theatre in central Athens. Inside this room, for twenty nights in the Spring of 2011, a simple series of movements documenting our daily return home was uniformly repeated by thirty performers in countless combinations and superimpositions. Six hours on stage with no beginning, middle or end. Visitors could watch as much as they liked, sit wherever they liked, exit and re-enter as many times as they liked. The stage action began before visitors came in, and continued after they left.

Inside encouraged audiences to treat the theatre as an exhibition space and the work as an exhibit, and to watch the action as if gazing at a landscape.

Inside was conceived as a kind of visual meditation. The work was developed along two parallel trains of thought. On the one hand, with a view to the emotional charge that is created when we sense the similarity of all human beings inside their nest. And on the other, an interest in the form of the artwork itself — in how a single motif can become a kind of latent narrative through its repetition and multiplication (like on ancient Greek Geometric vases and Eastern patterned carpets).

Inside’s final night was filmed in a single, six-hour take and first presented as a video installation as part of “Ανταλλαγή / Austausch / Exchange”, a 2012 Goethe-Institut art project curated by Sofia Dona, at the Broadway open-air cinema in Athens. The following year, it was projected one summer night at the Kalamata International Dance Festival’s open-air Castle Amphitheatre.

STILL LIFE

Still Life premiered at the Onassis Cultural Center – Athens on May 23, 2014. Still Life springs from a meditation upon the myth of Sisyphus, who was sentenced to a weird kind of immortality: he would roll a huge rock up to the top of a mountain, only for the rock to roll back down. He would then walk down in order to roll the rock up again. Over and over, eternally. Sisyphus is like a working class hero.

While creating Still Life, Dimitris Papaioannou thought a lot about the human crave for meaning, and about the absurdity of the human condition, rooted in matter but yearning for spirit. He was thinking about Albert Camus, and about work as meaning in and of itself. At the same time, Dimitris Papaioannou concentrated deeply on simplicity, interaction with real materials, and silence — musically-composed silence.

Still Life is a work about work. About confronting physical matter in order to elevate our existence above it. It is an attempt towards a kind of theatre that generates meditative energy through simple actions, and encourages an emotional journey through optical illusions.

FOTO:Dimitris Papaioannou

Written by: Constantin Enache

Biography

Sir Ian Murray McKellen, CH, CBE (born 25 May 1939) is an English actor. He is the recipient of six Laurence Olivier Awards, a Tony Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, a BIF Award, two Saturn Awards, four Drama Desk Awards and two Critics’ Choice Awards. He has also received two Oscar nominations, four BAFTA nominations and five Emmy Award nominations.

McKellen’s career spans genres ranging from Shakespearean and modern theatre to popular fantasy and science fiction. The BBC states his „performances have guaranteed him a place in the canon of English stage and film actors”. A recipient of every major theatrical award in the UK, McKellen is regarded as a British cultural icon. He started his professional career in 1961 at the Belgrade Theatre as a member of their highly regarded repertory company. In 1969 he was invited to join the Prospect Theatre Company to play the lead parts in Shakespeare’s Richard II and Marlowe’s Edward II, and he firmly established himself as one of the country’s foremost classical actors. In the 1970s McKellen became a stalwart of the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre of Great Britain. He achieved worldwide fame for his notable film roles, which include Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogies and Magneto in the X-Men films, both of which introduced McKellen to a new generation.

McKellen was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1979, was knighted by Elizabeth II in 1991 for services to the performing arts, and made a Companion of Honour for services to drama and to equality in the Queen’s 2008 New Year Honours. He has been openly gay since 1988, and continues to be a champion for LGBT social movements worldwide. He was made a Freeman of the City of London in October 2014.

Early life

McKellen was born on 25 May 1939 in Burnley, Lancashire, the son of Margery Lois (née Sutcliffe) and Denis Murray McKellen, a civil engineer. He was their second child, with a sister, Jean, five years his senior. Shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939, his family moved to Wigan. They lived there until Ian was twelve years old, before relocated to Bolton in 1951, after his father had been promoted. The experience of living through the war as a young child had a lasting impact on him, and he later said that „only after peace resumed … did I realise that war wasn’t normal.” When an interviewer remarked that he seemed quite calm in the aftermath of 11 September attacks, McKellen said: „Well, darling, you forget—I slept under a steel plate until I was four years old.” Even though he only lived in Bolton for less than seven years, as opposed to the eleven years in Wigan beforehand, he oddly refers to Bolton as his „Hometown”.

McKellen’s father was a civil engineer and lay preacher, and was of Protestant Irish and Scottish descent. Both of McKellen’s grandfathers were preachers, and his great-great-grandfather, James McKellen, was a „strict, evangelical Protestant minister” in Ballymena, County Antrim. His home environment was strongly Christian, but non-orthodox. „My upbringing was of low nonconformist Christians who felt that you led the Christian life in part by behaving in a Christian manner to everybody you met.” When he was 12, his mother died of breast cancer; his father died when he was 24. Of his coming out of the closet to his stepmother, Gladys McKellen, who was a member of the Religious Society of Friends, he said, „Not only was she not fazed, but as a member of a society which declared its indifference to people’s sexuality years back, I think she was just glad for my sake that I wasn’t lying anymore.”

McKellen attended Bolton School (Boys’ Division), of which he is still a supporter, attending regularly to talk to pupils. McKellen’s acting career started at Bolton Little Theatre, of which he is now the patron. An early fascination with the theatre was encouraged by his parents, who took him on a family outing to Peter Pan at the Opera House in Manchester when he was three. When he was nine, his main Christmas present was a wood and bakelite, fold-away Victorian theatre from Pollocks Toy Theatres, with cardboard scenery and wires to push on the cut-outs of Cinderella and of Laurence Olivier’s Hamlet.

His sister took him to his first Shakespeare play, Twelfth Night, by the amateurs of Wigan’s Little Theatre, shortly followed by their Macbeth and Wigan High School for Girls’ production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, with music by Mendelssohn, with the role of Bottom played by Jean McKellen, who continued to act, direct, and produce amateur theatre until her death.

In 1958, aged 18 years old, McKellen won a scholarship to St Catharine’s College, Cambridge, where he read English literature. While at Cambridge, McKellen was a member of the Marlowe Society, where he appeared in 23 plays over the course of 3 years. At that young age he was already giving performances that have since become legendary such as his Justice Shallow in Henry IV alongside Trevor Nunn and Derek Jacobi (March 1959), Cymbeline (as Posthumus, opposite Margaret Drabble as Imogen) and Doctor Faustus. During this period McKellen had already been directed by Peter Hall, John Barton and Dadie Rylands all of whom would have a huge impact on McKellen’s future career.

Career / Theatre

McKellen with actors Billy Crudup and Patrick Stewart on 24 September 2013 for a press junket at Sardi’s restaurant for Waiting for Godot and No Man’s Land.

McKellen made his first professional appearance was in 1961 at the Belgrade Theatre, as Roper in A Man for All Seasons, although an audio recording of the Marlowe Society’s Cymbeline had gone on commercial sale as part of the Argo Shakespeare series.

