Today’s session of the GABFEST Club (Window on America center Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine) started
unexpectedly – with the arrival of a surprise guest from Germany. Kristin
is a volunteer at the local Lutheran church; she teaches German to children and
arranges German-speaking events for them. Our German guest is very fluent in English,
so we spent the first part of the session talking to her.
In spite of the young age Kristine has
travelled the world extensively with her family and for English studies. She
shared with us her experiences in the UK, USA and Malta. She visited these
countries as a high school student through different exchange programs. Her stories
revealed some stunning facts about how the exchange programs work. The Club
members recommended unusual places to visit and food to try in Dnipropetrovsk
and the area. Our guest is a charismatic person and we would like to meet her
once again before her service term expires.
The official topic of the session was “Anniversary of the LEVI’s jeans”. This
year on May, 20 the iconic brand of America
marks its 140th
anniversary. We have watched several videos from the Levi’s You Tube channel – about
the biography of the founder Levi
Strauss, the history of the brand, about the service of made-to-order
jeans, etc. We have read and translated the article explaining basic jeans
terms. The highlight of the session was a mini jeans parade performed by the Club members in jeans.
The session allowed both newcomers and regular
members to practice several language skills.
Number of participants – 15 persons.
After studying in Kiev, in 1908 Archipenko
briefly attended the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, but he quickly abandoned
formal studies to become part of more radical circles, especially the Cubist
movement. He began to explore the interplay
between interlocking voids and solids and between convex and concave surfaces,
forming a sculptural equivalent to
Cubist paintings’ overlapping planes and, in the process, revolutionizing modern sculpture. As he developed his style,
Archipenko achieved an incredible sense of vitality out of minimal means: in
works such as Boxing Match (1913), he conveyed the raw,
brutal energy of the sport in nonrepresentational, machinelike cubic and ovoid
forms. About 1912, inspired by the Cubist collages by other artists Archipenko
introduced the concept of collage in sculpture
in his famous Medrano series, depictions of circus figures
in multicolored glass, wood, and metal that defy traditional use of materials
and definitions of sculpture. During
that same period he further defied tradition in his “sculpto-paintings,” works in which he introduced painted color to
the intersecting planes of his sculpture. He worked as an art teacher for the
rest of his life in New York City. 
