Drawings Archives - Dante Today

Dominique Zinkpè, multimedia drawings (2013)

April 28, 2022 By Sephora Affa, FSU '24

“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.

Inferno Exhibition at Lisbon, Portugal (2021)

January 5, 2022 By Sephora Affa, FSU '24

“As a part of the celebrations of the 700th anniversary of the death of Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), this exhibition will present two drawings on parchment by Sandro Botticelli referring to the Divine Comedy’s Inferno, alongside two manuscripts by Jacopo della Lana and Boccaccio, courtesy of the Vatican Library.

“The exhibition will also feature a copy of Dante’s manuscript which once belonged to Frei Manuel do Cenáculo, currently property of the Portuguese National Library, works from the Calouste Gulbenkian’s collection and works by Rui Chafes which refer to Dante’s Inferno.” —Visit Lisboa

The 2021 exhibition was hosted by the Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon. See their website here.

Josef Kalleya and Dante, Giuseppe Schembri Bonaci (2021)

November 19, 2021 By Sephora Affa, FSU '24

“[. . .] a book that investigates Maltese 20th-century artist Josef Kalleya’s preoccupation with Dante’s masterpiece. Kalleya’s concepts of Apokatastasis referred continuously to the Italian masterpiece, as demonstrated by his numerous drawings, the majority of which were produced between the 1960s and the 1980s. These are reproduced and feature eloquently in this publication.

[. . .]

“According to the author, Kalleya’s work do not reflect the artist’s empirical visual interpretation of Dante’s verses: ‘Josef Kalleya’s works are, thus, not reflecting Dante’s, but exploiting and appropriating Dante, his alter ego. Kalleya makes us see this whole process of salvation not through the distanced eyes of a divinely protected pilgrim, but through the tormented soul of a soul in torment, a tormented saint with a soul full of doubt.'” [. . .] —Times of Malta, July 18, 2021

700th Anniversary Exhibit at Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (2022)

November 14, 2021 By Sephora Affa, FSU '24

“To mark the occasion of the 700th anniversary of the death of Italian poet and philosopher Dante Alighieri (1265–321) the Kupferstichkabinett is showing selections from two woodcut series from the 1920s.

“The series are by the Danish artist Ebba Holm and the German Klaus Wrage. Both deal in multifaceted ways with Dante’s literary magnum opus The Divine Comedy – and thereby with his virtual journey through Hell, up the Purgatorial mountain and on to Paradise.

“Not only will additional works by Odilon Redon, Wilhelm Lehmbruck and Willy Jaeckel be on display, but also coloured computer drawings by Berlin artist Andreas Siekmann (born in 1961) from his 94-part complex Die Exklusive – Zur Politik des ausgeschlossenen Vierten (The Exclusive – On the Politics of the Excluded Fourth) (2002–2011). In several series from Die Exklusive Siekmann depicts particularly contemporary journeys to Hell undertaken by Dante and his guide, the poet Virgil.” [. . .] —Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

The exhibition will be open from February 12, 2022 to May 8, 2022.

See also: the Kupferstichkabinett gallery webpage, linked here.

See our posts on Klaus Wrage here.

Kevin Young and Robin Coste Lewis, Poems After Rauschenberg’s Inferno (2017)

October 31, 2021 By Sephora Affa, FSU '24

“Robert Rauschenberg: Thirty-Four Illustrations for Dante’s Inferno, was published in conjunction with the first major retrospective on Rauschenberg’s career since the artist’s death in 2008, this book presents the complete set of 34 drawings, and newly commissioned poetry from Kevin Young and Robin Coste Lewis, each reflecting on a selection of drawings and their corresponding Cantos. Young’s half of the 34 Cantos are titled “The Dark Wood” and Lewis’ are erasures of John Ciardi’s Dante’s translation, titled “Dante Comes to America: 20 January 2017: An Erasure of 17 Cantos from Ciardi’s Inferno, after Robert Rauschenberg.” [. . . ] —Poetry Society of America, (retrieved October 24, 2021)

View the poems and illustrations for Cantos II and XXIII here.

Relatedly, see the post on Robert Rauschenberg’s 34 Illustrations here.

How to Cite