Sandow Birk's Divine
Comedy
Realist painter's
latest series of epic paintings and prints allude to The
Divine Comedy.
January 6, 2006 :: No. 102
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Only a handful of
artists have undertaken to visually translate Dante Alighieri’s
14th century literary masterpiece, The Divine Comedy . Southern
California-based realist painter Sandow Birk is the most
recent to do so, and in his epic series of paintings and
prints Birk re-imagines the tale as an American narrative
that is at once humorous and politically relevant.
In Dante’s classic work of Western literature, readers
are invited to tour the Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso with
Dante as their guide. However, Birk’s contemporary reinterpretation is more than a straightforward
rendering. He casts the story in modern-day American cities and takes viewers
on a journey through a world filled with the freeways, fast food, traffic jams,
liquor stores, and parking lots that clutter our contemporary American landscape. “Hell
is set in alleyways and mini-malls and next to dumpsters,” according to
Birk, whose paintings of the Inferno include police helicopters descending upon
Los Angeles and gas-guzzling SUV’s overtaking the streets of San Francisco.
Over the last three years, Birk has worked with journalist Marcus Sanders to
adapt Dante’s masterwork into contemporary American vernacular, while remaining
faithful to the original text. The pair consulted frequently with Brother Michael
Meister, a professor of religious studies at St. Mary’s College in Moraga,
California. Known primarily as a contemporary realist painter, Birk illustrated
each section of the Divine Comedy — Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso — with
more than 100 lithographs and paintings, a portion of which will be included
in the exhibition.
This is a traveling exhibition organized by the San Jose Museum of Art.
Raised on the beaches of Southern California, Birk’s reputation as an artist
has grown exponentially in recent years. His work has been exhibited internationally
and featured in Harper’s Magazine, The New York Times,
The New Yorker, the London Guardian, ArtNews, the Los Angeles
Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, and on NPR. The San Jose
Museum of Art, organizer of this exhibition, believes that Fulbright Scholar
and Guggenheim Fellowship recipient Sandow Birk is one of the most exciting visual
artists working today and that the interdisciplinary nature of The Divine
Comedy project will continue to generate great scholarly and public interest.
Media Contacts: |
Marilyn Moore, Art Gallery Office at 657-278-7750
Andrea
Harris, Grand Central Art Center at (714) 567-7234
Elizabeth
Champion, College of the Arts at 657-278-2434 |
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Exhibition
Sandow
Birk's Divine Comedy
When
CSUF Main Art Gallery: February 4 – March 10, 2006
Opening
Reception, Saturday, Feb. 4, 5-8 p.m.
Grand Central Art Center: February 4 – March 20, 2006
Opening
Reception, Saturday, Feb. 4, 7-10 p.m.
Hours
CSUF Main Art Gallery: 12-4 p.m. Monday – Thursday & 12-2 p.m. Saturday
GCAC:
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday, 11 a.m.–4 p.m. Friday and Saturday,
11 a.m.-9 p.m.
Where
Visual Arts Center • California State University, Fullerton
800
North State College Blvd., Fullerton, CA
Grand
Central Art Center
125
North Broadway, Santa Ana, CA 92701
Admission
FREE
General Info
Main Art Gallery at
657-278-3262
Grand
Central Art Center at (714) 567-7233 or
(714) 567-7234
Website
http://www.fullerton.edu/arts/events/
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