In Conversation with Art & Culture – Details, episodes & analysis

Zsolt Bodoni is a Romanian artist, who experiments with a range of media in his paintings to create dimension. His latest venture are semi-transparent multi-layered works with light. In late 2021, his exhibition viewed in darkness at David Kovats London, introduced the artist to the UK. We were really excited to talk to him about his process, the evolution of his practice and what comes next.

Find Zsolt: https://davidkovats.com/artist/zsolt-bodoni/ https://www.instagram.com/zsoltbodonid/?hl=en https://davidkovats.com/artist/zsolt-bodoni/

Find Ksenia: https://www.instagram.com/essentialaspects/ https://kseniakazintseva.wixsite.com/fineart

Find us via: https://www.russianartandculture.com/ https://www.instagram.com/rusartculture/ https://twitter.com/RusArtCulture https://www.facebook.com/RusArtCulture/

Music by Alexandr Solodchenko

Irina is from Moscow and takes much of her creative inspiration from Russian cultural references that she discusses in this episode, especially film, art, and literature. Irina got her MA in graphic design at the Stroganov Academy of the Applied Arts, the alma mater of Rodchenko and Mayakovsky. She moved to Antwerp, Belgium to study Dutch and then to Moscow to work as a designer and art director at magazines such as Harper’s Bazaar and Empire. After 10 years in the industry, she took the leap in 2020 to set up her own business, a sustainable e-commerce brand called Kikina Designs aimed at Gen-Z and Russian culture lovers. On her website you can expect to find futurist manifestoes hand-painted on silk scarves, post-Soviet cult classic movie heroes on t-shirts, and silver age poetry on hoodies. In this episode, Irina describes her favourite Russian food, films, and literature with a passion that would make anyone want to eat, watch, and read all of the above.

Find Kikina designs here: https://irinakikina.com/ and here: https://www.instagram.com/kikina_designs/ Find Zviagintsev’s quote here: https://www.indiewire.com/2004/02/return-of-the-prodigal-father-andrey-zvyagintsev-talks-about-the-return-79164/ Find Pozner’s interview (in Russian) with Zviagintsev here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gS7oTyY__zs Find the film “I am Twenty” part 1 here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5NzS4h4MOg Find the film “I am Twenty” part 2 here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFmPXhadAHk Find the film “July Rain” here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohakjwIYkrE

Find us via: https://www.russianartandculture.com/ https://www.instagram.com/rusartculture/ https://twitter.com/RusArtCulture https://www.facebook.com/RusArtCulture/

The 4th episode of podcast “Talking music by Olga Jegunova” is about friendship. You may wonder why a podcast on classical music suddenly touches upon a relationship theme? Plato said that music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything. Indeed, music is about life as everything that we do and think, fear and dream, has already been expressed through music. Friendship amongst it, of course. Not to mention the recent Harvard research saying that happiness is all about successful relationships. Also, there are great examples of strong friendships in music, such as between Mozart and Haydn, Debussy and Satie, Brahms and Schumann, ravel and Gershwin, Mahler and Strauss. But today’s episode is fully dedicated to the main expert of friendship, a Roman philosopher Cicero.

In this episode we will discover theory, mystery and beauty of Indian Classical music. Freny Nina will be playing sitar while talking about Raga and Dhrupad - the most important genres of Indian Classical Music. Although so very diverse, Eastern and Western cultures are very similar as they touch upon same values such as meaning of music, its content and impact on the listener.

Guest - Freny Nina

Editor - Matylda Dymek

Photographer - Roman Drits

Visual designer - Christian Moehring

This episode is all about tempo in music. How to define and interpret it? Who decides on the tempo : composer or performer? Do we practise with or without metronome?  You will learn about 4 main ways how composers express their will and how subjective it can be.

Host: Olga Jegunova https://www.olgajegunova.com/

Editor: Matylda Dymek  Visual design: Christopher Moehring 

Music excerpts used in this episode:

F. Händel - Water music. Minuet. The English Bach Festival orchestra, Christopher Hirons

J.S.Bach - Aria from Goldberg variations. Glen Gould (1981)

J.S.Bach - Aria from Goldberg variations. Murray Perahia 

W. A. Mozart - Symphony No 41 in C major, Allegro vivace. Zubin Mehta & Wiener Philharmoniker

W.A.Mozart - Piano concerto No 21 in C major K.467. Vladimir Ashkenazy & Philharmonia orchestra 

S. Barber - Adagio for strings Op. 11. & Sergiù Celibidache & Munich Philharmonic Orchestra

This week Lara interviews PhD student Anoushka Alexander-Rose about her research on one of Russia’s most well-known émigré authors: Vladimir Nabokov. Anoushka is looking into the themes of Jewishness and antisemitism in Nabokov’s life and work and has an encyclopaedic knowledge of the subject. Tune in to learn more about the well-known author who has much more to him than his famous novel Lolita and find out Anoushka’s recommendations on Russian books you need to read!

