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“When Biology Meets Ideology“ - A new book reopens a notorious case of bungled science in the Soviet Union.

Digital collage by Ignacio Cobo

“Your Cup is Full”. Study for a Minoan cylinder seal impression*, 2012/2017

Acrylics on prepaped paper, 13.7 x 18.5 cm

Last month I had a dream involving an old memory exercise – the blind study of an ancient Minoan cylinder seal impression painted back in 2012.

In my dream I return to the studio after a walk and realize I have a guest: someone is shuffling through drawings in complete darkness! I switch the light on and find myself standing in the middle of a subterranean place of worship. In front of me there’s a Persian girl examining my drawings scattered on the floor among oddly shaped (votive?) coins and gemstones. After a while she pulls this old sheet of studies, nods thoughtfully and cuts the seal impression out of it with scissors. She inspects the painting again before producing a qalam from the folds of her colourful hide and writing something just above the grotesque griffin figure. She then hands the sheet over to me with a lovely smile. To my surprise the tiny piece of paper weighs like an apple; the Farsi calligraphy reads “Your cup is full”. I reach out to touch the writing but my hand meets with an obstacle - there’s an invisible object sitting on the surface of the study!

Upon awakening I promptly pulled the sheet from the heap, cut out the impression, brought it as close to the dream version as I could and added the gilded calligraphy. Now haunted by the memory of the invisible object I can’t help touching the writing every now and then fully expecting the phantom barrier to block my finger.

The Cherub motif, 2017

Dream of the Monkey Lathe, 2017-18

Acrylics on prepared paper mounted on cardboard, 15 x 28 cm

Miniature decorative motif (illustration for Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri/Purgatory, Canto 32), 2017

Acrylics on card, 11.4 x 11.4 cm

***

130   Then the ground, it seemed to me, opened up          Between the two wheels, and I saw a dragon          Come out and dash its tail up through the carriage;

         And, as a wasp retracts its sting, it drew          Its poisoned tail back to itself, tore out 135    Part of the floor, and gloating wandered off.

         What was left was covered once again —          As fertile land with grasses — with the feathers,          Offered perhaps with true and kind intention.

         Both one wheel and the other and the pole-shaft 140    Were once more covered with them in less time          Than it would take the mouth to heave a sigh.

         Transformed in this way, the sacred structure          Sprouted heads upon its different parts,          Three on the pole and one each at the corners.

145    The three were horned like oxen, but the four          Had just a single horn upon their foreheads:          Never was seen a monster like that rig!

         Seated there securely, like a fortress          On a steep hill, a whore appeared to me, 150    Ungirt, with eyes agog to rove about.

         And I saw standing by her side a giant,          As if he watched that no one take her from him,          And they, time after time, kissed one another.

         But when she turned her lustful, roving eyes 155    On me, then that ferocious paramour          Beat her unmercifully from head to foot.

         Then filled with jealousy and fierce with rage,          He tore the monster loose, and dragged it off          So far through the woods that just the trees

160    Screened me from the whore and that strange beast.