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Citings & Sightings of Dante's Works in Contemporary Culture

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“Columbia Art League Exhibit Honors Dante With Visions of the Afterlife”

February 6, 2021 By Laura Chatellier, FSU '23

columbia-art-league-dante-visions-of-afterlife-2021“CAL’s current exhibit, The Divine Comedy, is grounded in Dante Alighieri’s medieval masterwork, a revealing, often harrowing pilgrimage through the stations of the afterlife. CAL artists responded to Dante’s themes, and everlasting concepts of life beyond our own, in personal and particular ways.

“Heaven, hell and purgatory are represented within these images, and relatively well-balanced, CAL education and outreach director Karen Shortt-Stout said. Given the existential troubles of 2020 and early 2021, she thought artists might bend in greater number toward the visual language of fire and brimstone.

“Viewers don’t have to be well-acquainted with Dante — or ascribe to any particular theology — to see themselves represented in the exhibit, she said.

“‘Certainly the idea of hell, the idea of purgatory, of being in limbo or the idea of heaven — bliss — these are psychological states that we all experience in our daily lives,’ she said. ‘A lot of the artists grabbed onto that interpretation.’

“Bliss radiates from one corner of the gallery. In close proximity, pieces by Peggy Hurley and Jane Mudd offer distinct but equally compelling visions of joy. Hurley’s encaustic and mixed-media “Shower of Grace and Love” evokes a metaphysical wash of color, light and kindness.

“Mudd’s oil painting ‘Paradisio, Afterlife Party’ bears witness as figures dance, freed from the bonds of earthly existence. They boogie down beneath shapely clouds which bear the visage of God-as-bearded-old-man and resemble other divine creatures.” [. . .]    –Aarik Danielsen, Columbia Daily Tribune, January 31, 2021.

Categories: Visual Art & Architecture, Written Word
Tagged with: 2021, Afterlife, America, Art, Exhibitions, Journalism, Purgatory, United States, Visual Art

“Dante nell’Inferno di Fukushima: Lorenzo Amato intervista Kazumasa Chiba”

January 29, 2020 By Professor Elizabeth Coggeshall

On January 22, 2020, the journal Insula europea published Lorenzo Amato’s interview with Japanese visual artist Kazumasa Chiba, who, over the last twenty years, has dedicated his art to translating scenes from the Commedia into contemporary political and moral commentary. “Come su un palcoscenico teatrale,” writes Amato, “Chiba si ‘traveste’ da Dante e si muove in grandi paesaggi allegorici costruiti su elementi culturali ibridi, che derivano dal sincretismo di cultura popolare giapponese e tradizioni classiche occidentali e orientali, antiche e moderne.” In 2012 he was awarded the Toshiko Okamoto Award for his work that interprets the Fukushima earthquake and subsequent nuclear disaster as an Inferno in the manner of Dante.

Here’s a brief extract from Amato’s interview with Chiba:

“Dante nomina in modo molto chiaro le persone famose che secondo lui sono colpevoli di qualcosa, anche se sono ancora vive. Diciamo che questo tipo di poesia mi ha mostrato una possibile strada per affrontare con l’arte i problemi del mondo, e quindi anche sfogare la rabbia che a volte provo nei confronti di certe persone, politici o responsabili di avvenimenti importanti, come tutte le persone coinvolte nel disastro di Fukushima. Ogni volta che succedono disastri, o che vengono fatte scelte a livello politico che poi provocano conseguenze negative, provo una forte rabbia. È raro che le persone comuni possano avere un qualche impatto su quelle scelte, e a volte mi verrebbe voglia di mostrare il mio dissenso in forma di protesta anche violenta. In questo senso l’arte è un modo per sfogare questa rabbia, ma anche per lasciare un segno, ovvero per mostrare quello che penso.” — Kazumasa Chiba, in an interview with Lorenzo Amato, Insula europea, January 22, 2020

An exhibit of Chiba’s work, called “A Modern Interpretation of Dante’s Divine Comedy,” was shown at the Mizuma Art Gallery in Tokyo from August 21 to September 21, 2019.

Categories: Visual Art & Architecture
Tagged with: 2019, 2020, Disasters, Inferno, Japan, Natural Disasters, Paintings, Politics, Visual Art

Cheryl Sorg’s Nine Circles of Hell

September 20, 2019 By Alexa Kellenberger FSU '22

“Dante’s Inferno, cut apart line by line and assembled in readable order with clear tape onto a series of nine plexi circles approximately 20 inches in diameter and mounted onto a floor-to-ceiling height clear plexi road going through the centers of the discs.”    –Cheryl Sorg, from her website, 2019.

Cheryl Sorg is an artist from Cincinnati, Ohio, and currently based in Boston. She specializes in street art, collages, tape drawings, and photography, among other mediums.

To view more of Sorg’s artwork, you can visit her website.

Categories: Visual Art & Architecture
Tagged with: 2019, Art, Artists, Boston, Cincinnati, Circles of Hell, Inferno, Ohio, Visual Art

Le LA du Monde a film directed by Ghislaine Avan

August 5, 2019 By Alexa Kellenberger FSU '22

“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

Categories: Performing Arts
Tagged with: 2019, Art, Artists, Films, Language, Performance Art, Visual Art

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

December 31, 2018 By Professor Elizabeth Coggeshall

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)

Categories: Visual Art & Architecture
Tagged with: 2015, Anime, Games, Inferno, Online Games, Visual Art

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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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