Opening on January 20th (can’t think of anything else important happening that day…) at the Drawing Center is Amy Sillman’s new exhibition After Metamorphoses. It comprises an animated drawing (with soundtrack) that she made on the iPad inspired by the mythic tales of change, desire and power from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. While I need to wait to see this intriguing work to give an informed analysis, the fact that Sillman created it as part of her residency at the American Academy in Rome in 2014 is significant for a project I am working on about how ancient sites of learning become activated by contemporary artists. Part of this project focuses on the dynamic between scholars and artists at the American Academy as paralleled to the philosophical debates held in ancient Roman villas, such as those of Cicero and Seneca. (I recall my friend and fellow Classicist Victoria Rimell – an Ovid specialist – telling me about being at the Academy at the same time as Sillman, so that is a thread I’ll have to follow up on). For now, here are some of the images from Sillman’s After Metamorphoses, including her score.
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