The backdrop and recurring theme of the Greek contemporary art exhibition Always the Sun is the question of how to address the powerful influence of ancient Hellas on any attempts to define contemporary Greek identity. In 1944, the Union of Aesthetic Saboteurs of Ancient Monuments set itself the goal of destroying [blowing up] the Parthenon, which it said was “literally suffocating” Greek artists—and they were probably only half-joking.
In this lecture, I will attempt to explain how the “miracle of Hellenic culture” came to be, what the Greeks themselves thought of it, what its greatest achievements were, and why its radiance—rather than gradually fading away, leaving only aesthetic traces and quotations in more recent cultures—seems to actually be growing stronger. In this lecture I will attempt to cover as broad a spectrum of this legacy as possible—from architecture and sculpture to philosophy and the exact sciences—and characterize this unique culture, its sources of energy, and its guiding themes. Today’s question—“What can we do so that the Parthenon no longer bothers us?”—in my opinion, already contains the answer, but it is worth putting it into words.
Agnese Gaile-Irbe, PhD, is a classical philologist. She has translated the following works from Ancient Greek: Hippocratic Writings. A Selection; Epicurus. Letters. Insights. Fragments; and Aristotle. Politics (in collaboration with Aija van Hofa). She is the author of the poetry collection Tā gaisma (That Light) and the monograph Principiāla dzīvības aizstāvības ētika (The Ethics of Principled Defense of Life), a publicist, and the editor-in-chief of the conservative online journal TELOS.
The lecture will be held in Latvian.
Admission with an exhibition ticket. Please register: https://forms.gle/Cbs9cPRt8YVoffmz9