Citings & Sightings of Dante's Works in Contemporary Culture
“‘L’amor che muove il sole e l’altre stelle.’ (The love that moves the sun and the other stars.) from Paradiso by Dante Alighiere [sic], 1265-1321. Image motif inspired by a card design by Robbin Rawlings. Drawing by Meredith Eliassen, 2016.”
–Meredith Eliassen, “Dante… on Love,” MME Designs’s Weblog, February 11, 2016
“The ideas behind the Divine Comedy have brought the artist to reflect upon a millenary question: what is the soul? This question entails an inquiry about uncertainty and wandering. The artist uses the medium of installation to create a unique world, made up of thousands of tiny figurines suspended as if they were souls waiting for a visa to enter another world or destination. Positioned on the ground, these retrospective objects are installed in such a way as to suggest their interrelation, their secret bond, as if they were suspended souls. The idea behind Errance is to create an emotion, a feeling of anticipation and reflection with the public. The twelve thousand colored figurines are suspended from the ceiling and are reflected in the thousands of mirrors placed on the floor, referring- also thanks to a soundtrack- to the infinity of the universe, the tackling lights and moving elements that are unknown to us but which we admire and dream about even though we do not know where they come from.”
Retrieved from The Divine Comedy: Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell Revisited by Contemporary African Artists by Simon Njami.
Learn more about the artist Dominique Zinkpè (b. 1969, Cotonou, Benin) on Wikipedia.
“As a part of the celebrations of the 700th anniversary of the death of Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), this exhibition will present two drawings on parchment by Sandro Botticelli referring to the Divine Comedy’s Inferno, alongside two manuscripts by Jacopo della Lana and Boccaccio, courtesy of the Vatican Library.
“The exhibition will also feature a copy of Dante’s manuscript which once belonged to Frei Manuel do Cenáculo, currently property of the Portuguese National Library, works from the Calouste Gulbenkian’s collection and works by Rui Chafes which refer to Dante’s Inferno.” —Visit Lisboa
The 2021 exhibition was hosted by the Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon. See their website here.
“[. . .] a book that investigates Maltese 20th-century artist Josef Kalleya’s preoccupation with Dante’s masterpiece. Kalleya’s concepts of Apokatastasis referred continuously to the Italian masterpiece, as demonstrated by his numerous drawings, the majority of which were produced between the 1960s and the 1980s. These are reproduced and feature eloquently in this publication.
[. . .]
“According to the author, Kalleya’s work do not reflect the artist’s empirical visual interpretation of Dante’s verses: ‘Josef Kalleya’s works are, thus, not reflecting Dante’s, but exploiting and appropriating Dante, his alter ego. Kalleya makes us see this whole process of salvation not through the distanced eyes of a divinely protected pilgrim, but through the tormented soul of a soul in torment, a tormented saint with a soul full of doubt.'” [. . .] —Times of Malta, July 18, 2021
“To mark the occasion of the 700th anniversary of the death of Italian poet and philosopher Dante Alighieri (1265–321) the Kupferstichkabinett is showing selections from two woodcut series from the 1920s.
“The series are by the Danish artist Ebba Holm and the German Klaus Wrage. Both deal in multifaceted ways with Dante’s literary magnum opus The Divine Comedy – and thereby with his virtual journey through Hell, up the Purgatorial mountain and on to Paradise.
“Not only will additional works by Odilon Redon, Wilhelm Lehmbruck and Willy Jaeckel be on display, but also coloured computer drawings by Berlin artist Andreas Siekmann (born in 1961) from his 94-part complex Die Exklusive – Zur Politik des ausgeschlossenen Vierten (The Exclusive – On the Politics of the Excluded Fourth) (2002–2011). In several series from Die Exklusive Siekmann depicts particularly contemporary journeys to Hell undertaken by Dante and his guide, the poet Virgil.” [. . .] —Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
The exhibition will be open from February 12, 2022 to May 8, 2022.
See also: the Kupferstichkabinett gallery webpage, linked here.
See our posts on Klaus Wrage here.
All submissions will be considered for posting. Bibliographic references and scholarly essays are also welcome for consideration.
Coggeshall, Elizabeth, and Arielle Saiber, eds. Dante Today: Citings and Sightings of Dante’s Works in Contemporary Culture. Website. Access date.
