Today in our discussion group Myth Mother Invention we have moved on to the topic of “Infans” – the pre-lingual baby and child. In preparation for our meeting, I shared with the group, the so-called ‘Danae fragment’ by the ancient Greek lyric poet Simonides in the following translation: … when in the chest, intricately fashioned, […]
The ancient Greek reader didn’t own his own voice; the act of audible reading dispossessed him of it. “If he lends his voice to these mute signs, the text appropriates it: his voice becomes the voice of the written text,” Svenbro stresses. “He has lent his voice, relinquished it.” Is there a debt to repay […]
I first encountered the work of choreographer Anna Halprin at documenta 14 this summer when I was stopped in my tracks by a diagram showing one of her Myth performances from 1967 in at Documenta-Halle in Kassel. Halprin describes the Myths as follows: Myths are experimental…What unfolds is a spontaneous exploration of ideas. Myths are meant to […]
Today I will be attending a talk by Edith Hall, Professor in the Classics Department and Centre for Hellenic Studies at King’s College London. Hall is not only an expert on Greek tragedy, but also on the reception of ancient drama through the ages. More recently, her work has focused on Aristotle and the talk […]
Cornelius Cardew and the Scratch Orchestra were vital presences at documenta 14. In Kassel, the score of the composer’s Treatise was not only displayed in the Neue Galerie, but also reproduced on the glass windows of Documenta-Halle, while there were concerts of Cardew’s Thälmann Variations and We Sing For The Future!, on September 8th (I missed it […]
Any visitor to documenta 14, in either Athens, Kassel or both, who saw the work of Chilean artist Cecilia Vicuña would immediately think of the color red. Red is also the color faced by the reader of her recent book About to Happen, published by siglio press. Yet just over half-way through the book, the […]
Tomorrow is the last day of documenta 14, the exhibition that split itself between Athens and Kassel. To mark the closure of this unique experiment, e-flux has published a joint statement by many of the artists who participated. What struck me about this statement was the way in which the living artists emphasized the significance […]
On my return from Kassel and Athens, from documenta 14 and Liquid Antiquity, I not only found myself in the middle of my life (on turning 38 while away), but also back in the middle of the Wexner Store, holding in my hands a new book of an artist I had never heard of. This […]
He was praying like that and holding on to the altar When the Sibyl started to speak: “Blood relation Of gods, Trojan, son of Anchises, It is easy to descend into Avernus. Death’s dark door stands open day and night. But to retrace your steps and get back to upper air, That is the task, […]
Then as her fit passed away and her raving went quiet, Heroic Aeneas began: “No ordeal, O Sibyl, no new Test can dismay me, for I have foreseen And foresuffered all. But one thing I pray for Especially: since here the gate opens, they say, To the King of the Underworld’s realms, and here In […]