After four years in regional repertory theatres he made his first West End appearance, in A Scent of Flowers, regarded as a „notable success”. In 1965 he was a member of Laurence Olivier’s National Theatre Company at the Old Vic, which led to roles at the Chichester Festival. With the Prospect Theatre Company, McKellen made his breakthrough performances of Richard II (directed by Richard Cottrell) and Marlowe’s Edward II (directed by Toby Robertson) at the Edinburgh festival in 1969, the latter causing a storm of protest over the enactment of the homosexual Edward’s lurid death.

In the 1970s and 1980s McKellen became a well-known figure in British theatre, performing frequently at the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal National Theatre, where he played several leading Shakespearean roles, including the title role in Macbeth (which he had first played for Trevor Nunn in a „gripping…out of the ordinary” production, with Judi Dench, at Stratford in 1976), and Iago in Othello, in award-winning productions directed by Nunn. Both of these productions were adapted into television films, also directed by Nunn.

In 2007 he returned to the Royal Shakespeare Company, in productions of King Lear and The Seagull, both directed by Trevor Nunn. In 2009 he appeared in a very popular revival of Waiting for Godot at London’s Haymarket Theatre, directed by Sean Mathias, and playing opposite Patrick Stewart. He is Patron of English Touring Theatre and also President and Patron of the Little Theatre Guild of Great Britain, an association of amateur theatre organisations throughout the UK. In late August 2012, he took part in the opening ceremony of the London Paralympics, portraying Prospero from The Tempest.

Popular success

McKellen had taken film roles throughout his career—beginning in 1969 with his role of George Matthews in A Touch of Love, and his first leading role was in 1980 as D. H. Lawrence in Priest of Love, but it was not until the 1990s that he became more widely recognised in this medium after several roles in blockbuster Hollywood films. In 1993 he had a supporting role as a South African tycoon in the critically acclaimed Six Degrees of Separation, in which he starred with Stockard Channing, Donald Sutherland, and Will Smith. In the same year, he appeared in minor roles in the television miniseries Tales of the City, based on the novel by his friend Armistead Maupin, and the film Last Action Hero, in which he played Death.

Later in 1993, McKellen appeared in the television film And the Band Played On, about the discovery of the AIDS virus, for which McKellen won a CableACE Award for Supporting Actor in a Movie or Miniseries and was nominated for the Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie. In 1995, he played the title role in Richard III, which transported the setting into an alternative 1930s in which England is ruled by fascists. The film was a critical success. McKellen co-produced and co-wrote the film, adapting the play for the screen based on a stage production of Shakespeare’s play directed by Richard Eyre for the Royal National Theatre, in which McKellen had appeared. As executive producer he returned his £50,000 fee to complete the filming of the final battle. In his review of the film, Washington Post film critic Hal Hinson, called McKellen’s performance a „lethally flamboyant incarnation”, and said his „florid mastery … dominates everything”. His performance in the title role garnered BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations for Best Actor, and won the European Film Award for Best Actor. His screenplay was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.

He appeared in the modestly acclaimed film Apt Pupil, which was directed by Bryan Singer and based on a story by Stephen King. McKellen portrayed a fugitive Nazi officer, living under a false name in the US, who is befriended by a curious teenager (Brad Renfro) who threatens to expose him unless he tells his story in detail. He was subsequently nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in the 1998 film Gods and Monsters, wherein he played James Whale, the director of Show Boat (1936) and Frankenstein.

In 1999 McKellen was cast, again under the direction of Bryan Singer, to play the comic book supervillain Magneto in the 2000 film X-Men and its sequels X2: X-Men United and X-Men: The Last Stand. While filming X-Men McKellen was cast as the wizard Gandalf in Peter Jackson’s three-film adaptation of The Lord of the Rings (consisting of The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King). He received honors from the Screen Actors Guild for Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture for his work in The Fellowship of the Ring, and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for the same role. He also provided the voice of Gandalf for several video game adaptations of the films. On 10 January 2011 it was officially confirmed that Mckellen would reprise the role of Gandalf in the three-part film adaptation of The Hobbit.

On 16 March 2002, he hosted Saturday Night Live. In 2003, McKellen made a guest appearance as himself on the American cartoon show The Simpsons, in a special British-themed episode entitled „The Regina Monologues”, along with the then UK Prime Minister Tony Blair and author J. K. Rowling. In April and May 2005, he played the role of Mel Hutchwright in Granada Television’s long running British soap opera, Coronation Street, fulfilling a lifelong ambition. He narrated Richard Bell’s film Eighteen, as a grandfather who leaves his World War II memoirs on audio-cassette for his teenage grandson.

McKellen has appeared in limited release films, such as Emile (which was shot in three weeks following the X2 shoot), Neverwas and Asylum. He appeared as Sir Leigh Teabing in The Da Vinci Code. During a 17 May 2006 interview on The Today Show with the Da Vinci Code cast and director, Matt Lauer posed a question to the group about how they would have felt if the film had borne a prominent disclaimer that it is a work of fiction, as some religious groups wanted.

McKellen responded, „I’ve often thought the Bible should have a disclaimer in the front saying ‘This is fiction.’ I mean, walking on water? It takes… an act of faith. And I have faith in this movie – not that it’s true, not that it’s factual, but that it’s a jolly good story.” He continued, „And I think audiences are clever enough and bright enough to separate out fact and fiction, and discuss the thing when they’ve seen it”. McKellen appeared in the 2006 BBC series of Ricky Gervais’ comedy series Extras, where he played himself directing Gervais’ character Andy Millman in a play about gay lovers. McKellen received a 2007 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor – Comedy Series nomination for his performance. In 2009 he portrayed Number Two in The Prisoner, a remake of the 1967 cult series The Prisoner. In 2013, McKellen co-starred in the ITV sitcom Vicious as Freddie Thornhill, alongside Derek Jacobi. The series revolves around an elderly gay couple who have been together for 50 years. On 23 August 2013 the show was renewed for a six-episode second series which began airing in June 2015.

In November 2013, McKellen appeared in the Doctor Who 50th anniversary comedy homage The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot. He reprised his role as Magneto in X-Men: Days of Future Past, released in May 2014; he shared the role with Michael Fassbender, who played a younger version of the character in 2011’s X-Men: First Class. In October 2015, McKellen appeared as Norman to Anthony Hopkins’ Sir in a BBC Two production of Ronald Harwood’s The Dresser, alongside Edward Fox and Emily Watson. In 2017, McKellen will voice Cogsworth, the Beast’s loyal majordomo, who was cursed into a pendulum clock, in a live-action adaptation of Beauty and the Beast.

Personal life

McKellen and his first partner, Brian Taylor, a history teacher from Bolton, began their relationship in 1964. Their relationship lasted for eight years, ending in 1972. They lived in London, where McKellen continued to pursue his career as an actor. For over a decade, he has lived in a five-storey Victorian conversion in Narrow Street, Limehouse. In 1978 he met his second partner, Sean Mathias, at the Edinburgh Festival. This relationship lasted until 1988. According to Mathias, the ten-year love affair was tempestuous, with conflicts over McKellen’s success in acting versus Mathias’s somewhat less-successful career. Mathias later directed McKellen in Waiting for Godot at the Theatre Royal Haymarket in 2009. The pair entered into a business partnership with Evgeny Lebedev, purchasing the lease on The Grapes public house in Narrow Street.

