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Citings & Sightings of Dante's Works in Contemporary Culture

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Pélagie Gbaguidi, Sacrifice (2013)

April 28, 2022 By Sephora Affa, FSU '24

red-script-on-black-drawing-figures“Sacrifice—it appears twice in the usual sense of ‘solemn offer of victims and gifts’ made to godheads. In a broader sense, it refers to any offer, real or symbolic, material or spiritual, made to God: ‘Even as thine own Angels of their will/ Make sacrifice to thee, Hosanna singing, /So many all men make the sacrifice of theirs’ (Purgatorio, Canto XI, 11). In particular, the vow is described as a sacrifice, insofar as its formulation obliges the man, standing before the divinity, to perform or not perform a given action, thus offering to God one’s own freedom of choice. It is Beatrice who clarifies to Dante what the importance of the vow is, as a spontaneous sacrifice and offering to God: ‘closing between God and man the compact, /A sacrifice is of this treasure made’ (Paradiso, Canto V, 29).”

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

For more information on Pélagie Gbaguidi, see Wikipedia. For more on the artist’s body of work, see AWARE, the Archive of Women Artists, Research, and Exhibitions.

Categories: Visual Art & Architecture
Tagged with: 2013, Africa, Art Books, Beatrice, Belgium, Benin, Brussels, God, Paradiso, Purgatorio, Senegal

Dominique Zinkpè, multimedia drawings (2013)

April 28, 2022 By Sephora Affa, FSU '24

ink-watercolor-body-falling-out-of-open-body

“The ideas behind the Divine Comedy have brought the artist to reflect upon a millenary question: what is the soul? This question entails an inquiry about uncertainty and wandering. The artist uses the medium of installation to create a unique world, made up of thousands of tiny figurines suspended as if they were souls waiting for a visa to enter another world or destination. Positioned on the ground, these retrospective objects are installed in such a way as to suggest their interrelation, their secret bond, as if they were suspended souls. The idea behind Errance is to create an emotion, a feeling of anticipation and reflection with the public. The twelve thousand colored figurines are suspended from the ceiling and are reflected in the thousands of mirrors placed on the floor, referring- also thanks to a soundtrack- to the infinity of the universe, the tackling lights and moving elements that are unknown to us but which we admire and dream about even though we do not know where they come from.”

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

Learn more about the artist Dominique Zinkpè (b. 1969, Cotonou, Benin) on Wikipedia.

Categories: Visual Art & Architecture
Tagged with: Africa, Benin, Contemporary Poetry, Cotonou, Drawings, Mirrors, Multimedia, Reflections, Series, Visual Arts, Watercolors

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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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