As winter creeps upon us here in Ohio, with its cold and dark, and leaves litter the ground, my newly invigorated daily bogging on Minus Plato may appear like a longing for spring. As such, it has brought to mind Philip Larkin’s poem The Trees: The trees are coming into leaf Like something almost being said; The […]
Waking up to the news of Fidel Castro’s death means that the promised post on Petra Cortright’s Hell_Tree will have to wait until tomorrow. Today I want to write about some other news from Cuba. Late last month it was announced that the most prestigious honour in Cuban art – the National Art Award (El […]
You may have noticed that Minus Plato has not been itself of late. This year of upheavals has manifested itself in long gaps between posts, leading to months without any updates. But all of that is about to change. Today I had a revelation. Between checking Facebook, posting on Instagram, organizing action and groping […]
In about an hour I am going to deliver a brief presentation as part of our monthly Classics Faculty and Graduate Student Coffee Hour, here at Ohio State. Since I have this hour at my disposal, I thought it would make the most sense to spend it writing a Minus Plato post. The topic for […]
I have just returned from Lawrence, Kansas, where I delivered the keynote address at the Oliver Phillips Latin Colloquium at the University of Kansas. (I am grateful to all the faculty, teachers and students who attended and for making it a memorable visit). My talk was called ‘The Latin Lessons of Contemporary Artists’ and I […]
I recently revisited the Guggenheim Bilbao, which meant spending some time with my favourite work in their collection: Cy Twombly’s Nine Discourse on Commodus (1964). I have always found this work compelling, both in and of itself, not only as a Classicist, but also because of the mythic story of it first being shown at […]
Now that the exhibition Myths of the Academy has closed, we – the Myths Academy Faculty – are now working with designer Kelly McNicholas on the second volume of the catalogue (you can read the first volume, also designed by Kelly, online here). Aside from a short introduction and a gallery map, all the content […]
[The exhibition Myths of the Academy opened today and will be on show at the Hopkins Hall Art Gallery at Ohio State University until April 18th. For those of you who cannot make it to Columbus to see the exhibition, here is a taster in the form of the brief essay I wrote for the […]
I have just returned from an exhilarating week in Brisbane, Australia where I attended ‘The Classical and the Contemporary’, a conference organized to coincide with the 8th Asia Pacific Triennial (APT8) by the Postclassicisms network at Princeton University, The Queensland Art Gallery, and the University of Queensland. It was a multi-faceted affair, including two public […]
