VIENNA - BELGRADE - NEW YORK - MOSCOW - VIENNA

... that's a short-circuit of the other kind, really really is. Let's tackle things and be very precise and meticulous: since I'm currently in New York City, the wonderful wonderful Big Apple, I thought I might just as well check out the ever-so special and ever-so acclaimed and ever-so much lauded Austrian Cultural Forum.

Albert Leitner, "Photographic Notes", installation view (left) and my BB

Current exhibition: Serbia - Frequently Asked Questions. Quite an interesting title, indeed, and how good to know that at least abroad and where cultural affairs are concerned, Austrians show off their MITTELEUROPA-centered multi-culti spirituality blah.

Albert Leitner, "Photographic notes", installation view

Some of the works that caught my eye in this not infinitely extensive show were Paul Albert Leitner's "photographic notes" from Belgrade, Novi Sad (wasn't Monica Seles born there?), Austria and the US.

Albert Leitner, "Photographic Notes", installation view (left) and my BB

To keep things slavic, you'll say, I went to Brighton Beach the next day, and I will never get tired of saying it: I positively love, heart, and adore Brighton Beach. I mean, knowing that you're in NYC and feeling as if you are in a strange kind of bubble and being able to buy your Russian calendar for 2011 all at the same time never ever ever ceases to amaze me. I took some crappy images and was daring and pretentious and presumptuous enough to show two of them alongside Mr Leitner's images.

Scandal in Vienna!

And, pour boucler la boucle, I bought an international edition of АРГУМЕНТЫ И ФАКТЫ for the week until October 19, and on the cover, some hot shit from Vienna - "Scandal in Vienna, our prima ballerina fired from the National State Opera". A little blown-up, maybe (the actual "article" on page 27 is a tiny little note three times smaller than the image on the cover), and as we know by now - Mrs Sarkissova will be able to start working again regardless of all the bare skin she previously exposed.

But so much Vienna, Moscow, New York and Belgrade so close together could really make one think that the world is all too small a place. But then one would realize that it's all about New York, really, and that in New York everything (and more) is always possible ...