Dante Today

Citings & Sightings of Dante's Works in Contemporary Culture

Diana Puntar, “Less Than Day, or Night” (2007)

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“Less Than Day, Or Night, my recent sculptural installation at PS1 Contemporary Art Center, continues to explore what I call ‘homemade futurism.’ The piece is inspired by the final cantos of Dante’s Inferno in which Dante, led by Virgil, enters the freezing central pit of hell. At the end, as the pair climb their way out, Dante believes he is descending and becomes disoriented as they reach the top. Like many of us, he is fundamentally confused about the orientation of the world. I find it comforting to know that this kind of basic uncertainty has been with us for centuries.” [. . .]    –Diana Puntar, NY Arts Magazine

Contributed by Patrick Molloy

Robert Talpin, “Everthing Imagined is Real (After Dante)” (2009)

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robert-talpin-viii-get-back-the-river-styx-2008“Winston Wachter Fine Art is pleased to announce the opening of Robert Taplin’s new show entitled Everything Imagined is Real (After Dante), on exhibit from January 8 – February 7, 2009. Taplin’s last exhibition at Winston Wachter included tabletop sculptures that depict the everyday with imagined realities. His newest work, again incorporates the strange with familiar while portraying the 14th century classic, Dante’s Inferno, in nine cantos.
Dante’s epic poem is filled with allegory, symbolism and a balance between Dante’s perceived reality and dreams. The first nine cantos follow Dante in his journey through the nine circles of Hell, lead by the Roman poet Virgil. While working with a clear narrative from Dante, Taplin infuses the works in this exhibition with contemporary nuances and situations as well as personal references. For example, in canto IV, Taplin explains that he has constructed an exact replica of his old house as the backdrop for the scene. Taplin displays each diorama from a different vantage point allowing the viewer to either peer into an intimate domestic scene or be confronted with wide-screen drama. He highlights Dante’s role in the narrative by portraying his figure in full color. The rest of the characters and figures, including Beatrice and Virgil, are cast in resin and shown void of color.”    —Winston Wachter

“Robert Taplin’s Everything Real Is Imagined (After Dante) consists of nine sculptures, each referencing scenes from Dante’s Inferno as modern allegories of political strife. Taplin’s story begins as Dante’s does with the uncertain sense of whether or not we are in a dream or reality. Thus My Soul Which Was Still In Flight (The Dark Wood) depicts Dante, as a modern-day everyman, rising from bed to start his journey. As Talpin’s story unfolds, things become more complicated. The third canto of Dante’s Inferno brings Dante and Virgil to the River Acheron in order to cross into the First Circle of Hell. In Across The Dark Waters (The River Acheron), Taplin takes this iconic scene and turns it into a metaphor for the refuge crisis, representing people trying to cross waters, unknowing, just like Dante, of what awaits them upon their arrival. Taplin’s cycle ends with Dante mourning the fall of civilization — in We Went In Without a Fight (Through The Gates of Dis), Dante stands witness to a city destroyed, mourning both life on earth and what may await down below.”    —MASS MoCA

Contributed by Patrick Molloy; Katherine Gagnon (Colby, ’11)

Artist Sergio Vega on Dante

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Sergio Vega, detail from The Golden Age with Mosquitoes, 1999

“Nicolas Guagnini: The first piece of yours I’d ever seen was a small painted sculpture, a parrot with the face of Dante Alighieri. My obvious reaction was amusement. Dante could not stop writing, just as parrots can’t stop talking. Once the humor subsided, I understood what you were getting at: Dante was giving us a version of biblical themes, namely heaven and hell, in his own contemporary terms. Are you a theological commentator or an evolutionist?
Sergio Vega: I am glad you bring up that piece, Dante-parrot, because it functions as an axis upon which most of the work I have produced in the last eight years hinges. At the time I made it, I was puzzled by the term U.S. politicians were using, when they referred to the countries of Latin America as “our backyard.” Immersed as I was in Dante’s work, I decided to make a cast from a replica of his death mask to represent a habitant of that backyard, like one of those cement dwarfs people use to decorate their gardens. Dante is turned into a parrot as if someone had put a spell on him; he is entering the Garden of Eden (in Canto 28 of Purgatorio). Besides the joke that the parrot’s beak is in this case Dante’s famous nose, the piece proposes a paradox of ideas about originality, staging the contradictions of a constituted Latin subject: Dante, the author who articulated a new language in order to produce his own work, is embodied in the vernacular representation of a bird that mimics speech.” [. . .]    –Nicolàs Guagnini, Bombsite, 2001

Contributed by Hope Stockton (Bowdoin ’07)

“The Fall of the Damned” Lampshade by Luc Merx

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the-fall-of-the-damned-lampshade-by-luc-merx-of-gadget-international“Dutch architect Luc Merx’s lampshade is an algorithmic mass of writhing nudes that recalls the classical motif of the fall of the damned. He imagines the lamp hanging above a dining table, the shock of the frozen, terrified bodies disturbing diners with age-old questions of guilt and morality, issues usually kept behind closed doors.” [. . .]    –Costas Voyatzis, kostasvoyatzis, April 19, 2007

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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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