McKellen is an atheist. In the late 1980s, McKellen lost his appetite for meat except for fish, and has since followed a mainly pescetarian diet. In 2001, Ian McKellen received the Artist Citizen of the World Award (France). He has a tattoo of the Elvish number nine, written using J. R. R Tolkien’s artificial script of Tengwar, on his shoulder in reference to his involvement in the Lord of the Rings and the fact that his character was one of the original nine companions of the Fellowship of the Ring. The other actors of „The Fellowship” (Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, Orlando Bloom, Billy Boyd, Sean Bean, Dominic Monaghan and Viggo Mortensen) have the same tattoo. John Rhys-Davies, whose character was also one of the original nine companions, arranged for his stunt double to get the tattoo instead.

He was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2006. In 2012, McKellen stated on his blog that „There is no cause for alarm. I am examined regularly and the cancer is contained. I’ve not needed any treatment.”

He became an ordained minister of the Universal Life Church in early 2013 in order to preside over the marriage of his X-Men co-star Patrick Stewart to his then fiancée Sunny Ozell.

McKellen was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Letters by Cambridge University on 18 June 2014. He was made a Freeman of the city of London on Thursday 30 October 2014. The ceremony took place at Guildhall in London. McKellen was nominated by London’s Lord Mayor Fiona Woolf, who said he was chosen as he was an „exceptional actor” and „tireless campaigner for equality”. He is also a Fellow of St Catherine’s College, Oxford.

Activism

LGBT rights campaigning

While McKellen had made his sexual orientation known to fellow actors early on in his stage career, it was not until 1988 that he came out to the general public, in a programme on BBC Radio. The context that prompted McKellen’s decision – overriding any concerns about a possible negative effect on his career – was that the controversial Section 28 of the Local Government Bill, known simply as Section 28, was then under consideration in the British Parliament. Section 28 proposed prohibiting local authorities from promoting homosexuality „… as a kind of pretended family relationship”.McKellen became active in fighting the proposed law, and, during a BBC Radio 3 programme where he debated Section 28 with the conservative journalist Peregrine Worsthorne, declared himself gay. McKellen has stated that he was influenced in his decision by the advice and support of his friends, among them noted gay author Armistead Maupin. In a 1998 interview that discusses the 29th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, McKellen commented: I have many regrets about not having come out earlier, but one of them might be that I didn’t engage myself in the politicking.

He has said of this period: My own participating in that campaign was a focus for people [to] take comfort that if Ian McKellen was on board for this, perhaps it would be all right for other people to be as well, gay and straight.

Section 28 was, however, enacted and remained on the statute books until 2000 in Scotland and 2003 in England and Wales. Section 28 never applied in Northern Ireland.

In 2003, during an appearance on Have I Got News For You, McKellen claimed when he visited Michael Howard, then Environment Secretary (responsible for local government), in 1988 to lobby against Section 28, Howard refused to change his position but did ask him to leave an autograph for his children. McKellen agreed, but wrote, „Fuck off, I’m gay.” McKellen described Howard’s junior ministers, Conservatives David Wilshire and Dame Jill Knight, who were the architects of Section 28, as the ‘ugly sisters’ of a political pantomime.

McKellen has continued to be very active in LGBT rights efforts. In a statement on his website regarding his activism, the actor commented that: I have been reluctant to lobby on other issues I most care about – nuclear weapons (against), religion (atheist), capital punishment (anti), AIDS (fund-raiser) because I never want to be forever spouting, diluting the impact of addressing my most urgent concern; legal and social equality for gay people worldwide.

McKellen is a co-founder of Stonewall, an LGBT rights lobby group in the United Kingdom, named after the Stonewall riots. McKellen is also patron of LGBT History Month, Pride London, Oxford Pride, GAY-GLOS, The Lesbian & Gay Foundation, and FFLAG where he appears in their video „Parents Talking”.

In 1994, at the closing ceremony of the Gay Games, he briefly took the stage to address the crowd, saying, „I’m Sir Ian McKellen, but you can call me Serena”: This nickname, given to him by Stephen Fry, had been circulating within the gay community since McKellen’s knighthood was conferred. In 2002, he was the Celebrity Grand Marshal of the San Francisco Pride Parade and he attended the Academy Awards with his then-boyfriend, New Zealander Nick Cuthell. In 2006, McKellen spoke at the pre-launch of the 2007 LGBT History Month in the UK, lending his support to the organisation and its founder, Sue Sanders. In 2007, he became a patron of The Albert Kennedy Trust, an organisation that provides support to young, homeless and troubled LGBT people.

In 2006, he became a patron of Oxford Pride, stating: I send my love to all members of Oxford Pride, their sponsors and supporters, of which I am proud to be one… Onlookers can be impressed by our confidence and determination to be ourselves and gay people, of whatever age, can be comforted by the occasion to take the first steps towards coming out and leaving the closet forever behind.

McKellen has taken his activism internationally, and caused a major stir in Singapore, where he was invited to do an interview on a morning show and shocked the interviewer by asking if they could recommend him a gay bar; the programme immediately ended. In December 2008, he was named in Out’s annual Out 100 list. In 2010, McKellen extended his support for Liverpool’s Homotopia festival in which a group of gay and lesbian Merseyside teenagers helped to produce an anti-homophobia campaign pack for schools and youth centres across the city. In May 2011, he called Sergey Sobyanin, Moscow’s mayor, a „coward” for refusing to allow gay parades in the city. In 2014, he was named in the top 10 on the World Pride Power list.

Charity work

In April 2010, along with actors Brian Cox and Eleanor Bron, McKellen appeared in a series of TV advertisements to support Age UK, the charity recently formed from the merger of Age Concern and Help the Aged. All three actors gave their time free of charge.

A cricket fan since childhood, McKellen umpired in March 2011 for a charity cricket match in New Zealand to support earthquake victims of the February 2011 Christchurch earthquake.

McKellen is an honorary board member for the New York and Washington, DC based organization Only Make Believe. Only Make Believe creates and performs interactive plays in children’s hospitals and care facilities. He was honoured by the organisation in 2012 and hosted their annual Make Believe on Broadway Gala in November 2013. He garnered publicity for the organisation by stripping down to his Lord of the Rings underwear on stage.

Isaac Theatre Royal, Christchurch

While in New Zealand filming The Hobbit in 2012, McKellen announced a special New Zealand tour „Shakespeare, Tolkien, and You!”, with proceeds from the shows going to help save the Isaac Theatre Royal, which suffered extensive damage during the 2011 Christchurch earthquake. McKellen said he opted to help save the building as it was the last theatre he played in New Zealand (Waiting for Godot in 2010) and the locals’ love for it made it a place worth supporting.

