The backdrop and recurring motif of the Greek contemporary art exhibition “Always the Sun” is the question of what to do with the powerful influence of ancient Hellas on any attempt to define Greek identity today. In 1944, the “Union of Aesthetic Saboteurs of Ancient Monuments” set itself the goal of “blowing up the Parthenon”, which was “literally suffocating” Greek artists – and they were probably only half joking.
In the lecture, Agnese Gaile-Irbe will explain how the Hellenic cultural miracle came about, what the Hellenes themselves thought of it, what its greatest achievements are, and why its radiance, rather than gradually fading and leaving only aesthetic traces and quotations in later cultures, actually seems to be growing stronger. The lecture will cover as wide a field of this legacy as possible – from architecture and sculpture to philosophy and the exact sciences – describing this singular culture, its sources of energy and its leitmotifs.
Agnese Gaile-Irbe, Dr. philol., is a classical philologist. She has translated from Ancient Greek the books “Hippocratic Writings: A Selection”, “Epicurus: Letters, Maxims, Fragments” and Aristotle’s “Politics” (together with Aija van Hofa). She is the author of the poetry collection “Tā gaisma” (That Light) and the monograph “Principiāla dzīvības aizstāvības ētika” (A Principled Ethics of Defending Life), an essayist, and editor-in-chief of the conservative online journal TELOS.
Admission with an exhibition ticket.
Please register: https://forms.gle/Cbs9cPRt8YVoffmz9