Last year I visited Brisbane, Australia for a conference called ‘The Classical and the Contemporary’ as part of the 8th Asia Pacific Triennial. Before going I spent some time looking at the artists on the Queensland Art Gallery website and I was immediately drawn to a work by US-Iraqi artist Rheim Alkadhi called The Eye […]
I just discovered that the curator, conversationalist and art world visionary Hans Ulrich Obrist will be orchestrating an event in Athens on June 18th called Athens Dialogues. Here is the description of the event: Conceived and moderated by Hans Ulrich Obrist, the Athens Dialogues is a one day series of conversations with contemporary artists and […]
But he showed no greater mercy to the people or the walls of his capital. He had also planned to extend the walls as far as Ostia and to bring the sea from there to Rome by a canal. Returning from Greece, since it was at Naples that he had made his first appearance, he […]
Today the exhibition Come Along With Me opens at the OAC Riffe Gallery here in downtown Columbus. I was invited to curate this group exhibition by the Ohio Art League and it includes 18 artists from the state. Central to the thinking behind the exhibition is how the genre of the ancient philosophical handbook – […]
This morning I have been reading Describe the Distance, a short book by poet Quinn Latimer on the work of British artist Sarah Lucas. Early in the book Latimer introduces the topic of shame and with it the Greek concept of aidos. Why does the word “shame” come to me, settle on the edge of […]
The third issue of South as a State of Mind, which has been temporarily transformed into the publication for Documenta 14 and its focus on ‘Learning from Athens’, is devoted to the theme of ‘Hunger and Language’. Artist Moyra Davey begins her contribution to this issue (‘Walking with Nandita’) with her musing on which theme […]
I was leafing through the recent issue of Mousse that comprises a (SMALL) anthology of writings and interviews that have appeared in the magazine’s pages since 2006. In a 2010 piece about the performance artist Stuart Sherman, who died from AIDS in 2001, Johnatan Berger makes reference to a series of book reviews that Sherman […]
That such opposed vices, both the greatest arrogance and the greatest timidity, were to be found in the same person, I have no doubt in attributing to his mental infirmity. For this man, who had so little respect for the gods, would, at the slightest hint of thunder or lightning, close his eyes and over […]
Today, as hundreds of thousands participate in the Women’s March on Washington and around the world, protesting against the misogyny and bigotry ushered in by yesterday’s inauguration of a misogynist bigot, I am reminded of Nancy Spero’s powerful work that unites modern women with women from ancient cultures (e.g. Egypt, Near-East, Greece). While Spero’s work […]
