New Brodsky Fellows: A. Belyakov & A. Filippov

The Joseph Brodsky Memorial Fellowship Fund is pleased to announce their 2012 fellowships in poetry and the visual arts. The fellowship in poetry has been awarded to Alexander Belyakov and the fellowship in the visual arts has been awarded to Andrey Filippov. The fellowships will enable Mr. Belyakov and Mr. Filippov to spend the fall of 2012 in Rome, studying classical and contemporary Italian culture, developing their own projects, and conversing with artists and scholars from around the world.

The Brodsky Fund Fellowships were created by friends of the poet after his death to allow Russian writers and artists periods of work and study in Rome. It is funded by donations from the poet's friends and readers; donations are most gratefully received.

The Brodsky Fund also sponsors readings, salons, and other events to nourish to celebrate and study the presence of Russian arts around the world! 

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Alexander Belyakov was born in 1962 and graduated from Yaroslavl University Department of Mathematics in 1984. Belyakov worked as an software engineer, journalist, editor and as a head of the regional administration press office. He began publishing poems in 1988 and his first collection, Comfortlessness Ark, appeared in 1992. Belyakov is now the author of five poetry collections and numerous publications in major literary magazines in Russia, including Znamya, Druzhba narodov, Vozdukh, and others. Belyakov also translates poetry from English and his own poems have been translated into other languages, including Italian.

Andrey Filippov was born in 1959 in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsk, Russia, and graduated from the Moscow Art Theater School. He helped establish Russian conceptual art in the 1980s and 90s and, in 1987, became a member of Club of Avantgardists. In 2009, together with Yuri Albert and Victor Skersis, he founded the art group Сupid. He has had numerous solo exhibitions at galleries and museums in  Moscow, including the Stella Art Gallery, E.K. ArtBureau, Proekt Fabrika, and the Multimedia Art Museum. He has also had solo exhibitions in Germany and Greece. His work has been featured in group shows in Russia, Germany, Greece, Spain, Italy, and France. Filippov lives and works in Moscow.

http://www.safmuseum.org/exhibitions/297/

Joseph Brodsky was a Nobel Laureate in Literature and a distinguished poet and essayist in his native Russia, as well as his second home in the West. Shortly befor his death, in 1995, Joseph Brodsky conferred with the mayor of Rome about creating a "Russian Academy in Rome," where Russian artists and writers could revive the once vibrant Russian tradition of artistic pilgrimage to Italy. The Fund was established in 1996, soon after Brodsky’s death, by a group of his friends dedicated realizing his vision. In 2000, the Fund began sending poetry fellows to Rome and, in 2002, fellowships for visual artists were added. To date, the Fund has supported fellowships for more than twenty poets and visual artists. It partners with the American Academy in Rome, the University of Rome, and other sympathetic institutions to give the fellows a rich and nourishing home in Italy.

The Joseph Brodsky Memorial Fellowship Fund is a nonprofit organization supported by individual donors and independent foundations. Support for the fellowship in visual arts has been provided by the Trust for Mutual Understanding. Established in 1984, the Trust supports cultural and environmental exchanges conducted in partnership with institutions and individuals in Russia and Central and Eastern Europe. The Fund also receives support from the Mikhail Prokhorov Foundation, a private charity launched in 2004 by the businessman Mikhail Prokhorov. The Foundation’s priority is the support and development of new cultural institutions and initiatives in Russia, as well the promotion of Russian culture in the global intellectual community.