Last Fall, when I was teaching the class for the OSU Art department (with artist Suzanne Silver) called Drawing Ideas, we explored how Plato’s philosophy, and the Republic in particular, offered ways of thinking about key themes in drawing (e.g. form, idea, mimesis, dialogue and myth). One of the topics was on ‘Formlessness and Nothing’ […]
With the semester now over, it is time to reflect on what has been for me the most exciting teaching experience of my 10 plus years at Ohio State. Every Thursday, between 12:30-5pm, I have lead two seminars – one unofficial and the other official – each comprising Art MFA and Classics Grad students. The […]
My recent visit to New York City fell exactly in the gap between exhibitions at Greene Naftali. The Paul Chan exhibition RHI ANIMA had just closed and Rachel Harrison’s Prasine had yet to open. As you can tell I’m slightly bitter about this. Something I am much more bitter about is what Trump and the […]
When I started Minus Plato on this day five years ago, little did I know what an impact it would have on my work and life. (For the curious, here is what I posted back on May 4th, 2012). Looking back, I acknowledged the significance of Cy Twombly’s art for my work as a Classicist, […]
[Below is a text I have written for the catalogue for the 2017 OSU MFA thesis show. It is a sequel to a previous Minus Plato post, which you can read here. Congratulations to all the graduating artists: Allison Rose Craver, Tess Elliot, Nick Fagan, sarah goetz, Jessie Horning, Emma Kindall, Yuanyuan Lu, Sean R. […]
In the recent issue of Artforum, I just read an interview with Christine Macel, the curator of the 57th Venice Biennale, in which she described a key concept of the exhibition (called Viva Arte Viva): I’m very interested in the tension in the artist’s life between production and self-reflection, moments of otium, to use the […]
I am writing today in solidarity with everyone marching and fighting for bread and roses on this May Day. As a minor, Minus Plato protest, this post will highlight how recourse to a non-Christian mythic world aligns with feminist collective action. Floating golden triangles, bird-headed creatures and the sun landing on earth – these are just some […]
Every since visiting the Whitney Biennial last week I have made several attempts to write a Minus Plato post about my experience. After several false starts, I kept coming back to one work: Portal, 2017 by Deana Lawson. It is not that at the time of my visit this large photograph of a ripped leather […]
How can you make a new proverb? Aren’t proverbs just old sayings, grounded in common experience, mere nuggets of popular wisdom, without origins, without authors? So when someone claims to make a new proverb, something interesting must be happening. Apuleius of Madauros, writing in the 2nd Century CE, renowned for his novel about a man-donkey, […]
Minus Plato presents: What Apollo Saw: Picturing Chris Marker’s Pictures at an Exhibition, 2008 – for Bill Horrigan Instructions: Click play on the video below Listen (it is very quiet, so listen carefully) Click in the white space below the video Using the down arrow key, scroll down s l o w l y When […]