What exactly is an Odeion? Today, my final day in Athens, I visited four buildings with this name: the Odeion of Perikles, the Odeion of Agrippa, the Odeion of Herodes Atticus and the modern Odeion of Athens (also known as the Athens Conservatoire) which is one of the major venues for documenta 14. In general […]
Dear William and Andreas, I hope this finds you both well and that you don’t mind me writing you this joint message. I wanted to let you know that I had spent the morning here in Athens looking for you both, first missing you and then finding you in some unexpected places. I know this […]
America I’ve given you all and now I’m nothing America two dollars and twentyseven cents January 17, 1956 – Allen Ginsberg ‘America’ When Plato died, the only material possessions he left behind were a small garden next to the Academy, two slaves, a bowl with which he made offerings to the gods and a tiny […]
[Minus Plato is undergoing some technical difficulties with image uploads so I apologize for the scarcity of pictures to accompany this post. I hope to have this rectified before tomorrow] When I woke up this morning I had a somewhat modest plan for the day: to visit the Athens School of Fine Arts (ASFA) by way […]
Today, on my way to start my first full day at documenta 14 at the National Museum of Contemporary Art (EMST), I took a detour past the Lysikrates Monument. This small cylindrical building was erected in 335/4 BCE (a few years after Philip of Macedon’s conquest of Greece) to commemorate the work of the ‘chorus-producer’ […]
I finished my good friend and fellow Classicist Johanna Hanink’s brilliant new book The Classical Debt: Greek Antiquity in the Era of Austerity before boarding the plane from Madrid to Athens. I am here to experience, research and write about the documenta 14 exhibition, specifically how both ancient sites and themes are activated by the […]
Yesterday at the Guggenheim Bilbao I saw Pierre Huyghe’s remarkable 2014 film Untitled (Human Mask). It stars the monkey Fuku-chan (who came to fame in a YouTube video that depicts her working as a waitress north of Toyko) dressed in a mask and wig waiting impatiently in an abandoned restaurant. Set and filmed in 2011, […]
Tonight in Athens, between 7-8pm in the Odeon (Athens Conservatoire) you can experience the 51st rendition of Bilbaino artist Mattin’s ‘durational concert’ Social Dissonance, created with Dafni Krazoudi, Danai Liodaki, Ioannis Sarris, and Eleni Zervou. Here is the score for each nightly performance (excluding Mondays): Social Dissonance Score: Listen carefully. The audience is your instrument, […]
On arriving in Bilbao last night I was excited to discover the collection of books that I left in Rebeka’s mother’s apartment, bought during our year sabbatical in Madrid (2014-15). Knowing that I would buy more books than I could fit in my suitcase, I not only left these books here on our way back […]
‘I come in fear, an exile’s book, sent to this city: kind reader, give me a gentle hand, in my weariness: don’t shun me in fear, in case I bring you shame: not a line of this paper teaches about love. Such is my author’s fate he shouldn’t try, the wretch, to hide it with […]