January 5 – Happy Birthday, Nikolay Polissky

nBorn on this date in 1957 in Moscow (then the capital of the Soviet Union, now the capital of Russia), Nikolay Polissky has a lot of land on which he can create his enormous art projects. After all, Russia is the largest nation in the world, and quite a lot of it is “rural” rather than crowded cities.
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This population density map of Russia shows how much land is only thinly settled!

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nPolissky creates handcrafted structures using the area’s residents and local materials – everything from tree trunks and branches to wooden tables! Everywhere he creates one of his monumental works, he reactivates a village that had been slowly shrinking – at least for a while transforming the region into a place where artists and visitors want to go.

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Note that Polissky uses local folks to help build his huge sculptures.

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nAlso, Polissky’s work has become a part of the largest land-art festival in Russia, a festival called Archstoryanie.

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nLand art is defined as art that is made in the landscape, by either sculpting the land itself or by making structures on the land using natural materials from that land. If you carve a marble statue in your artist’s studio and then have it erected in a particular landscape – that’s a sculpture, sure; it’s art, of course; but it’s not land art.

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nAnyway, Polissky’s pieces ARE land art! Enjoy!

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nThis article has loads more very interesting photos of Polissky’s works.

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nAlso on this date:

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nBirthday of musician / composer Elizabeth Neville Cotten

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nAnniversary of the start of construction of the Golden Gate Bridge

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nBird Day

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nInventor King Camp Gillette’s birthday

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nBirthday of actress January Jones

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