Selected credits

Stage

The hands of McKellen on a 1999 Gods and Monsters plaque in London’s Leicester Square

Much Ado About Nothing, Royal National Theatre, Old Vic, London, 1965

Trelawny of the ‘Wells’, National Theatre, London & Chichester Festival, 1965

The Promise, West End; Broadway, 1967

Edward II (in title role), Edinburgh Festival & West End, 1969

Hamlet (title role), UK/European Tour, 1971

Tis Pity She’s a Whore, UK Tour, 1972

Dr Faustus (title role), Royal Shakespeare Company, Edinburgh Festival & Aldwych Theatre (London), 1974

King John, RSC, 1975

Romeo and Juliet (as Romeo), RSC, Stratford-upon-Avon & London, 1976

The Winter’s Tale, RSC, Stratford-upon-Avon, 1976

Macbeth (title role), RSC, Stratford-upon-Avon & Young Vic (London), 1976–1977

The Alchemist, RSC, Stratford-upon-Avon & London, 1977

Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, RSC, Barbican Arts Centre (London), 1977

Three Sisters, RSC, UK Tour, 1978

Bent, (as Max) Royal Court and Criterion, London, 1979

Acting Shakespeare (as Himself), Copenhagen, 1980

Amadeus (as Salieri), Broadway, 1980

Coriolanus (title role), National Theatre, 1984

Wild Honey, National Theatre, 1984 (& Broadway, 1986)

The Cherry Orchard (as Lopakhin), National Theatre, 1985

The Duchess of Malfi, National Theatre, 1985

The Real Inspector Hound, National Theatre, London & Paris, 1985

Othello (as Iago), RSC, London & Stratford-upon-Avon, 1989

Richard III (title role), National Theatre, world tour, 1990 & US tour, 1992

Uncle Vanya (title role), National Theatre, 1992

Peter Pan (as Mr. Darling/Captain Hook), National Theatre, 1997

An Enemy of the People, National Theatre, 1997 & Ahmanson Theatre (Los Angeles), 1998

Present Laughter, West Yorkshire Playhouse (Leeds, England), 1998

Dance of Death, at the Broadhurst Theatre (New York) in 2001. At the Lyric Theatre (London, England) in 2003

Aladdin, (as Widow Twankie) Old Vic, 2004 & 2005

The Cut, Donmar Warehouse, 2006

King Lear by William Shakespeare, (as Lear), Courtyard Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, 2007; New Zealand, 2007; New York (Brooklyn Academy of Music), 2007, Minneapolis, 2007, New London Theatre (West End), 2007–8

The Seagull by Anton Chekhov, (as Sorin), Courtyard Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, 2007; New York (Brooklyn Academy of Music), 2007 Minneapolis, 2007, New London Theatre (West End), 2007–8

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett, (as Estragon), Theatre Royal Haymarket, London, 2009 and 2010; Comedy Theatre, Melbourne, Australia, 2010 and Fugard Theatre, Cape Town, South Africa, 2010

The Syndicate by Eduardo De Filippo, Chichester Festival, 2011

No Man’s Land and Waiting for Godot (double bill), Broadway, 2013–2014

Letters Live, Freemasons Hall, 2015

No Man’s Land, Wyndham’s, London, 2016

Filmography, awards and nominations

Main article: Ian McKellen, roles and awards

Music

In 1987, McKellen appeared reciting Shakespeare while the Super Rock group The Fleshtones improvised behind him on Andy Warhol’s Fifteen Minutes which ran on MTV.

Vampire in the music video „Heart” by Pet Shop Boys

The man who’s „falling out of reach” in the music video „Falling Out of Reach” by Guillemots

Appears on the Scissor Sisters track „Invisible Light” from their 2010 album „Night Work”, reciting a passage regarding the „Invisible Light” of the title.

Appeared as himself alongside George Ezra in the latter’s music video for „Listen to the Man”. Whilst Ezra is singing his song, McKellen joins in and lip-syncs Ezra’s voice.

Audiobooks

Audiobook narrator of Michelle Paver’s series Wolf Brother, Spirit Walker, Soul Eater, Outcast, Oath Breaker, and Ghost Hunter, as well as a version of Homer’s The Odyssey.

Other work

A friend of Ian Charleson and an admirer of his work, McKellen contributed an entire chapter to For Ian Charleson: A Tribute. A recording of McKellen’s voice is heard before performances at the Royal Festival Hall, reminding patrons to ensure their mobile phones and watch alarms are switched off and to keep coughing to a minimum. He also took part in the 2012 Summer Paralympics opening ceremony in London as Prospero from Shakespeare’s The Tempest.

FOTO: SirIan McKellen

Written by: Constantin Enache

Biography

Alan Sidney Patrick Rickman (21 February 1946 – 14 January 2016) was an English actor and director known for playing a variety of roles on stage and on screen. Rickman trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, and was a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, performing in modern and classical theatre productions. His first big television part came in 1982, but his big break was as the Vicomte de Valmont in the stage production of Les Liaisons Dangereuses in 1985, for which he was nominated for a Tony Award. Rickman gained wider notice for his film performances as Hans Gruber in Die Hard and Severus Snape in the Harry Potter film series.

Rickman’s other film roles included the Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, for which he received the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role, Jamie in Truly, Madly, Deeply, Colonel Brandon in Ang Lee’s Sense and Sensibility, the title character in Rasputin: Dark Servant of Destiny, which won him a Golden Globe, an Emmy and a Screen Actors Guild Award, Harry in Love Actually, P. L. O’Hara in An Awfully Big Adventure, Dr. Alfred Blalock in the Emmy-winning HBO film Something the Lord Made, Alexander Dane in Galaxy Quest, and Judge Turpin in the film adaptation of Stephen Sondheim’s musical of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

Rickman died of cancer on 14 January 2016 at the age of 69. His final film roles are as Lieutenant General Frank Benson in the thriller Eye in the Sky, and the voice of Absolem, the caterpillar in Alice Through the Looking Glass.

Early life

Rickman was born in West London, to a working-class family, the son of Margaret Doreen Rose (née Bartlett), a housewife, and Bernard William Rickman. Rickman’s father was a factory worker, house painter and decorator, and former World War II aircraft fitter. His ancestry was English, Irish and Welsh; his father was Catholic and his mother a Methodist. Rickman’s family also included brothers David and Michael, and sister Sheila.

When he was eight years old, Rickman’s father died of lung cancer, leaving his mother to raise him and his three siblings mostly alone. According to Paton, the family was „rehoused by the council and moved to an Acton estate to the west of Wormwood Scrubs Prison, where his mother struggled to bring up four children on her own by working for the Post Office.” She married again in 1960, but divorced Rickman’s stepfather after three years. Before he met Rima Horton at 19, he stated that his first crush was at 10 years old to a girl named Amanda „at sports day.” As a child, he excelled at calligraphy and watercolour painting. Rickman attended Derwentwater Primary School in Acton, a school that followed the Montessori method of education, and then Latymer Upper School in London through the Direct Grant system, where he became involved in drama. After leaving Latymer, he attended Chelsea College of Art and Design and then the Royal College of Art. This education allowed him to work as a graphic designer for the Royal College of Art’s in-house magazine, ARK and the Notting Hill Herald, which Rickman considered a more stable occupation than acting: „Drama school wasn’t considered the sensible thing to do at 18”.

