Euripides, the beautiful boy in the HSBC T-Shirt – Q(uinn) L(atimer) to M(oyra) D(avey) The Athenian cult of beauty had a supreme theme: the beautiful boy. Euripides, the first decadent artist, substitutes a bloody moon for the golden Apollonian sun. Medea is Athens’ worst nightmare about women. She is nature’s revenge, Euripides’ dark answer to […]
Last year I vividly recall walking into Hagerty Hall, the building on the OSU campus that houses many of the foreign language departments, and discovering a curious object in the foyer. There was a wooden construction upon which had been carefully placed an unfurled roll of thin, white paper. On peering at the paper I […]
Today I had coffee with a Graduate student in the Department of Classics at Ohio State, where I teach, and not for the first time I found myself confronted with an impressive, articulate and engaged Classicist, with a novel and timely research project, who nonetheless was seriously contemplating leaving the discipline and working outside of academia. During this conversation our discussion […]
It is hard to write about any exhibition from a distance, let alone one as ambitious, expansive and rooted in its immediate contexts as documenta 14. So, until I get to Athens in early June, Minus Plato will limit itself to reacting to reports from those who have been lucky enough to experience it firsthand. […]
It just so happens that I had been teaching Seneca’s Consolation To Helvia immediately before encountering the following text as part of one of Youmna Chlala’s light-box works on display at the new group exhibition Action at a Distance at the Angela Meleca Gallery here in Columbus. Everyone reminds you that exile is a group […]
Today, a month out from celebrating its 5th birthday, Minus Plato has an announcement to make. Minus Plato is tired of being misunderstood. So, in the last few days Minus Plato has realized that it is time for a change. It may seem like a subtle change, perhaps imperceptible to some, but it is a […]
I just returned from a quick visit north to Cleveland where I visited two brilliant exhibitions: Basquiat: The Unknown Notebooks at the Cleveland Museum of Art and Adam Pendleton: Becoming Imperceptible at MOCA. Jean-Michel Basquiat’s recourse to the ancient cultures of Greece and Rome is well-known and documented and it was exciting to explore up close […]
Tomorrow documenta 14 opens in Athens. Like the fifth book of Cicero’s On Moral Ends, I want Minus Plato to be the place that you can encounter Athens, its sites (such as the Temple of Olympian Zeus) and the artists’ work (e.g.Prinz Gholam’s My Sweet Country) through a far-away simulation and an imaginary dialogue. So, […]
Polemarchus: Hi dad, how are you? Thanks for sending the photos and videos of your visit to the Philippe Parreno Anywhen exhibition at the Turbine Hall. What did you think of it? Cephalus: It was alright. It didn’t fill the space sufficiently, the front of Turbine Hall was part of it, but only had lights […]
I hope you have all been enjoying your Apuleian holiday – it has definitely been a refreshing sojourn for me. While we were busy following that ass Lucius (@donkey30123?) and his exploits, there has been an opening and book launch in Athens that is right up Minus Plato‘s alley. The project is called Liquid Antiquity conceived […]