Dante Today

Citings & Sightings of Dante's Works in Contemporary Culture

Le LA du Monde a film directed by Ghislaine Avan

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“Tap-dancer, choreographer, and video artist, Ghislaine Avan has been working since 2006 to achieve a choreographic and transmedia work inspired by Dante’s Divine Comedy.

“The diptych includes a choreographic ensemble of 10 pieces entitled Seuil (Threshold), and a film entitled Le LA du Monde, the result of filming, since 2006, people around the world, from all backgrounds, nationalities and in all languages, reading an excerpt from Dante’s poem.”

Of the project’s goals, the artist lists the following:

  • “Celebrating on September 14, 2021, the 700th Anniversary of Dante’s death.
  • “Realizing/Creating a worldwide installation entitled Divine Babel: the simultaneous screening of the film Le LA du Monde with the 100 cantos of the Comedy projected on 100 screens, located in 100 different places around the world.
  • “Representing all continents to make this Babel truly divine.”

View the English trailer for “Le LA du Monde” on YouTube.

Contributed by Ghislaine Avanghi

Dante’s Inferno: The Game (2015 visual novel game)

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Contributor Savannah Mikus comments, “Dante’s Inferno – The Game. An anime style visual novel game. This game was created by ‘LIAR’ a group of four students: Vee, Lightneng, Saphire, and R. The game was posted online on Ren’Py Games for the public on June 3, 2015.”

The creators describe their game as follows: “Based off the classic, Dante’s Inferno by Dante Alighieri, a group of four classmates created a visual novel in a modern setting for the story to provide easier understanding of the book. It is for-fun adventure we did for class, but since we put so much work into it, we decided to post it to the public too!” — Ren’Py Games

See Ren’Py Games for more information and/or to download the game.

Contributed by Savannah Mikus (Florida State University BA ’20, MA ’22)

Rachel Owen’s Inferno Illustrations

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Rachel-Owen-Inferno-illustrations-Pembroke-College-Oxford
Image from the Pembroke College Twitter feed

“Rachel Owen: The Inferno Illustrations displays 34 photographic prints of mixed-media collage works, created in response to the Inferno in the Divine Comedy, a 14th century poem by the Italian poet Dante. This exhibition marks the culmination of Rachel Owen’s (1968 – 2016) lifelong academic and artistic engagement with the text.

“The Cardiff-born printmaker studied Fine Art and Italian at the University of Exeter and painting at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence. She attained a PhD in the ‘History of Illuminated Manuscripts of Dante’s Commedia’ at the University of London in 2001. Until her death in December 2016, she taught Italian Literature in Pembroke, and at other colleges within the University of Oxford.” — Pembroke College Events

The exhibition of Owen’s work at the Pembroke College JCR Art Gallery ran from October 18 to December 1, 2017.

Dino Di Durante, Inferno: The Art Collection (2014)

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DinoDiDurante“Dino Di Durante’s life’s work, passion, and assistance from a committee of Dante experts helped guide his hand through his contemporary paintings, inspired to educate the world about Dante and his Divine Comedy.

“Boris [Acosta]’s documentary feature film (Inferno by Dante) will screen at Cannes Film Festival in May 2016, and Dino Di Durante’s 72-piece art collection has been published as a book on Amazon [. . .] Each painting comes with a description of the passage at the bottom of each page as well as QR Codes to be scanned to read the actual text for free online while enjoying the art itself. Inferno: The Art Collection as the book is titled, is already translated in 33 languages, with more to come.” — Review: “Dante’s Inferno Gets Repainted” on Thalo: Artist Community

See the related post on Dino Di Durante and Boris Acosta’s Dante’s Inferno Animated here.

Blub, “L’arte sa nuotare” (2015)

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blub

A recent street art project in Florence, called “L’arte sa nuotare”, or “Art Knows How to Swim”, features iconic figures wearing scuba masks. Among images like the Mona Lisa and Michelangelo’s David is a portrait of Dante. The works are by street artist “Blub.”

Contributed by Simone Marchesi

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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