Three years ago he packed up the Arc de Triomphe as he had promised his uncle before he died in May 2020. Yes, because his uncle is Christo, who fled the communist Bulgaria of his youth, first to Paris then to New York, and became one of the greatest artists of the twentieth century, the man who packed up the Reichstag and the Pont Neuf. Now his grandson Vladimir Yavachev — who joined his uncles in New York at a very young age and has since always worked alongside them, until becoming project director of the Christo and Jeanne-Claude Foundation in Paris, where he now lives — aims to build a mastaba made of oil barrels in the Middle Eastern desert, a secular version of the funerary monument of the ancient Egyptians, to realize the extreme project of the visionary master of whom he was right-hand man and confidant until the end.
Right atChristo’s last temptation (of which at Art Basel, from 13 to 16 June in Basel, the Volkswagen Beetle wrapped in a tarpaulin held by strings is on display) the cover of Robinson on newsstands tomorrow. Where Vladimir Yavachev, to Raffaella De Santis who interviewed him, talks about his uncle, the great artist, his courage and obstinacy in making dreams come true.
«From him and his wife Jeanne-Claude I learned not to give up. This was their philosophy: to focus on one’s desires and commit oneself towards the goal without sparing oneself »she confesses. And she adds: «The thing I missed most in front of the wrapped Arco is turning around and hearing it say again: this is how it had to be, this is how I imagined it».
Not just Christo though. This week’s reading is a story by Andrew Sean Greer, Pulitzer Prize For Less in 2018, which talks about a father frightened by the past, a mother who is afraid of the abyss and a Martian childhood… Go and read why. As always, there are many reviews of the upcoming books. Here we anticipate that of Mariarosa Mancuso who read theautobiography of John Huston, An open book, returned to bookstores for The Ship of Theseus. While the author to be rediscovered is Piergiorgio Bellocchio in the portrait of Filippo La Porta.
On the pages TikTokSara Scarafia interview Rokia, young writer with 150 thousand copies: 24 years old, from Bergamo, daughter of a couple of Moroccan immigrants, she wears the veil and represents the challenge of the second generations. While Magazzini Salani brings her third book to the bookstore, Guilty. Drunk in lovealready a sales champion, Rokia tells her story to Robinson: difficult integration, writing to overcome pain and that teacher who changed her life. And also space for Heart Bones by Colleen Hooverstill on newsstands in the signed collector’s edition Robinson: a special reader who has one of Hoover’s titles tattooed on her arm, Eleonora Pasanisi, tells us@eleobooktok.
In the pages dedicated to the kids the protagonist is British writer and literary scout Natasha Farrant on the occasion of the arrival in Italy of his latest novel Our house with a wooden heart. Where we find the themes dear to her such as nature, adventure, friendship, unconventional families and the discovery of the beauty of the planet that must be preserved. Because, as this energetic and brilliant author told us during her recent trip to our country “hunting for books”, “all together we can save the world”.
This week we also celebrate the big return of a king of comics: Frank Miller. That is, the one who made the world of American superheroes become an adult, who confesses his debt to Italian comics to Luca Valtorta. Another interview, that of Arianna Finos a Ficarra and Piconefor the shows while Straparlando is with Carlo Alberto Pinelli.
In art we instead go with Antonio Rocca al Poldi Pezzoli of Milan which brings together for the first time the Augustinian polyptych by Piero della Francesca dismembered since the 16th century. Finally, among the festivals we propose Eyeland-The Island of the Arts, which tells of the rebirth of Taranto through the valorization of art in all its expressions and has entrusted to Italian-Australian photographer Lisa Sorgini the task of remembering with images the “Mothers of Courage” of the Tamburi district.
