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Saved by Beauty: Dostoevsky in New York

The Sheen Center for Thought and Culture in New York City is hosting an exhibit dedicated to the great Russian writer

New York City, April 5, 2022

After all… Dostoevsky belongs in New York!

CATALOGUE (PDF)

The Sheen Center for Thought and Culture in New York City is hosting an exhibit titled “Saved by Beauty: Dostoevsky in New York”. It is a visiual tribute to the 200th anniversary of the birth of Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-2021) and will last March 18 – April 30, 2022.

Having toured Greece and making its New York premiere at The Sheen Center, this exhibit spans two floors and gives visual expression to characters and existential and moral themes from the novels of Fyodor Dostoevsky through a variety of painting styles by 15 artists. Exhibit is featured at the New, Janet Hennessey Dilenschneider Gallery, and it is presented in collaboration with the Greek Orthodox Archdicese of America and St. Sebastian Press of the Western American Diocese, Serbian Orthodox Church.

These beautiful paintings are now welcome in New York, a city that exemplifies in many ways the extreme contradictions and creative struggles that Dostoevsky successfully described in his writings.

The exhibit features art by the Ochre Group: Fr. Stamatis Skliris, George Kordis, Bishop Maxim Vasiljevic, Babis Pylarinos, Costas Lavdas, Maria Panou, Giannoulis Lymperopoulos, Nektarios Mamais, Fotis Varthis, Konstantinos Kougioumtzis, Christos Kechagioglis, Nektarios Stamatelos, Despina Karantani, George Margaritis, Christina Papatheou-Douligeri. And they are all members of the visual group “OCHRE.”

“OCHRE” is an informal group of painters, who have contributed to the traditional Orthodox iconography but at the same time are in dialogue with the modern artistic trends.

On April 5, a special presentation on the new international art installation was held at the Loreto Theater, 18 Bleeker Street.

In his remarks, read by Archimandrite Nektarios, the Greek Archbishop Elpidophoros said that the title of today’s exhibition uses the past tense to speak of the action of beauty “Saved by Beauty”, however Dostoevsky prefers the future. “Beauty will save the world.” By coming to this Opening tonight, we want to acknowledge the transformative action that beauty and art has had over the world. “Meanwhile, Dostoevsky’s own words resonate like a promise to be fulfilled. The work of beauty as an icon of God’s presence in the world is not over. It has barely started,” concluded the Archbishop.

Bishop Maxim pointed out that the paintings on the walls of the gallery at the Sheen Center show Dostoevsky, a man, dressed in flesh and blood, who lives, suffers, falls, and rises. At the same time, these paintings are a result of a “non-Euclidean” reading of that reality. Fyodor creates art or beauty by confessing what is in his soul, hence its astonishing persuasiveness.

Prof. George Kordis spoke about the attempt of “Ochre” group: “We as artists believe that this artistic language, the Byzantine painting system, has elaborated and has developed for centuries in order for the ethos and the spirit of the ecclesiastical life to be properly render in visual terms. For that reason, we believe that this language can serve the needs for expression of contemporary artists who are looking for a vehicle for expressing their spiritual inquiries.”

The exhibit is characterized by great pluralism. It hosts various currents and artistic trends, which are in a harmonious dialogue with each other. One sees Byzantine elements conversing with impressionist, expressionist, cubist, abstract, as well as features of street art, graffiti, etc. The works emit a deep study and understanding of Dostoevsky’s novels. It is very important that the painters have so seriously studied the great writer and philosopher at a time when electronic images and soap operas distract readers from great and essential works and wider Literature.

The presentation is immediately followed by a reception at the second floor of the Sheen Center.

Given the horrors of the war in the Ukraine, this exhibition reminds the world of its spiritual and cultural inheritance received from the likes of one great Fyodor Dostoyevsky. May it be a blessing to us all!

Read the remarks of Archbishop Elpidophoros, Bishop Maxim and Prof. George Kordis.

Source: Serbian Orthodox Diocese of Western America


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Slavoljub Slavko Vorkapić

Slavoljub Slavko Vorkapić (Serbian Cyrillic: Славољуб Славко Воркапић; March 17, 1894 – October 20, 1976), known in English as Slavko Vorkapich, was a Serbian-American film director and editor, former Chair of USC Film School, painter, and a prominent figure of modern cinematography and film art.

Slavoljub Vorkapić was born on March 17, 1894, in the small village of Dobrinci near Ruma in the Syrmia region, at the time part of the Kingdom of Croatia and Slavonia of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (now Serbia). His father Petar, the town clerk, insisted that young Slavko should be well-educated.

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Notes On Ecumenism

Written in 1972 by St. Abba Justin Popovich, edited by Bishop Athanasius Yevtich, translated from Serbian by Aleksandra Stojanovich, and proofread by Fr Miroljub Ruzich

Abba Justin’s manuscript legacy (on which Bishop Athanasius have been working for a couple of years preparing an edition of The Complete Works ), also includes a parcel of sheets/small sheets of paper (in the 1/4 A4 size) with the notes on Ecumenism (written in pencil and dating from the period when he was working on his book “The Orthodox Church and Ecumenism”; there are also references to the writings of St. Bishop Nikolai [Velimirovich], short excerpts copied from his Sermons, some of which were quoted in the book).

The editor presents the Notes authentically, as he has found them in the manuscripts (his words inserted in the text, as clarification, are put between the slashes /…/; all the footnotes are ours).—In the appendix are present the facsimiles of the majority of Abba’s Notes which were supposed to be included in his book On Ecumenism (written in haste then, but now significantly supplemented with these Notes. The Notes make evident the full extent of Justin’s profundity as a theologian and ecclesiologist of the authentic Orthodoxy).—The real Justin is present in these Notes: by his original language, style, literature, polemics, philosophy, theology, and above all by his confession of the God-man Christ and His Church. He confesses his faith, tradition, experience and his perspective on man, on the world and on Europe—invariably in the Church and from the Church, in the God-man Christ and from Him, just as he did in all of his writings and in his entire life and theologizing.