Announcing ‘The Classical Now’!
The press release for our major exhibition – The Classical Now – has just gone live, and is available to read here.
The exhibition will be the culmination of the first phase of our project, and will be running from 2 March to 28 April 2018 – in the Inigo Rooms and the Bush House Arcade at King’s College London. We have a stunning line-up of artists and works: the show will examine classical presences in the works of twentieth-century artists such as Pablo Picasso and Yves Klein, and of leading contemporary artists including Damien Hirst, Alex Israel, Louise Lawler, Grayson Perry, Marc Quinn and Rachel Whiteread. Our aim for the show is to explore the myriad continuities and contrasts between the ancient, modern and contemporary, revealing the ‘classical’ as a living and fluid tradition. Objects range from classical Greek and Roman artefacts to contemporary painting, sculpture, video and photography. The exhibition will feature contemporary works in which classical forms receive provocative new expression – such as the fragmentary bodies by contemporary artist Marc Quinn – alongside more oblique or suggestive uses of ancient themes, such as Bruce Nauman’s landmark video performance, Walk with Contrapposto (1968). Paris-based artist Léo Caillard, known for dressing classical statues in contemporary attire, has been commissioned to produce a new site-specific installation for the exhibition.
More information about the show can also be found here.
The Classical Now is presented by Cultural Programming at King’s College London, in partnership with the Musée d’Art Classique de Mougins (MACM). The exhibition is accompanied by a book with the same title, featuring interviews with artists and essays by some of the leading voices in the fields of classics and art history.
