Ian Bunn | Political & Popular Culture Arts

No right to interfere in our private lives (February 12 2013)Svetlana Lunkina the 33 year old Russian Bolshoi principal ballerina having trained under the great Soviet ballerina Ekaterina Maximova under whose leadership at 18 years of age she became the youngest dancer in the history of the company to perform the title role in Giselle. Lunkina is the subject of an article published in the Independent by Matilda Battersby titled ‘Bolshoi ballerina Svetlana Lunkina says she’s been driven from Russia by ‘threats’’, following the acid attack on artistic director Sergei Filin two weeks ago, and general director Anatoly Iksanov stating that ‘evil’ has entered the company. Battersby states “…the company’s top ballerina [Lunkina] has revealed she has moved to Canada in response to unspecified “threats”. …Lunkina has left Russia claiming that threats had been made towards herself and her film producer husband. Lunkina… told Russian newspaper Izvestia: “I think we need to react to these threats. These people have no right to interfere in our private lives or my professional work.” The 33-year-old dancer’s unspecified allegations suggest that the threats were made in connection with a film project involving her husband. She had been due to perform in Stravinksy’s The Rite of Spring later this year. “I was supposed to be doing a lot of interesting work, including several premieres,” she said. While believed to be unconnected the news of Lunkina’s departure from Russia comes at a dark time for the Bolshoi after its well-liked artistic director Sergei Filin, 42, was brutally attacked in Moscow on 17 January. A masked man threw sulphuric acid in his face as Filin was returning home after a party.

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Jordi Ruiz Cirera the 28 year old Spanish documentary photographer based in London has won the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 2012 for his photograph of ‘Bolivian woman who (only reluctantly) agreed to have her portrait taken’. Matilda Battersby for The Independent states “He won the trust of the Mennonite woman while journeying through South America. The winning portrait is part of a series called Menonos, in which Ruiz Cirera documents the daily life of a religious community. Margarita Teichroeb is pictured at the home she shares with her mother and sister in the Swift Current Colony in Bolivia.”Sitting in front of the camera was not easy for Margarita, photography is forbidden for Mennonites and having her direct portrait taken was quite difficult so I could only take two frames of her,” Ruiz Cirera said. “She seems to be afraid of the photographer, unwilling to expose herself to our gaze. Her awkward expression says a lot about the tradition, isolation and lifestyle of this community.” More than 50,000 Mennonites live in Bolivia, descendants of Christian Anabaptists who left Germany in the sixteenth century. Famously reclusive, the pacifist sect still speaks Low German and their society prohibits the use of cars and electricity. “It’s a very humble existence. They live as their ancestors did, in small, conservative communities devoted to God and sustained by hard work in the fields. Mennonite society is very patriarchal and gender roles are strict,” Ruiz Cirera said. Born in Spain, Ruiz Cirera studied Design at Elisava College, Barcelona, before moving to the UK and gaining an MA in Photojournalism and Documentary Photography at the London College of Communication.”

Inspired by Matilda Battersby ow.ly/fuEqq image source Twitter ow.ly/fuEj9

Celia Paul the 53 year old British Indian painter who she was taught by Lucian Freud, becoming his muse and having his child named Frank Paul, who is also an artist.  In an interview with Matilda Battersby for The Independent Paul speaks about the effect their relationship had on her own work. Battersby states “Lucian Freud said it was “like walking into a honey pot” when he first saw Celia Paul’s paintings. What Paul, who met Freud as her tutor at the Slade in 1978, didn’t realise then, but laughs wryly at now, is that the sweet thing he was taken with was her 18-year-old self, as much as her artwork. “I really didn’t know anything about his womanising,” Paul says. “I didn’t realise how predatory he was.” She later discovered that he’d taken the job as visiting tutor at the famous London art school because his relationship at the time was going wrong and “he wanted to find a new girlfriend”. The teenage Paul was caught in Freud’s spell; and a potent one it proved. …”I was really quite disturbed by his predatoriness. It felt quite complicated, because obviously I was compelled by his art, which I admired so much.” But the 55-year-old Freud, whose mesmerising qualities had at that point already earned him 13 acknowledged children, won Paul over. It took several months for them to become lovers, and two years for Freud to paint Paul. But she would become a significant muse for him in the early 1980s.”

Inspired by Matilda Battersby ow.ly/fmFrE image source Cassone ow.ly/fmFk0

Thierry Guetta the 46 year old French American Los Angeles based filmmaker and street artist known as Mr. Brainwash has been profiled by Matilda Battersby for the Independent in an article titled ‘Mr Brainwash: Banksy’s street-art protégé and his latest brainwave – The master of hype arrives in London for a blockbuster new show’. Battersby states “…when we met last month Mr Brainwash told me he still had no idea what to do with the 120,000ft space [the Old Sorting Office] and isn’t anywhere near finishing the work for it. He has the blind optimism of a child, and is convinced it will come together magically. …He propels himself through the conversation like a Duracell Bunny on steroids, wearing paint-spattered jeans and hoodie. His legs jiggle, his arms flap, he jumps up and down and uses his hands to draw in the air. He’s often been accused of being a fake. But after spending an hour in his company I’m astonished to find myself thinking he’s anything but: kooky, yes; scarily energetic, too; but endearing and bubbling over with vim. If this is an act then he deserves that Oscar. …he says: “I take everything seriously and I do everything with my heart. So when I got the chance of doing something I was like a mental patient who finally got to see a shrink. I vomited out everything I had inside.” … His signature style pitches somewhere between Banksy’s black and white stencils and Andy Warhol’s colourful prints. He draws straight on walls or prints computerized images onto large sheets of paper and pastes them up in separate pieces. It is a technique he learned while following Fairey and his work is now almost as ubiquitous in LA as Fairey’s own.”

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