After graduation, Rickman and several friends opened a graphic design studio called Graphiti, but after three years of successful business, he decided that he was going to pursue acting professionally. He wrote to request an audition with the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), which he attended from 1972 until 1974. While there, he studied Shakespeare and supported himself by working as a dresser for Sir Nigel Hawthorne and Sir Ralph Richardson.

Career

After graduating from RADA, Rickman worked extensively with British repertory and experimental theatre groups in productions including Chekhov’s The Seagull and Snoo Wilson’s The Grass Widow at the Royal Court Theatre, and appeared three times at the Edinburgh International Festival. In 1978, he performed with the Court Drama Group, gaining parts in Romeo and Juliet and A View from the Bridge, among other plays. While working with the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), he was cast in As You Like It. He appeared in The Barchester Chronicles (1982), the BBC’s adaptation of Trollope’s first two Barchester novels, as the Reverend Obadiah Slope.

Rickman was given the male lead, the Vicomte de Valmont, in the 1985 Royal Shakespeare Company production of Christopher Hampton’s adaptation of Les Liaisons Dangereuses, directed by Howard Davies. After the RSC production transferred to Broadway in 1987, Rickman received both a Tony Award nomination and a Drama Desk Award nomination for his performance.

Rickman’s career was filled with a wide range of roles. He played romantic leads including Colonel Brandon in Sense and Sensibility (1995) and Jamie in Truly, Madly, Deeply (1991); numerous villains in Hollywood big-budget films, including German criminal Hans Gruber in Die Hard (1988), Australian Elliot Marston opposite Tom Selleck in Quigley Down Under (1990) and the Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991); and the occasional television role such as Dr. Alfred Blalock in HBO’s Something the Lord Made and the „mad monk” Rasputin in the HBO biopic Rasputin: Dark Servant of Destiny (1996), for which he won a Golden Globe and an Emmy.

Rickman’s role as Hans Gruber in Die Hard earned him a spot on the AFI’s 100 Years…100 Heroes & Villains list as the 46th best villain in film history, though he revealed he almost did not take the role as he did not think Die Hard was the kind of film he wanted to make. His performance as the Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves also earned him praise as one of the best actors to portray a villain in films.

Rickman took issue with being typecast as a villain, even though he was known for playing „unsympathetic characters”. His portrayal of Severus Snape, the potions master in the Harry Potter series (2001–2011), was dark, but the character’s motivations were not clear early on. During his career Rickman played comedic roles, including as Sir Alexander Dane/Dr. Lazarus in the science fiction parody Galaxy Quest (1999), the angel Metatron, the voice of God, in Dogma (also 1999), Emma Thompson’s foolish husband Harry in the British Christmas-themed romantic comedy Love Actually (2003), providing the voice of Marvin the Paranoid Android in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (2005) and playing the egotistical, Nobel Prize-winning father in Nobel Son (2007). Rickman was nominated for an Emmy for his work as Dr. Alfred Blalock in HBO’s Something the Lord Made (2004).

He also starred in the independent film Snow Cake (2006) with Sigourney Weaver and Carrie-Anne Moss, and Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (also 2006), directed by Tom Tykwer. He appeared as Judge Turpin in the critically acclaimed Tim Burton film Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007) alongside Harry Potter co-stars Helena Bonham Carter and Timothy Spall. He provided the voice of Absolem the Caterpillar in Burton’s film Alice in Wonderland (2010).

Rickman performed onstage in Noël Coward’s romantic comedy Private Lives, which transferred to Broadway after its successful run in London at the Albery Theatre and ended in September 2002; he reunited with his Les Liaisons Dangereuses co-star Lindsay Duncan and director Howard Davies in the Tony Award-winning production. Rickman’s previous stage performance was in Antony and Cleopatra in 1998 as Mark Antony, with Helen Mirren as Cleopatra, in the Royal National Theatre’s production at the Olivier Theatre in London, which ran from October to December 1998. Rickman appeared in Victoria Wood with All The Trimmings (2000), a Christmas special with Victoria Wood, playing an aged colonel in the battle of Waterloo who is forced to break off his engagement to Honeysuckle Weeks’ character.

Rickman directed The Winter Guest at London’s Almeida Theatre in 1995 and the film version of the same play, released in 1997, starring Emma Thompson and her real-life mother Phyllida Law. With Katharine Viner, he compiled the play My Name Is Rachel Corrie and directed the premiere production at the Royal Court Theatre, which opened in April 2005. He won the Theatre Goers’ Choice Awards for Best Director. Rickman befriended the Corrie family and earned their trust, and the show was warmly received. But the next year, its original New York production was „postponed” over the possibility of boycotts and protests from those who saw it as „anti-Israeli agit-prop”. Rickman denounced „censorship born out of fear”. Tony Kushner, Harold Pinter and Vanessa Redgrave, among others, criticised the decision to indefinitely delay the show. The one-woman play was put on later that year at another theatre to mixed reviews, and has since been staged at venues around the world.

In 2009, Rickman was awarded the James Joyce Award by University College Dublin’s Literary and Historical Society. In October and November 2010, Rickman starred in the eponymous role in Henrik Ibsen’s John Gabriel Borkman at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin alongside Lindsay Duncan and Fiona Shaw. The Irish Independent called Rickman’s performance breathtaking.

Rickman again appeared as Severus Snape in the final instalment in the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 (2011). Throughout the series, his portrayal of Snape garnered widespread critical acclaim. Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times said Rickman „as always, makes the most lasting impression,” while Peter Travers of Rolling Stone magazine called Rickman „sublime at giving us a glimpse at last into the secret nurturing heart that … Snape masks with a sneer.”

Media coverage characterised Rickman’s performance as worthy of nomination for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. His first award nominations for his role as Snape came at the 2011 Alliance of Women Film Journalists Awards, 2011 Saturn Awards, 2011 Scream Awards and 2011 St. Louis Gateway Film Critics Association Awards in the Best Supporting Actor category.

In November 2011, Rickman opened in Seminar, a new play by Theresa Rebeck, at the John Golden Theatre on Broadway. Rickman, who left the production in April, won the Broadway.com Audience Choice Award for Favorite Actor in a Play and was nominated for a Drama League Award.

Rickman starred with Colin Firth and Cameron Diaz in Gambit (2012) by Michael Hoffman, a remake of the 1966 film. In 2013, he played Hilly Kristal, the founder of the East Village punk-rock club CBGB, in the CBGB film with Rupert Grint.

In the media

Rickman was chosen by Empire as one of the 100 Sexiest Stars in film history (No. 34) in 1995 and ranked No. 59 in Empire’s „The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time” list in October 1997. In 2009 and 2010, Rickman was ranked once again as one of the 100 Sexiest Stars by Empire, both times placing No. 8 out of the 50 actors chosen. Rickman was elected to the Council of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in 1993; he was subsequently RADA’s vice-chairman and a member of its Artistic Advisory and Training committees and Development Board.

Rickman was voted No. 19 in Empire magazine’s Greatest Living Movie Stars over the age of 50 and was twice nominated for Broadway’s Tony Award as Best Actor (Play): in 1987 for Les Liaisons Dangereuses, and in 2002 for a revival of Noël Coward’s Private Lives. The Guardian named Rickman as an „honourable mention” in a list of the best actors never to have received an Academy Award nomination.

