Dante Today

Citings & Sightings of Dante's Works in Contemporary Culture

…and Thence We Came Forth To See Again The Stars, Group Exhibition

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“The Flat-Massimo Carasi gallery reopens its doors to the public, after the protracted closure due to Covid 19, with a collective that look forward for a restart. Convinced that the physical space of the gallery will resist the broadsides of innovations and will remain an essential point of meeting and sharing with the public, we recognize that no man / woman is an island even in its own solitude (a very crowded solitude). Art, in all its disciplines, remains the most enthralling mystery and witnessing its representations in first person will simply remain of VITAL importance. We identify the works of art with the stars, to which Dante refers and illuminate the dark, so in this context we have chosen for the end of the season program, a roundup of works that would like to shape a physiognomy of contemporary being with her/his passions and obsessions, between damnation and holiness, bewilderment and hope.These are works that refer to woman/man but do not portray her/him directly. Instead they evoke his presence by interpreting the fetishes that are left behind as traces. The invited artists, using new and traditional media, adopt the most varied techniques to grasp the human dimension with sometimes simple, or sometimes, categorical gestures.”   —Stefano Caimi, Michael Johansson, Guillaume Linard Osorio, Sali Muller, Jack Otway, Michelangelo Penso, Leonardo Ulian, …and Thence We Came Forth To See Again The Stars, Leonard Oulian, June 11-September 4, 2020 (retrieved on March 28, 2024)

Danielius Sodeika “Midway Upon the Journey of Our Life…”

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“Artworks of Danielius Sodeika are self-purposed. He doesn‘t make them for himself nor others. They appear to be more like questions leaning towards, like the way to check up if the impulse of the vector has continuance.”

“Small-scale sculptural objects from wood, metal, household elements or findings. With their form they remind religious, cultural or archetypal symbols. Storyline is more than in the objects themselves, but also in the spaces between – as signs of invisible power – that tightens chain and breaks the log. Probably it is artist’s way to speak about finality and inevitable entropy – because when it comes – it dominates over all demolishes all other meanings.”

Explore Danielius Sodeika’s exhibit here.

“Midway upon the journey of our life I found myself a forest dark, For the straightforward pathway had been lost.”    -Dante Alighieri

 

After Hours: Dante – Heaven and Hell at Dante Season 2021

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On November 13, 2021, the collaborative effort behind Dante in Oxford hosted the “After Hours” event. The event was described as follows:

“An exciting ‘after hours’ programme of activities at the Ashmolean Museum showcasing the diverse range of researchers and performers who are connected to Dante.

“Oxford will be alive with opportunities to celebrate Dante in 2021 — exactly 700 years since the great poet’s death. Best known for his astonishing Divine Comedy — a three-stage epic poem, narrating a journey through the afterlife from Hell through Purgatory to Heaven, with all of human history, knowledge, love, and life encountered on the way — Dante was an advisor to princes, a political exile, and a revolutionary poet.”    —TORCH (retrieved February 13, 2022)

One of the “performers” at this event was a robotic poet named Ai-da; view our post about her poetry here.

More information about the “After Hours” event and its programming (which included live performances and other exhibits) can be found here.

Other Dante in Oxford posts can be found here.

Dante Season at Oxford (2021)

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“Oxford will be alive with opportunities to celebrate Dante in 2021 — exactly 700 years since the great poet’s death.

“Dante in Oxford 2021 will explore the work and its many and rich afterlives, by exploring new forms of public engagement with research, with artistic practice, and with political and cultural history. We will draw on the strength of Oxford’s research community to curate a wide-reaching cultural festival with a range of public events, including live in-person and online programming.

“We are collaborating with important partners across and beyond the university, including the Oxford Dante Society, the Ashmolean Museum, and other national and international partners. Bringing together scholars and translators, international artists, dancers, theatre-makers, and musicians, community groups, and schools, our ambition is both to disseminate and showcase Oxford’s world-leading research, and to experiment with new forms of critically informed public engagement – all in celebration of Dante’s life and the many and complex contexts in which his work lives on, through both research and reinvention in contemporary cultures across the world.” [. . .]    —TORCH (retrieved February 7, 2022)

The complete Dante Season program can be found here.

Relatedly, find other Dante in Oxford 2021 events and posts here.

Inferno Exhibition at Lisbon, Portugal (2021)

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“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.

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How to Cite

Coggeshall, Elizabeth, and Arielle Saiber, eds. Dante Today: Citings and Sightings of Dante’s Works in Contemporary Culture. Website. Access date.

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