When Allan Sekula presented the third version of his work Shipwreck and Workers at Documenta 12 in Kassel, he employed an iconic ancient mythological figure as part of what he calls a ‘temporary monument’ to human labour: Hercules. The statue of the hero is located at the top of the pyramid and octagon, a baroque […]
Today at the Modern Institute in Glasgow, William E. Jones opened a new exhibition of his new film work Fall Into Ruin as well as a selection of photographs. The film, which I was lucky enough to see here in Columbus while the artist was editing it, explores his encounter with Alexander Iolas, the Greek […]
I have been reading the Ralph Lemon and Triple Canopy volume On Value, which contains this brief piece by Nari Ward on his work Ultra. I was intrigued by the way that Ward invokes the curious case of Robert Rauschenberg’s 1959 work Canyon (which was gifted to MoMA on account of the fact that it […]
Beyond my recent interest in contemporary ‘conceptual’ dance as a reaction to my back/hip trouble (in that ‘holy’ place!), I have undertaken these investigations for another reason: to place the work of Tino Sehgal in some kind of broader, critical context. (Something similar happened to me several years ago when I wanted to understand Cy […]
You may have noticed that the last few days’ posts have been focused on contemporary ‘conceptual’ dance. The reason for this is rather personal and somewhat perverse. On Thursday morning I bent down to pick up a pillow from the floor while making the bed and suddenly experienced a sharp pain to my lower back, […]
When the Eleatics denied motion, Diogenes, as everyone knows, came forward as an opponent. He literally did come forward, because he did not say a word but merely paced back and forth a few times, thereby assuming that he had sufficiently refuted them. – Kierkegaard Repetition p. 131.
In his essay ‘Ralph Lemon’s Counter-Memorials’, Nicholas Burns praises the choreographer’s drawings for their ‘arresting facticity’ and compares them to the figures on ancient Greek geometric vases, in how they: provide information, as well as the artist’s own perspective on it, inexpressible otherwise. Lemon’s practice of what he calls ’empirical performance formalism’ means that the […]
Once upon a time, there were three kinds of human beings: male, descended from the sun; female, descended from the earth; and androgynous, with both male and female elements, descended from the moon. Each human being was completely round, with four arms and fours legs, two identical faces on opposite sides of a head with […]
In her book The Best Most Useless Dress, published by Badlands Unlimited, Claudia La Rocco writes the following ‘Fable’: When she grew very old the Medusa decided to give her true heart away. It was, of course, made of stone. She was, again very old, and unlovely, though not in an unhandsome way. She saved […]
Today in our Semina Seminar, a lunchtime meeting with MFAs and Classics PhDs before my seminar on Ancient Philosophical Handbooks: Lessons, Lives, Communities, we were talking about death – the death of the artist and the death of painting. Biographical traditions of ancient philosophers, especially Diogenes Laertius’ Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, often focus […]