Dante Today

Citings & Sightings of Dante's Works in Contemporary Culture

Sandow Birk’s Illustrations of the “Divine Comedy”

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“A five year project which involved adapting the text of the entire “Divine Comedy” into contemporary slang and setting the action in contemporary urban America. The project resulted in three, limited edition books, Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. Each book contained more than 60 original lithographs and was published by Trillium Press in San Francisco.”    —Sandow Birk

See also: Sandow Birk’s film “Dante’s Inferno” (2007)

Rolando Perez, “The Electric Comedy” (2000)

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rolando-perez-the-electric-comedy-2000“Confronting not the papacy but the postmodern world of the Internet and global economics, this collection of satirical poems inspired by Dante’s Inferno explores the comic and tragic realities of contemporary life. At times graphic and abrasive, the language and style in this stirring collection mirrors the violence and social fragmentation that it describes. The imagined thoughts and interests of Dante as he composed the Inferno infuse this edgy, inventive collection that invites readers to participate in the creation of new mythologies that draw from the wisdom of the past.”    —Google Books

“Inferno & Paradiso” a photojournalistic exhibit in South Africa (2001)

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“. . .World renowned artist/photographer Alfredo Jaar curated this show which is presented as a collaboration between the SANG, the BildMuseet in Umea, Sweden, and Riksutstallningar, the Swedish Travelling Exhibitions Organisation. His curatorial method was this: ‘I invited 18 photojournalists from around the world to contribute two images to the exhibition (inspired by Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy). For ‘Inferno’ I asked them to select the single image that was the most difficult to produce, the one that caused the most pain and anguish. And for ‘Paradiso’, the most joyful one, the one that has given them the most happiness in the world.’ ”
–Sue Williamson, Art Throb

Contributed by Charlie Russell (Bowdoin, ’08)

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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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