Two researchers, a linguist and a sound engineer, found „the perfect [male] voice” to be a combination of Rickman’s and Jeremy Irons’s voices based on a sample of 50 voices.

Rickman featured in several musical works, including a song composed by Adam Leonard entitled „Not Alan Rickman”. Credited as ‘A Strolling Player’ in the sleeve notes, the actor played a „Master of Ceremonies” part, announcing the various instruments at the end of the first part of Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells II (1992) on the track „The Bell”. Rickman was one of the many artists who recited Shakespearian sonnets on the album When Love Speaks (2002), and also featured prominently in a music video by Texas entitled „In Demand”,which premiered on Europe MTV in August 2000.

Personal life

In 1965, at the age of 19, Rickman met 18-year-old Rima Horton, who became his girlfriend and would later be a Labour Party councillor on the Kensington and Chelsea London Borough Council (1986–2006) and an economics lecturer at the nearby Kingston University.

In 2015, Rickman confirmed that they had married in a private ceremony in New York City in 2012. They lived together from 1977 to 2016, the year Rickman died. They had no children. Rickman was an active patron of the research foundation Saving Faces; and honorary president of the International Performers’ Aid Trust, a charity that works to fight poverty amongst performing artists all over the world. When discussing politics, Rickman said he „was born a card-carrying member of the Labour Party”.

Illness and death

In August 2015, Rickman suffered a minor stroke, which led to the diagnosis of pancreatic cancer. He concealed the fact that he had terminal cancer from all but his closest confidants. On 14 January 2016, Rickman died in London at the age of 69. Soon after, his fans created a memorial underneath the „Platform 9¾” sign at London King’s Cross railway station. His death has been compared to that of David Bowie, a fellow English cultural figure who died at the same age as Rickman four days earlier, also due to an existing cancer that had been kept private.

Tributes from Rickman’s co-stars and contemporaries appeared on social media following the announcement; since his cancer was not publicly known, some—like Ralph Fiennes, who „cannot believe he is gone”, and Jason Isaacs, who was „sidestepped by the awful news”—expressed their surprise. Harry Potter creator J. K. Rowling called Rickman „a magnificent actor and a wonderful man”. Emma Watson wrote, „I feel so lucky to have worked and spent time with such a special man and actor. I’ll really miss our conversations.” Daniel Radcliffe appreciated his loyalty and support: „I’m pretty sure he came and saw everything I ever did on stage both in Britain and America. He didn’t have to do that.” Evanna Lynch said it was scary to bump into Rickman in character as Snape, but „he was so kind and generous in the moments he wasn’t Snaping about.” Rupert Grint said, „even though he has gone I will always hear his voice.”

Kate Winslet, who gave a tearful tribute at the London Film Critics’ Circle Awards, remembered Rickman as warm and generous, adding, „And that voice! Oh, that voice.” Dame Helen Mirren said his voice „could suggest honey or a hidden stiletto blade.” Emma Thompson remembered „the intransigence which made him the great artist he was—his ineffable and cynical wit, the clarity with which he saw most things, including me … I learned a lot from him.” Colin Firth told The Hollywood Reporter that, as an actor, Rickman had been a mentor. John McTiernan, director of Die Hard, said Rickman was the antithesis of the villainous roles for which he was most famous on screen. Sir Ian McKellen wrote, „behind [Rickman’s] mournful face, which was just as beautiful when wracked with mirth, there was a super-active spirit, questing and achieving, a super-hero, unassuming but deadly effective.” Rickman’s family offered their thanks „for the messages of condolence”.

FOTO: Alan Rickman

Written by: Constantin Enache

Biography

Lee Alexander McQueen, CBE (17 March 1969 – 11 February 2010) was a British fashion designer and couturier. He is known for having worked as chief designer at Givenchy from 1996 to 2001 and for founding his own Alexander McQueen label. His achievements in fashion earned him four British Designer of the Year awards (1996, 1997, 2001 and 2003), as well as the CFDA’s International Designer of the Year award in 2003. McQueen committed suicide in 2010 at the age of forty.

Early life and education

Born on 17 March 1969 in Lewisham, London, to Scottish taxi driver Ronald and social science teacher Joyce, McQueen was the youngest of six children. He reportedly grew up in a council flat, but, in fact, the McQueens moved to a terraced house in Stratford in his first year. He attended Carpenters Road Primary School, started making dresses for his three sisters at a young age, and announced his intention to become a fashion designer.

McQueen later attended Rokeby School and left aged 16 in 1985 with one O-level in art, going on to serve an apprenticeship with Savile Row tailors Anderson & Sheppard, before joining Gieves & Hawkes and, later, the theatrical costumiers Angels and Bermans. While serving his apprenticeship, McQueen attended the Rosetta Art Centre led by Yvonne Humble, who also wrote his reference that saw him go straight on to an MA course at Central St Martins. The skills he learned as an apprentice on Savile Row helped earn him a reputation in the fashion world as an expert in creating an impeccably tailored look.

Career

While on Savile Row, McQueen’s clients included Mikhail Gorbachev and Prince Charles. At the age of 20, he spent a period of time working for Koji Tatsuno before travelling to Milan, Italy and working for Romeo Gigli.

McQueen returned to London and applied to Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, to work as a pattern cutter tutor. Because of the strength of his portfolio he was persuaded by Bobby Hillson, the Head of the Masters course, to enroll in the course as a student. He received his master’s degree in fashion design and his 1992 graduation collection was bought in its entirety by influential fashion stylist Isabella Blow, who was said to have persuaded McQueen to become known as Alexander (his middle name) when he subsequently launched his fashion career. It was during this period that McQueen relocated to Hoxton, which housed other new designers, including Hussein Chalayan and Pauric Sweeney. It was shortly after creating his second collection,”McQueen’s Theatre of Cruelty”, that McQueen met Katy England, his soon to be „right hand woman”, when outside of a „high profile fashion show” trying to „blag her way in”. He promptly asked her to join him for his third collection, „The Birds” at Kings Cross, as „creative director”. Katy England continued to work with McQueen thereafter, greatly influencing his work – his „second opinion”.

McQueen designed the wardrobe for David Bowie’s tours in 1996-1997, as well as the Union Jack coat worn by Bowie on the cover of his 1997 album Earthling. Icelandic singer Björk sought McQueen’s work for the cover of her album Homogenic in 1997. McQueen also directed the music video for her song „Alarm Call” from the same album and later contributed the iconic topless dress to her video for „Pagan Poetry”. McQueen also collaborated with dancer Sylvie Guillem, director Robert Lepage and choreographer Russell Maliphant, designing wardrobe for theater show „Eonnagata”, directed by Robert Lepage. The film „Sylvie Guillem, on the edge” produced by French production company A DROITE DE LA LUNE, traces whole history of the creation of the show, from first rehearsals which took place in Quebec until world premiere which was held in 2008 at Sadler’s Wells theatre in London.

Camilla Belle in a 2009 dress by Alexander McQueen, listed among „100 Best Dresses of the Decade” by InStyle magazine.

