Euripides, the beautiful boy in the HSBC T-Shirt – Q(uinn) L(atimer) to M(oyra) D(avey) The Athenian cult of beauty had a supreme theme: the beautiful boy. Euripides, the first decadent artist, substitutes a bloody moon for the golden Apollonian sun. Medea is Athens’ worst nightmare about women. She is nature’s revenge, Euripides’ dark answer to […]
It is hard to write about any exhibition from a distance, let alone one as ambitious, expansive and rooted in its immediate contexts as documenta 14. So, until I get to Athens in early June, Minus Plato will limit itself to reacting to reports from those who have been lucky enough to experience it firsthand. […]
Tomorrow documenta 14 opens in Athens. Like the fifth book of Cicero’s On Moral Ends, I want Minus Plato to be the place that you can encounter Athens, its sites (such as the Temple of Olympian Zeus) and the artists’ work (e.g.Prinz Gholam’s My Sweet Country) through a far-away simulation and an imaginary dialogue. So, […]
In Homer’s Odyssey, while several female characters, both divine and mortal, are described in the act of weaving (and un-weaving), only two of them – Calypso and Circe – are depicted as singing while they work. In book 5, we encounter Calypso ‘singing with a sweet voice as she went to and fro before the […]
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 […]
If, like me, you can barely contain your excitement for the opening of documenta 14 next year – first in Athens in April, followed by Kassel in June – then I recommend preparing yourself by reading the first three issues of South as a State of Mind – the Greek art and culture journal, which […]