A graduate of the Otis Art Institute of Parsons School of Design, Sandow Birk is a Los Angeles-based artist who delves into contemporary life, often developing expansive multimedia projects. Past themes of Mr. Birk’s work include urban violence, graffiti, social and political issues, travel, prisons, Islam, surfing, and skateboarding. He is the recipient of numerous grants and international fellowships, including from the National Endowment of the Arts, Guggenheim Foundation, Getty Foundation, and, most recently the Gottlieb Foundation. Mr. Birk was awarded an Artist Research Fellowship at the Smithsonian Institution and, in 2014, named as a United States Artist Knight Fellow. His most recent works include “American Qur’an,” an illuminated manuscript of the Koran in English, and “Imaginary Monuments,” which considers important documents in world history. Mr. Birk is represented by the Catharine Clark Gallery in San Francisco, Track 16 Gallery in Los Angeles, and by Koplin del Rio Gallery in Seattle.
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Event Overview
If Dante were a “sneaker- and hoodie-clad slacker” living in contemporary New York — instead of a medieval poet exiled from Florence, Italy — would his “Divine Comedy” begin at a corner bodega and descend into the bowels of the subway? And would Dante’s journey to the afterlife be as relevant today as it was in 14th-century Europe?
Join celebrated artist Sandow Birk as he details his five-year journey to rewrite Dante’s “Divine Comedy” in American vernacular and illustrate it with more than 200 drawings and paintings set in today’s urban America. The project culminated in three leatherbound, limited-edition art books, “Inferno,” “Purgatorio,” and “Paradiso,” which were later published in trade editions and exhibited across the country. Mr. Birk will also explore his creation of an award-winning, feature-length film adaptation of Dante’s “Inferno” (2007), made with paper puppets and toy theatre sets.
This is the third talk in Cornell’s “Visions of Dante” Study Day, a day-long special event held in conjunction with the Johnson Museum of Art’s “Visions of Dante” exhibition, timed to mark the 700th anniversary of Dante’s death. Mr. Birk’s drawings and paintings are part of the exhibit.
Agenda
9:30-10:30 AM ET: Visualizing Dante in the 16th Century: An Amateur’s Art (Rhoda Eitel-Porter)
10:45-11:45 AM ET: From Etruria to the New World: Cornell’s Copy of the Editio Princeps of Dante’s “Divine Comedy,” Between Book History, Bibliophilia, and Exegesis (Natale Vacalebre)
1:00-1:45 PM ET: Exhibition Tour (curators Laurent Ferri and Andrew Weislogel)
2:00-3:00 PM ET: Meeting Dante (artist Sandow Birk)
3:15-4:15 PM ET: A Dante Afterlife: LeRoi Jones’s “System of Dante’s Hell” and Derek Walcott’s “Omeros” (Maryemma Graham)
Join celebrated artist Sandow Birk as he details his five-year journey to rewrite Dante’s “Divine Comedy” in American vernacular and illustrate it with more than 200 drawings and paintings set in today’s urban America. The project culminated in three leatherbound, limited-edition art books, “Inferno,” “Purgatorio,” and “Paradiso,” which were later published in trade editions and exhibited across the country. Mr. Birk will also explore his creation of an award-winning, feature-length film adaptation of Dante’s “Inferno” (2007), made with paper puppets and toy theatre sets.
This is the third talk in Cornell’s “Visions of Dante” Study Day, a day-long special event held in conjunction with the Johnson Museum of Art’s “Visions of Dante” exhibition, timed to mark the 700th anniversary of Dante’s death. Mr. Birk’s drawings and paintings are part of the exhibit.