McQueen’s early runway collections developed his reputation for controversy and shock tactics (earning the title „l’enfant terrible” and „the hooligan of English fashion”), with trousers aptly named „bumsters” and a collection titled „Highland Rape”. In 2004, journalist Caroline Evans also wrote of McQueen’s „theatrical staging of cruelty”, in 032c magazine, referring to his dark and tortured renderings of Scottish history. McQueen was known for his lavish, unconventional runway shows: a recreation of a shipwreck for his spring 2003 collection; spring 2005’s human chess game; and his autumn 2006 show „Widows of Culloden”, which featured a life-sized hologram of supermodel Kate Moss dressed in yards of rippling fabric.

McQueen’s „bumsters” spawned a trend in low rise jeans; on their debut they attracted many comments and debate. Michael Oliveira-Salac, the director of Blow PR and a friend of McQueen’s said, „The bumster for me is what defined McQueen.” McQueen also became known for using skulls in his designs. A scarf bearing the motif became a celebrity must-have and was copied around the world.

McQueen has been credited with bringing drama and extravagance to the catwalk. He used new technology and innovation to add a different twist to his shows and often shocked and surprised audiences. The silhouettes that he created have been credited for adding a sense of fantasy and rebellion to fashion. McQueen became one of the first designers to use Indian models in London.

Givenchy appointment

The president of LVMH, Bernard Arnault, caused a stir when he appointed McQueen head designer at Givenchy in 1996, succeeding John Galliano. Upon arrival at Givenchy, McQueen insulted the founder by calling him „irrelevant”. His first couture collection with Givenchy was unsuccessful, with even McQueen telling Vogue in October 1997 that the collection was „crap”. McQueen toned down his designs at Givenchy, but continued to indulge his rebellious streak, causing controversy in autumn 1998 with a show which included double amputee model Aimee Mullins striding down the catwalk on intricately carved wooden legs. This year also saw McQueen complete one of his most famous runway shows previewing Spring/Summer 1999, where a single model, Shalom Harlow graced the runway in a strapless white dress, before being rotated slowly on a revolving section of the catwalk whilst being sprayed with paint by two robotic guns. Givenchy designs released by Vogue Patterns during this period may be credited to the late designer. McQueen stayed with Givenchy until March 2001, when the contract he said was „constraining his creativity” ended.

McQueen received press attention after the May 2007 suicide of international style icon Isabella Blow. Rumours were published that there was a rift between McQueen and Blow at the time of her death, focusing on McQueen’s under-appreciation of Blow. In response to these rumours, McQueen told an interviewer: „It’s so much bollocks. These people just don’t know what they’re talking about. They don’t know me. They don’t know my relationship with Isabella. It’s complete bullshit. People can talk; you can ask her sisters … That part of the industry, they should stay away from my life, or mine and Isabella’s life. What I had with Isabella was completely dissociated from fashion, beyond fashion.”

VOSS

McQueen’s most celebrated and dramatic catwalk show was his 2001 Spring/Summer collection, named VOSS. The centre piece tableau that dominated the room was an enormous glass box. But because the room outside the box was lit and the inside of the box was unlit, the glass walls appeared as large mirrors, so that the seated audience saw only their own reflection. Finally, after an hour, and when the show began, lights came on inside the enormous glass case and revealed the interior to be filled with moths and, at the centre, a naked model on a chaise longue with her face obscured by a gas mask. The glass walls then fell away and smashed on the ground.

The model chosen by McQueen to be the centre of the show was the British writer Michelle Olley. (The show also featured Kate Moss and Erin O’Connor). McQueen said that the tableau was based on the Joel Peter Witkin image Sanitorium. The British fashion photographer Nick Knight later said of the VOSS show on his SHOWstudio.com blog:

„The girl in the box was Michelle Olley. She modelled for me in a story I did called Sister Honey… She was a writer and I remember she wrote a great piece on being the Butterfly Girl in the middle of that (McQueen) Glass Box show. I was sat on the front row, inbetween Alexandra Schulman and Gwyneth Paltrow. It was probably one of the best pieces of Fashion Theatre I have ever witnessed.”

Alexander McQueen later described his thoughts on the idea used during VOSS of forcing his audience to stare at their own reflection in the mirrored walls for over an hour: „Ha! I was really pleased about that. I was looking at it on the monitor, watching everyone trying not to look at themselves. It was a great thing to do in the fashion industry—turn it back on them! God, I’ve had some freaky shows.”

In Spring 2011, Michelle Olley was asked by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York to contribute to their Alexander McQueen exhibition, Savage Beauty. She was interviewed by The Met about VOSS for the audio guide to the show. Olley’s detailed diary/journal of modelling for McQueen – written between 18–27 September as the show was being planned and staged – was included in the Met Museum website coverage of the Savage Beauty exhibition. The VOSS diary relates details of the show and encounters with McQueen, ending with how Olley returned home after the show to find: „…a MASSIVE bouquet of flowers has arrived, with a note [from McQueen] saying, „Thank you for everything – you were beautiful! – Lee xxx” .

Accomplishments

Some of McQueen’s accomplishments included being one of the youngest designers to achieve the title „British Designer of the Year”, which he won four times between 1996 and 2003; he was also awarded the CBE and named International Designer of the Year by the Council of Fashion Designers in 2003.

December 2000 saw a new partnership for McQueen, with the Gucci Group’s acquiring 51% of his company and McQueen’s serving as Creative Director. Plans for expansion included the opening of stores in London, Milan, and New York, and the launch of his perfumes Kingdom and, most recently, My Queen. In 2005, McQueen collaborated with Puma to create a special line of trainers for the shoe brand. In 2006, he launched McQ, a younger, more renegade lower-priced line for men and women.

McQueen became the first designer to participate in MAC’s promotion of cosmetic releases created by fashion designers. The collection, McQueen, was released on 11 October 2007 and reflected the looks used on the Autumn/Winter McQueen catwalk. The inspiration for the collection was the 1963 Elizabeth Taylor movie Cleopatra, and thus the models sported intense blue, green, and teal eyes with strong black liner extended Egyptian-style. McQueen handpicked the makeup.

Company

McQueen boutique in London

By the end of 2007, Alexander McQueen had boutiques in London, New York, Los Angeles, Milan, and Las Vegas. Celebrity patrons, including Nicole Kidman, Penélope Cruz, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Rihanna, Monica Brown and J-pop queens, such as Ayumi Hamasaki, Namie Amuro, and Koda Kumi, have frequently been spotted wearing Alexander McQueen clothing to events. Björk, Ayumi Hamasaki and Lady Gaga have often incorporated Alexander McQueen pieces in their music videos.

Personal life

McQueen was openly gay and said he realized his sexual orientation when he was six years old. He told his family when he was 18 and, after a rocky period, they accepted his sexuality. He described coming out at a young age by saying, „I was sure of myself and my sexuality and I’ve got nothing to hide. I went straight from my mother’s womb onto the gay parade”.

