Exhibit announcement

[Anne O'Brien Fisher]

Dear SEELANGers,

I would like to pass on an announcement for an exhibit of Il'ia Il'f's
photographs currently being held at the University of Michigan. Interested
parties who are in the area please note that as part of the exhibit
project there will be presentations by Anne Fisher and Vadim Besprozvany,
a lecture and slide show by Erika Wolf, and a lecture and slide show by
Il'f's daughter Aleksandra Il'f, all to be held on Tuesday and Wednesday,
Feb. 22 - 23.

Thank you.


The University of Michigan campus is hosting the exhibit "Soviet Writers,
American Images: Il'f and Petrov Tour the United States, 1935-1936" and a
series of lectures devoted to Il'ia Il'f and Evgenii Petrov's American
travel narratives. The popular Soviet writers were sent as correspondents
for Pravda to tour America and report to the Soviet public on their
impressions. They obtained a guide, bought a Ford, and drove from New York
to California and back, Il'f snapping hundreds of amateur photographs
along the way. The result was "Amerikanskie fotografii" ("American
Photographs"), an extended photo-essay published in 1936, which the
co-authors reworked and expanded in 1937 into a book without photographs,
Odnoetazhnaia Amerika (One-Story America). The project "Soviet Writers,
American Images: Il'f and Petrov Tour the United States, 1935-1936" brings
together Vadim Besprozvanny and Anne Fisher, Doctor Erika Wolf, and Il'ia
Il'f's daughter, Aleksandra Il'f, to present their work on Il'f and
Petrov's two American travelogues. The exhibit and lectures explore the
interplay of the co-authors' verbal and visual images of America and
invite audiences to reflect on the America of 2005 by presenting the
America of 1935 as Il'f and Petrov saw it.

The exhibit "Soviet Writers, American Images: Il'f and Petrov Tour the
United States, 1935-1936" runs until February 25, 2005, in the
International Institute Gallery, Ground Floor of the School of Social Work
Building, 1080 South University Avenue, Ann Arbor.

There will be a lecture and slide show by Erika Wolf on Tuesday, February
22, from 12 to 2 pm in the Institute for the Humanities Osterman Common
Room, 0520 Rackham Building, 915 East Washington, Ann Arbor.

On Wednesday, February 23, Besprozvanny and Fisher will lecture at 4:30 pm
in 1636 International Institute, School of Social Work Building, to be
followed by Il'f's slide show and lecture at 5:00 pm in the same location.

After a short question-and-answer session following Ms. Il'f's
presentation, all are invited to the International Institute Gallery for a
reception.

All events take place on the University of Michigan campus in Ann Arbor.
University of Michigan support has come from the Institute for the
Humanities, the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, the
International Institute, and the Center for Russian and East European
Studies. For more information call (734) 883-4172 or email aof at umich.edu.



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H. L. Mencken, commenting on Warren Harding's writing, called it
"the worst English that I have ever encountered. It reminds me of a
string of wet sponges; it reminds me of tattered washing on the line;
it reminds me of stale bean-soup, of college yells, of dogs barking
idiotically through endless nights. It is so bad that a sort of
grandeur creeps into it."

- Quoted in John M. Hamilton, _Casanova Was a Book Lover_

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Anne Fisher
Ph.D. Candidate, University of Michigan Slavic Department
Sylvia "Duffy" Engle Graduate Student Fellow, University of Michigan
Institute for the Humanities
work tel: 734-936-1865
aof at umich.edu

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