Multimedia

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.

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

November 19, 2021 By Sephora Affa, FSU '24

“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.

In Dante Veritas, Vasily Klyukin

February 5, 2020 By lsanchez

“In Dante Veritas is a large scale, immersive multimedia exhibition by Russian sculptor Vasily Klyukin. It represents a narrative that recreates the nine circles of hell, and includes over 100 multimedia elements, such as sculpture, installation, digital art, audio and light boxes. The exhibitions includes sculptural works, most of which represent negative human traits such as Anger, Gluttony and Betrayal.

“The most prominent sculptural pieces are the Four Horsemen of the Modern Apocalypse. The artist has translated the traditional Horsemen (plague, war, hunger and death) into a modern day version: Overpopulation, Misinformation, Extermination and Pollution.

[. . .]

“The immersive exhibition encourages visitors to examine the sculptures with an audio guide narrated in the style of Dante’s poems. The sculptures of human sins also portray the punishment that comes with the sin. For instance, Gluttony is incredibly obese and Temptation has no limbs.

“The exhibition also includes a ‘prison’ room, further embodying the topic of sin. Famous criminals such as Stalin, Pablo Escobar and Bokassa are imprisoned here. The prison has a dungeon room – Betrayal – which represents Hell. Visitors are encouraged to leave notes on the wall, allowing them to name people who have betrayed them, or to write a message of forgiveness.

“The exhibition ends on a positive note. The Heart of Hope is a large sculpture of a heart at the centre of the exhibition, which was also displayed at the Burning Man festival in 2017. It symbolises the ability to stop all the negative traits and sins. Visitors are given a bracelet which transmits a signal to the statue, which then beats in the rhythm of the bracelet wearer’s heartbeat.” —Elucid Magazine

Fiona Hall’s Divine Comedy Polaroids (1988)

January 19, 2016 By Professor Elizabeth Coggeshall

Inferno-V-Lustful-Fiona-Hall-Polaroid-Photograph — Artist : Fiona Hall (Australia, b.1953)
Title : Inferno, canto V: The circle of the lustful (1988)
Medium Description: Polaroid photograph

“This photograph from the late 1980s is from a series of twelve Polaroid photographs relating directly to Dante’s Divine Comedy. Each work is a carefully constructed scene illustrating a particular canto. Technically the artist has made the most of the cumbersome 20 x 40 inch Polaroid camera, using it to render exquisite detail and to capture subtle colour. She cuts and moulds aluminium soft-drink cans to form menacing vegetation, human figures, creatures from beyond the grave, on the journey through Hell and Purgatory to Paradise. Hall photographs them amongst found objects set against backgrounds which she has painted.” —Art Gallery of New South Wales website

View the whole collection of photographs at the Art Galley of New South Wales site.

SAWTOOTH Dancers’ Ombra

July 22, 2014 By Professor Elizabeth Coggeshall

Dance company SAWTOOTH performs a Dante-inspired piece, Ombra, at Dixon Place in Chelsea, NY, on July 24, 2014.

“Inspired by Dante’s Paradiso and Plato’s Cave, Ombra is a multimedia dance performance embedded within a dance party. Drawing in part from a hypnotic, Butoh-inspired physicality, the dance performance emerges as episodic dreamscapes within a clubbing experience and a live cabaret. Sound artist Michael Feld orchestrates an eclectic sound score that moves between live percussion, electronic sound art, and 90s dance hits.

“Ombra asserts that liberation is created, not revealed. With humor, Ombra (Italian for ‘shadow’) is a piece that hopes to offer a re-evaluation of the dark, and it seeks to relocate the site of true human ascendance within the shadows and the shadows we make.” —Dixon Place

To read about SAWTOOTH, click here.

To read about Dixon Place, click here.

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