Find Anoushka: https://twitter.com/AAlexanderRose?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

Find Lara: https://www.instagram.com/lolszowska/ https://uclpimedia.com/online/the-window-seat-st-petersburg

Find us via: https://www.russianartandculture.com/ https://www.instagram.com/rusartculture/ https://twitter.com/RusArtCulture https://www.facebook.com/RusArtCulture/

Music by Alexandr Solodchenko

This week Lara interviews Phil Cavendish of SSEES, UCL about Soviet and Russian film, though the conversation veers in wonderful directions, even leading to a comparison of Lady Gaga and Britney Spears. Tune in to hear why Phil thinks he could write an entire module on just one Tarkovsky film and why he hates Love Actually and Irony of Fate (one of Lara’s favourite Soviet films!). Phil also shares a number of talented filmmakers from Russia, Ukraine and East Europe that listeners are recommended to explore.

Find Phil: https://www.linkedin.com/in/phil-cavendish-2aa7518/?originalSubdomain=uk

Find Lara: https://www.instagram.com/lolszowska/ https://uclpimedia.com/online/the-window-seat-st-petersburg

Find us via: https://www.russianartandculture.com/ https://www.instagram.com/rusartculture/ https://twitter.com/RusArtCulture https://www.facebook.com/RusArtCulture/

Music by Alexandr Solodchenko

Interviewer: Olga Jegunova Editor: Matylda Dymek Visual design: Christopher Moehring

Find Vladimir: https://www.instagram.com/vladimir_jurowski/

Find Olga: https://www.olgajegunova.com/ https://www.instagram.com/olgajegunova/ https://www.facebook.com/olga.jegunova.9

Music excerpts used in this episode:

Introduction: A.Scriabin - Nocturne for the Left Hand (Leon Fleishner)

Interview: D.Schostakovich - Symphony No 6 (Russian National Orchestra & V.Jurowski) I.Stravinsky - Soldier’s tale (Boston Symphony Chamber Players) W.A.Mozart - Don Giovanni (MET opera, Stefan Kocan) G.Mahler "Das klagende Lied" op. 1 (London Philharmonc Orchestra & V.Jurowski) J.Massenet -Thais Meditation (Classic FM M-Tel Radio Symphony Orchestra - M.Vengerov & Luciano Di Martino) R.Wagner - Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg: Prelude (London Philharmonic Orchestra, The Glyndebourne Chorus & V.Jurowski) J.S.Bach - Air on the G String (Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin & V.Jurowski)

Tune in to this week’s episode of Kusochek to hear Lara interview Muscovite Denis Stolyarov, a PhD graduate of The Courtauld institute, London who is active in the contemporary art world and knows all there is to know about late Soviet and early post-Soviet artistic movements. Denis describes how he went from studying the London Victorians in Moscow to the Moscow Conceptualists in London and gives his optimistic predictions for the art world and creative production post-corona. Denis also gives a fantastic Russian recommendation for the week which could be talked about for an entire separate episode!

Find Denis: https://www.instagram.com/denis_stlr/

Find Lara: https://www.instagram.com/lolszowska/ https://uclpimedia.com/online/the-window-seat-st-petersburg

Find us via: https://www.russianartandculture.com/ https://www.instagram.com/rusartculture/ https://twitter.com/RusArtCulture https://www.facebook.com/RusArtCulture/

Music by Alexandr Solodchenko

This week Lara interviews Ieva Blazeviciute, a Lithuanian art director at Vice who has recently designed and published a photography book exploring the meaning of the label Post-Soviet and what this concept means to people from former Soviet states, not just Russia. Ieva discusses how her understanding of identity has been impacted by learning new languages, travelling abroad alone and witnessing the sudden trend in the West of adopting Soviet aesthetics. She shares the story behind her artwork and has a great recommendation for non-Russian speakers who want to experience some modern poetry of an authentic Russian soul.

Find Ieva on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ieva_blzvct/ And her illustrations etc. https://www.instagram.com/gloomy_business/ Find Ieva’s book here https://ievablzvct.bigcartel.com/product/post-soviet

Find Lara: https://www.instagram.com/lolszowska/ https://uclpimedia.com/online/the-window-seat-st-petersburg

Find us via: https://www.russianartandculture.com/ https://www.instagram.com/rusartculture/ https://twitter.com/RusArtCulture https://www.facebook.com/RusArtCulture/

Music by Alexandr Solodchenko