Dante and Contemporary Art: Lecture Oct. 4

The Italian Program is hosting a lecture by Arielle Saiber at 5 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 4, in Gearhart Hall, room 130. The lecture is sponsored by the Italian Program, Art History in the School of Art, the Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies Program, the Medieval and Renaissance Studies Program, and Honors College. 

Saiber is the Charles S. Singleton Professor of Italian Studies at Johns Hopkins University, head of the Italian subdivision and director of graduate studies in Italian. Her research interests include Dante, medieval and Renaissance Italian literature and philosophy, history of science, mathematics, humanism, early print history, science fiction, nonhuman studies and electronic music. 

Her presentation is titled "Carry the Lantern. Three Contemporary Artists Illuminating Dantean Paths Through Difficult Times: Maru Ceballos (Buenos Aires), Kat Mustatea (NYC), Kazumasa Chiba (Tokyo)." Innumerable are the works of art inspired by Dante's Divine Comedy that hybridize the medieval Italian poet's journey with the artist's own. Dante's Pilgrim has never, in fact, been everyone's "everyman."  And rightly so. Her presentation introduces three contemporary artists — Maru Ceballos of Argentina, Kazumasa Chiba of Japan and Kat Mustatea of New York City — who engage Dante's itinerary in striking and radically different ways. Their imagery is not easy to view. Their explorations of environmental disaster, societal degradation, pain and a global pandemic are disturbing, yet important viewing, as we continue to point to the transformative gifts the arts offer the world.