VERTINSKY AT CHURCH // FABULOUS KARABET: JOSEF KA FEAT. SLOPPY TONY // WIEN CHURCH BAR // XII 2025

I had always dreamed of singing Russian romances and the songs of Alexander Vertinsky. Then, almost as if by magic, the right musician appeared — Sloppy Tony — along with a wonderful venue in the heart of Vienna. And suddenly, everything fell into place.

Alexander Vertinsky (1889–1957) was a Russian singer, poet, composer and theatrical performer whose songs created a world of their own: intimate, melancholic, ironic and deeply human. His performances were miniature dramas, inhabited by lonely wanderers, dreamers, outcasts and people living on the margins of society.

Vertinsky’s life was profoundly shaped by exile. He left Russia in 1920 and spent more than two decades abroad, living and performing in different countries, including France, the United States and China. His songs carry the unmistakable imprint of displacement: longing for home, solitude, memory and the fragile beauty of lives lived far from familiar places.

His story resonates across generations. Exile is not only a geographical condition; it can also be a state of mind, a distance between the life we have and the life we remember or imagine.

My heartfelt thanks to Sloppy Tony for the music and inspiration, to Sergey Vasilyev and Walter Ulreich, and to Gary Scott, the founder of the Church, for making this encounter possible.

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Published by Josef Ka

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International performance, visual and sound artist Josef Ka blends richly varied influences – everything from Butoh dance to cinematic theory – with her decades of nomadic world travel to create bold, highly personal site-specific art. Josef Ka’s themes range from investigating the place of the human body in contemporary reality to exploring the inner body as a representative system of our human and post human kind. Her artistic practice often actively invites the audience inside a sort of private reverie, making it is a deeply participatory one; she actively engages with both her audiences and with a wide diversity of other experimental artists. In addition to her own work, Josef Ka curates a regular series of events and exhibitions at her Helsinki underground space – Sauna Gallery – and teaches classes on the theory and practice of performance art. She is also the inventor of the WORST THEATRE and her yogic training system, KA-YOGA. https://eskargoeskargo.com/

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