In the summer of 2000, McQueen had a marriage ceremony with his partner George Forsyth, a documentary filmmaker, on a yacht in Ibiza. The marriage was not official, as same-sex marriage in Spain was not legal at that time. The relationship ended a year later, with McQueen and Forsyth maintaining a close friendship. McQueen was an avid scuba diver and used his passion as a source of inspiration in his designs, including spring 2010’s „Plato’s Atlantis”. Much of his diving was done around the Maldives.

Death and memorial

McQueen’s death was announced on the afternoon of 11 February 2010. In the morning, his housekeeper found him hanged at his home on Green Street, London W1. Paramedics were called and they pronounced him dead at the scene.

McQueen died nine days after his mother Joyce had died from cancer at the age of 75. David LaChapelle, a friend of the designer, said that McQueen „was doing a lot of drugs and was very unhappy” at the time of his death. McQueen’s death came just days before London Fashion Week, although he was not scheduled to appear there.

McQueen left a note saying, „Look after my dogs, sorry, I love you, Lee.” The Metropolitan Police stated that the note was not suspicious, but did not confirm that the death was a suicide. On 17 February 2010, Westminster Coroner’s Court was told that a post-mortem examination found that McQueen’s death was due to asphyxiation and hanging. The inquest was adjourned until 28 April 2010, where McQueen’s death was officially recorded as suicide. McQueen, who had been diagnosed with mixed anxiety and depressive disorder, took an overdose prior to hanging himself. He had taken drug overdoses in May and July 2009. Prior to hanging himself with his „favourite brown belt”, the inquest recorded that he had slashed his wrists with a ceremonial dagger and a meat cleaver. Coroner Dr Paul Knapman reported finding „a significant level of cocaine, sleeping pills, and tranquillizers in the blood samples taken after the designer’s death.”

On behalf of Lee McQueen’s family, Alexander McQueen [the company] today announces the tragic news that Lee McQueen, the founder and designer of the Alexander McQueen brand, has been found dead at his home. At this stage it is inappropriate to comment on this tragic news beyond saying that we are devastated and are sharing a sense of shock and grief with Lee’s family. Lee’s family has asked for privacy in order to come to terms with this terrible news and we hope the media will respect this — Alexander McQueen Office, Official Website, 11 February 2010.

Tributes

On 16 February 2010, pop musician and friend Lady Gaga performed an acoustic, jazz rendition of her hit single „Telephone” and segued into „Dance in the Dark” at the 2010 Brit Awards. During the performance, Gaga paid tribute to McQueen, by dedicating a song to him. She also commemorated McQueen after accepting her award for Best International Artist, Best International Female, and Best International Album. Gaga dedicated a song to him, titled „Fashion of His Love”, on the special edition of her third album, Born This Way.

Björk, wearing a McQueen outfit, sang her rendition of „Gloomy Sunday” at the memorial at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. Various other musicians, who were friends and collaborators with McQueen, commentated on his death, including Kanye West, Courtney Love, and Katy Perry.

In March 2010, celebrities including Naomi Campbell, Kate Moss and Annabelle Neilson, among others, paid visual tribute to McQueen by wearing his distinctive ‘manta’ dresses. The ‘manta’ dresses, inspired by a scuba-diving holiday McQueen took to the Maldives in 2009, came from McQueen’s ‘Plato’s Atlantis’ collection of Spring-Summer 2010 which was at the time currently available to purchase. ‘Manta’ dresses had been worn by celebrities such as Daphne Guinness, Noot Seear, Anna Paquin, and Lily Cole prior to his death, and following the announcement that he had died, remaining stocks sold out despite prices starting at £2,800.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City hosted a posthumous exhibition of McQueen’s work in 2011 titled Savage Beauty. The exhibition’s elaborate staging includes unique architectural finishes and soundtracks for each room. Despite being open for only three months, it was one of the most popular exhibitions in the museum’s history. The exhibition was so successful that Alexander McQueen fans and industry professionals worldwide began rallying at Change.org to „Please Make Alexander McQueen’s Savage Beauty a Traveling Exhibition” to bring honour to McQueen and see his vision become a reality: to share his work with the entire world. The exhibition then appeared in London’s Victoria & Albert Museum between 14 March and 2 August 2015. It sold over 480,000 tickets, making it the most popular show ever staged at that museum.

In 2012, McQueen was among the British cultural icons selected by artist Sir Peter Blake to appear in a new version of his most famous artwork – the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover – to celebrate the British cultural figures of his life that he most admires. McQueen is also given homage in the popular MMO World of Warcraft. There is an NPC dedicated to Alexander McQueen that is a Tailoring Trainer. This trainer is also the only one on the horde side that gives a special quest Cloth Scavenging.

In February 2015, on the fifth anniversary of McQueen’s death, a new play based on the designer was unveiled. ‘McQueen’, written by James Phillips, will be set over one night in London and follows a girl who breaks into the designer’s home to steal a dress and is caught by McQueen. The production takes inspiration from his imaginative runway shows and will be directed by John Caird. It has been described by McQueen’s sister Janet as ‘true to his spirit’. Stephen Wight and Dianna Agron will play the leading roles.

Final runway presentation

Alexander McQueen’s last appearance on a fashion show was in Plato’s Atlantis, presented during Paris Fashion Week on October 6, 2009. This Spring/Summer 2010 collection was inspired in the post-human manifesto featuring 46 full looks. The show began with a video of Raquel Zimmerman lying naked on sand with snakes on her body. McQueen installed 2 giant cameras in the catwalk that moved back and forth documenting the entire show and broadcasting it live on SHOWstudio. The inspiration for Plato’s Atlantis was nature and the post-human movement depicted by sea-reptile prints. The fashion show and the collection addresses Darwin’s evolution theories along with current global warming concerns. The fantasy collection, named after Plato’s island that sunk in the sea, forecasted a future in which humans had to evolve from earth to water to survive. The color scheme changed from green and brown to blue and acqua and the models had a strong androgynous touch as well as post-human. The prints also shifted from reptilian such as snakes to prints of water creatures such as jellyfish and stingrays. The collection’s final silhouettes gave the models marine features while the McQueen’s signature Armadillo shoe also transformed completely the form of the models’ anatomic foot. Plato’s Atlantis was yet another way in which McQueen joined fashion with technology.

Final show

Right before Alexander McQueen’s death, he had an eighty percent finished Autumn/Winter collection, 16 pieces, presented during Paris Fashion Week on 8 March 2010, to a select handful of fashion editors in a mirrored, gilded salon at the 18th-century Hôtel de Clermont-Tonnerre.

Fashion editors picked his final designs. Editors said the show was hard to watch because it showed how McQueen was obsessed with the afterlife. The clothes had a medieval and religious look. Basic colours that were repetitively used were red, gold and silver with detailed embroidery. His models were accessorised to show his love for theatrical imagery. „Each piece is unique, as was he”, McQueen’s fashion house said in a statement that was released with the collection.

After company owner Gucci confirmed that the brand would continue, McQueen’s long-term assistant Sarah Burton was named as the new creative director of Alexander McQueen in May 2010. In September 2010, Burton presented her first womenswear collection in Paris.

In Film

Jack O’Connell will play McQueen in an upcoming biographical film.

FOTO: LeeAlexander McQueen

Written by: Constantin Enache