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Citings & Sightings of Dante's Works in Contemporary Culture

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Ndary Lo, The Day After (2012)

April 21, 2022 By Sephora Affa, FSU '24

star-shaped-configuration-of-people-with-arms-spread-out-black-on-white-background

“I see the world we are living in as both Hell and Purgatory. Our only hope in this life of ours, all that we have left is to try our best to be admitted to heaven someday. The Day After is an installation in which, after walking a long way through a dense and dark forest, one reaches that space where everything seems to be suspended, where one can feel this particular tension that we experience before embarking on a journey of which we don’t really know the name. The place is organized in a materialized circle and inhabited by iron characters which are ready to take off. The circle, in fact a spiral, symbolizes the energy of human beings, who find themselves in a new configuration, and they feel disoriented and experience a feeling of unreality.”

From The Divine Comedy: Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell Revisited by Contemporary African Artists by Simon Njami.

Read more about Senegalese sculptor Ndary Lô, see Wikipedia.fr.

Categories: Visual Art & Architecture
Tagged with: Africa, Art, Art Books, Circles, Dark Wood, Energy, Heaven, Hell, Installation Art, Iron, Journeys, Metal, Purgatory, Sculptures, Senegal

Jane Alexander, Frontier With Church (2012-2014)

April 20, 2022 By Sephora Affa, FSU '24

jane-alexander-installation-figure-with-white-head-and-colorful-vest-on-black-background“In Frontier With Church, the artist makes direct reference to the procession encountered by Dante and Matilda at the summit of Mount Purgatory, interpreted in the temporal contexts of proselytism, migration, and trade, on their way to paradise. With Matilda—who clearly prepares Dante for his meeting with Beatrice—Dante witnesses a procession which forms an allegory within the allegory, somewhat like Shakespeare’s play with a play, in which the characters are walking symbols rather than real people. Alexander’s tableau is thus intended to represent the earthly paradise, a borderline space between earth and divine sanctuary: a frontier with attendants, messengers, custodians, and cargo. The tension revolves around human figures rendered with extreme realis, concurring in the creation of the moment before Dante’s meeting with the woman who (allegorically) symbolizes the path to God. All the creatures of the tableau are life-sized and share the real space occupied by the Viewer/s. They have a spectral presence within that space which silently enacts a living history.”

From The Divine Comedy: Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell Revisited by Contemporary African Artists by Simon Njami.

For more on the South African artist, see Wikipedia.

Categories: Visual Art & Architecture
Tagged with: 2012, Africa, Art, Art Books, Beatrice, Installation Art, Matelda, Migration, Paradise, Purgatory, South Africa

Garane Garane, Il Latte è Buono (2005)

February 28, 2022 By Sephora Affa, FSU '24

garane-garane-author-of-il-latte-e-buono

“Ho studiato nelle scuole della lingua di Dante…Grazie Dea Italia! Sarò finalmente lontano da questi somari, da questi brutti ceffi, selvaggi, che adorano i cammelli…”      –Garane Garane, Il Latte è Buono, 2005

“Gashan’s (the protagonist’s) identification with Dante is central in the novel, which can be seen as an inverted journey from the Heaven of the uncritical enjoyment of Italian culture in Somalia to the Hell of European and American discrimination and Somali Civil War. Garane’s Il Latte è Buono can be defined as a Bildungsroman since the character becomes increasingly aware of the psychological influence of Italian colonialism on his education when he reaches and lives in Italy. To some extent, Dante’s role within his Bildung is once again to serve as a meta-literary guide for the main character, recalling Virgil’s role as Dante’s mentor in the Commedia.”    –Simone Brioni, Lorenzo Mari, Postcolonial Dante: Reading the Commedia in Mogadishu, 2019

Access Il Latte è Buono by Garane Garane here.

Contributed by Simone Brioni (Ph.D., Stony Brook University)

Categories: Written Word
Tagged with: 2005, 2019, Africa, America, Books, Civil War, Colonialism, Education, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Italy, Journeys, Literature, Novels, Somalia, Travel, Virgil

Dante 700 Mural and Art Exhibit in Addis Abeba (2021)

November 19, 2021 By Sephora Affa, FSU '24

dante-tribute-mural-in-addis-ababa-ethiopia

“The mural occupies an area of over 170 square meters and is divided into three connected sections in which Italian and Ethiopian artists interpret, in a modern key, the Supreme Poet and his life with the works Dante The Ethiopian (group ‘Addis Street Art’), The Divine Technic (Nicola Varesco), and Inside (Van Orton Design – Marco and Stefano Schiavon).

[. . .]

“The project, promoted with the patronage and support of the National Committee for the celebrations of the 700th anniversary of Dante Alighieri’s death, is the result of the work of numerous illustrators, street artists, graphic designers, comic and graphic novel authors, very different from each other in terms of style (which ranges from tempera painting and geometric design to the use of 3D software), and in the approach to the reinterpretation of Dante’s iconography, but all of great impact.” [. . .]    —Italiana

Along with Dante’s 700th anniversary, this event commemorates the XXI week of the Italian Language in the world. Learn more through the Italian Cultural Institute of Addis Abeba, linked here.

Learn more about the exhibit here.

Categories: Places, Visual Art & Architecture
Tagged with: 2021, 700th anniversary, Addis Ababa, Africa, Art, Dante Portraits, Ethiopia, Exhibits, Languages, Multimedia, Murals, Virtual Reality, Visual Arts

Cinema Dante, Asmara, Eritrea

November 15, 2021 By Sephora Affa, FSU '24

cinema-dante-asmara-eritrea-image-credit-clay-gilliland“Cinema Dante is Asmara’s oldest cinema and has recently been renovated. It stands as testament to the size and scale of the cinemas in Asmara before the boom in the late 1930s, when the larger cinemas were constructed.” [. . .]     —Shabait, August 27, 2020

“During the last quarter of the last Century, the Italian colonial masters’ plan was to build a little Roma at the very heart of Midri Bahri. Following are the main schools, stadium, cinemas and opera houses called after the names of their artists, statesmen and poets: [. . .]

“Dante Alighieri, the Florentin was one of canonized men-of-letters who refined the Italian language to majestic height. The Cinema Dante, like Odeon and Cinema Asmara, were originally opera houses or reading and symphony arenas where the upper-class Italians used to entertain in their exclusive social world located at Campo Restrittivo (restricted camp or the later corrupted word Kombishtato).” [. . .]    –Haile Bokure, Eritrea Madote

Image credit Clay Gilliland

Contributed by Sephora Affa (Florida State University ’24)

Categories: Places
Tagged with: Africa, Art Deco, Asmara, Cinema, Colonialism, Eritrea, History, Monuments

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How to Cite

Coggeshall, Elizabeth, and Arielle Saiber, eds. Dante Today: Citings and Sightings of Dante's Works in Contemporary Culture. Website. Access date.

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