All posts tagged: prodigy

New Film About a Viral Finger Painting Prodigy Skewers the Art World’s Cruel Optimism

New Film About a Viral Finger Painting Prodigy Skewers the Art World’s Cruel Optimism

Published by José Betancourt

A Canadian curator and sad dad is working for a Quebecois collector in Nina Roza, a film that premiered this week at Berlinale. His rich boss is doomscrolling and stops on a viral video that shows a child prodigy finger painting in a Bulgarian barn. Her abstractions, she explains to the camera, depict the cosmos; anyone who sees them as mere paint, she says, is “dumb.” The wealthy collector shares the video with his personal curator, giddy with glee and declaring that he wants to buy one of her paintings. Our depressed curator is instantly dismissive, quipping that you simply cannot trust Bulgarians. They are so poor, he says, that they have no choice but to scam. He strongly advises getting her paintings authenticated before paying a dime; the video proves nothing. What does this Canadian curator have against Bulgarians? The film tells a story of man versus self. It turns out that the curator is a self-hating Bulgarian immigrant who hasn’t been back home in 28 years. Born Mihail but known in Canada as …

Figure-skating-Once a child prodigy, Canada’s Gogolev makes memorable Games debut

Figure-skating-Once a child prodigy, Canada’s Gogolev makes memorable Games debut

Published by Sam Flores

MILAN, Feb 7 : Canada’s Stephen Gogolev made a memorable Olympic debut with a third-place finish in the men’s short programme of the Milano Cortina team event — a moment that once felt far from guaranteed during years of injuries after a major growth spurt. The 21-year-old, dressed in suit and tie and skating to music from “Mugzy’s Move” by American swing band Royal Crown Revue, landed two gorgeous quadruple jumps to finish third behind Japan’s Yuma Kagiyama and Ilia Malinin of the U.S. Gogolev’s long-awaited Olympic debut comes after he had considered walking away from the sport. “There were definitely hard times in the past few seasons where I’d get constantly injured and kind of doubt myself, (questioned) if I’d keep going with competitive skating,” he said. “Ultimately these Olympics were the main goal, and it was what kept me going all throughout the hard times.” Gogolev, who was born in Russia to athletic parents Irina and Igor and grew up in Canada, had been a child prodigy. He was Canada’s first skater to …