Alina Bliumis, CARRYING THE WEIGHT, WAR LANDSCAPES, Wilbees, Andes NY August 7 -29, 2021

THE CLOUDY SKY
J.B. Bovina September 17th, 1845

THE MORNING OF FREEDOM! ROSE BRIGHT TO THE VIEW -
THE DAWNING EFFULGENCE OF LIBERTY’S BEAMS,
HER BANNERS VICTORIOUS, TRIUMPHANTLY FLEW
O’ER DELAWARES MOUNTAINS, HER FOREST AND STREAMS.

THE TYRANT, PATROONERY, RUSH’D ON TO HIS END,
DETESTING THE GLANCE OF HER SLAVE FREEING RAY-
THE BOARDERS BY FREEDOM BEGAN TO EXTEND,
AND DARKNESS GAVE PLACE TO THE DAWNING OF DAY.

THOUGH BRIGHT BE THE MORNING, UNCLOUDED THE SKIES,
UNDARKEN’D THE SUN, AND UNTARNISHED THE AIR -
HOW SOON CAN THE MOST OF THE MORNING ARISE,
AND DARKEN THOSE GLORIES WHICH OPENED SO FAIR.

THE MORNING OF FREEDOM! IS DIM’D WITH A CLOUD -
A FOG FROM THE PASSIONS OF MEN IS EXHALED;
HER GLORIOUS EFFULGES IS WRAPPED IN A SHROUD -
HER RADIANCE AT PRESENT IS PARTIALLY VEIL’D.

O’FOOLS! TO IMAGINE DESTRUCTION AND BLOOD
COULD BRIGHTEN THE BLOOM ON LIBERTY’S TREE;
THE VOTE OF THE FREEMAN! THE POWER UNSUBDUED,
NOW ONLY FURTHER THE CAUSE OF THE FREE.

Opens on the 176th anniversary of the most significant anti-rent war event in Delaware County, NY; the shooting of Osman “Bud” Steele at the Moses Earl Farm. The anti-rent war was fought in opposition to oppressive Landlords who represented a small group of wealthy families who leased land to tenant farmers. On August 7 1845, Anti-Renters gathered at the farm of Moses Earl about a mile and a half southeast of the town of Andes. They had heard that Earle’s cattle were to be sold for non-payment of rents and were determined to convince the posse otherwise. Steele was killed and the “War” moved into the judicial arena of the Delaware County Courts.

Alina Bliumis (born in Belarus, lives and work in NYC and Andes, NY) is presenting the watercolor-on-linen series: Carrying the Weight, War Landscapes - a gaze upon the dreamy wild fields of the Catskills mountains around her studio in Andes, the florid orange sunrise floods warm light over the Berezina River of her birth place in Belarus - or a palette of green meadows framing the shallow red-colored waters of the Rubicon River (south of Ravenna, Italy); all locations based on their historical, semiotic or metaphorical significance.

There is no visual reference to the dramatic historical events that took place in these landscapes of war’s past: no anti-rent rebellious farmers disguised as Calico Indians, no armies gathering under the direction of Napoleon or Caesar, no horses, no warships, no guns. No traces of the ravages of war, only the voice of the majestic stillness left after destruction. The geographical names allude to a historical event and signify a personal battle: crossing personal Rubicons-a point of no return, meeting one’s own Waterloo - an encounter with one’s ultimate obstacle, inevitable defeat at Austerlitz - facing gloom and “c’est la Bérézina” (translation: a serious failure).

RADICAL RURAL SOCIALISM: THE ANTI-RENT WAR talk by Jennifer Kabat, AUGUST 14, 4-5PM
As part of Andes Community Day on the Anti-Rent War. It was a time when our community was the most radical (and most violent) group in the US in an age of rage and radical reconsidering what the US could be. It’s a time remarkably like our own— if at opposite intentions. The uprising was fought across parts of Delaware County and took place in part, in my town, on my road, on my land…. I’ll talk about digging into the war's foundations in literal foundations and ruins where I live. Plus, the Anti-Rent War’s ties to other left/socialist/utopian movements from the 17th century up. (Let’s hear it for the Diggers…) Andes Community Day celebrates the shooting and death of undersheriff Osman Steele. It was the bloody apex of the Anti-Rent War, and afterwards, the governor declared Delaware County in a state of insurrection. The militia was called out and a grand jury sat for a month meeting every day but Sunday. The Anti-Rent War, which is little known had an outsized impact on the country. It led to the Homestead Act.

Jennifer Kabat’s essays have appeared in Granta, Harper’s, Frieze, The Believer, Virginia Quarterly Review and The White Review. A finalist for Notting Hill Editions’ Essay Prize, she teaches at NYU and the New School and was awarded a Creative Capital/Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant for her criticism. Her writing has been included in exhibitions at Arnfolfini (Bristol, UK), Index (Stockholm Sweden) and The Poor Farm (Little Wolf, WI), where her ongoing collaboration with the artist Kate Newby was featured in the summer of 2016. She is a founding editor of the essay site The Weeklings and is currently working on a book of linked essays, GROWING UP MODERN, exploring civic values from the modernist suburb where she grew up to where she lives now in the Catskill Mountains.
https://www.jenniferkabat.com

Alina Bliumis CARRYING THE WEIGHT, WAR LANDSCAPES curated by Sozita Goudouna The Opening Gallery, 42 Walker St. NYC July 13 - September 10, 2022

Carrying the Weight, War Landscapes is a series of watercolor-on-linen landscapes. The locations were selected based on their historical significance and metaphorical representation in contemporary culture.

Each landscape immerses the viewer in tranquil scenery: a palette of green meadows frames the shallow red waters of the Rubicon River, just south of Ravenna, Italy; a starry night shines into the sea north of Tsushima Island  in Japan; a cool and ghostly morning mist fills a Waterloo field in Belgium; a florid orange sunrise floods warm light over the Berezina River in Belarus; the midday sun sends its beams over the rocky Golgotha hill near Jerusalem, Israel; a golden hour brings magical light to the sky over field-lines of Austerlitz in Slavkov u Brna, Czechia; Mannahatta blooms with foliage and dramatic pink clouds hang over Mahicantuck, on the Hudson River; and the dreamy landscapes of Andes lie still in the Catskills region in upstate New York.

No visual trace remains of the dramatic historical events that took place against these backdrops: no Caesar or Napoleon with armies in tow, no horses or warships, no crucifixions; no ravages of war, nor signs of revolt. Only the place-names call to mind these histories, inviting the viewer to imagine their personal battles in place of the old. One thinks of crossing a real-life Rubicon, or point of no return; of an encounter with one’s ultimate obstacle—a Waterloo, of sorts; of feeling unavoidably defeated, as if in the gloom at Austerlitz; of failure— “c’est la Bérézina,” one might cry in French; of an occasion of great suffering figured as Golgotha, or of a battle with the ghosts of memory, animated in Tsushima.

The Lenape people inhabited the land on which I work for thousands of years before the European settlers arrived. They named their island home “Mannahatta,” meaning “Island of Many Hills.” We use the term “Mannahatta” to refer to the island as it was in 1609, and “Manhattan” to refer to the metropolis of today.  The river we call the “Hudson,” the Lenape knew as “Mahicantuck,” meaning “river that flows two ways.” 

Behind the four landscapes of Andes, NY (where my studio is located), there is the story of the Anti-Rent War of 1839–1845, a collective revolt of farmers who resisted tax collectors and successfully demanded land reform.