Agenda
9:30-10:30 AM ET: Visualizing Dante in the 16th Century: An Amateur’s Art (Rhoda Eitel-Porter)
10:45-11:45 AM ET: From Etruria to the New World: Cornell’s Copy of the Editio Princeps of Dante’s “Divine Comedy,” Between Book History, Bibliophilia, and Exegesis (Natale Vacalebre)
1:00-1:45 PM ET: Exhibition Tour (curators Laurent Ferri and Andrew Weislogel)
2:00-3:00 PM ET: Meeting Dante (artist Sandow Birk)
3:15-4:15 PM ET: A Dante Afterlife: LeRoi Jones’s “System of Dante’s Hell” and Derek Walcott’s “Omeros” (Maryemma Graham)
What You'll Learn
- How a contemporary American artist approaches and adapts a classic 14th-century epic poem to the concerns and vernacular of our own time
- The role of wit and humor in Sandow Birk’s version of Dante’s “Divine Comedy”
- How an artist explores his encounter with Dante in various media
Speaker
Artist and Surfer
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Oct16
Add to Calendar 2:00 PM - 3:00 PM EDT
2021-10-16 14:002021-10-16 15:00Meeting DanteAdd to CalendarIf Dante were a “sneaker- and hoodie-clad slacker” living in contemporary New York — instead of a medieval poet exiled from Florence, Italy — would his “Divine Comedy” begin at a corner bodega and descend into the bowels of the subway? And would Dante’s journey to the afterlife be as relevant today as it was in 14th-century Europe?
Join celebrated artist Sandow Birk as he details his five-year journey to rewrite Dante’s “Divine Comedy” in American vernacular and illustrate it with more than 200 drawings and paintings set in today’s urban America. The project culminated in three leatherbound, limited-edition art books, “Inferno,” “Purgatorio,” and “Paradiso,” which were later published in trade editions and exhibited across the country. Mr. Birk will also explore his creation of an award-winning, feature-length film adaptation of Dante’s “Inferno” (2007), made with paper puppets and toy theatre sets.
This is the third talk in Cornell’s “Visions of Dante” Study Day, a day-long special event held in conjunction with the Johnson Museum of Art’s “Visions of Dante” exhibition, timed to mark the 700th anniversary of Dante’s death. Mr. Birk’s drawings and paintings are part of the exhibit.
Agenda
9:30-10:30 AM ET: Visualizing Dante in the 16th Century: An Amateur’s Art (Rhoda Eitel-Porter)
10:45-11:45 AM ET: From Etruria to the New World: Cornell’s Copy of the Editio Princeps of Dante’s “Divine Comedy,” Between Book History, Bibliophilia, and Exegesis (Natale Vacalebre)
1:00-1:45 PM ET: Exhibition Tour (curators Laurent Ferri and Andrew Weislogel)
2:00-3:00 PM ET: Meeting Dante (artist Sandow Birk)
3:15-4:15 PM ET: A Dante Afterlife: LeRoi Jones’s “System of Dante’s Hell” and Derek Walcott’s “Omeros” (Maryemma Graham)https://ecornell.cornell.edu/keynotes/view/K101621c/primaryAmerica/New_YorkeCornell
Join celebrated artist Sandow Birk as he details his five-year journey to rewrite Dante’s “Divine Comedy” in American vernacular and illustrate it with more than 200 drawings and paintings set in today’s urban America. The project culminated in three leatherbound, limited-edition art books, “Inferno,” “Purgatorio,” and “Paradiso,” which were later published in trade editions and exhibited across the country. Mr. Birk will also explore his creation of an award-winning, feature-length film adaptation of Dante’s “Inferno” (2007), made with paper puppets and toy theatre sets.
This is the third talk in Cornell’s “Visions of Dante” Study Day, a day-long special event held in conjunction with the Johnson Museum of Art’s “Visions of Dante” exhibition, timed to mark the 700th anniversary of Dante’s death. Mr. Birk’s drawings and paintings are part of the exhibit.
Agenda
9:30-10:30 AM ET: Visualizing Dante in the 16th Century: An Amateur’s Art (Rhoda Eitel-Porter)
10:45-11:45 AM ET: From Etruria to the New World: Cornell’s Copy of the Editio Princeps of Dante’s “Divine Comedy,” Between Book History, Bibliophilia, and Exegesis (Natale Vacalebre)
1:00-1:45 PM ET: Exhibition Tour (curators Laurent Ferri and Andrew Weislogel)
2:00-3:00 PM ET: Meeting Dante (artist Sandow Birk)
3:15-4:15 PM ET: A Dante Afterlife: LeRoi Jones’s “System of Dante’s Hell” and Derek Walcott’s “Omeros” (Maryemma Graham)https://ecornell.cornell.edu/keynotes/view/K101621c/primaryAmerica/New_YorkeCornell
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