Wednesday evening saw the opening of AAR Gallery’s new exhibition, Stone From Delphi, which features thirty-five watercolors by the American artist and AAR Arts Advisor Wendy Artin and poems by the Irish Nobel Laureate and William B. Hart Poet-in-Residence Seamus Heaney. People of all ages enjoyed a cool and pleasant evening of art, poetry, and drinks in the gallery and adjacent cortile. The exhibition was made possible by Arion Press of San Francisco, whose fine arts letterpress printing, Stone From Delphi of 2012, inspired the show. It will remain open to the public on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays from 4:00 pm to 7:00 pm until June 3.
At seven o’clock those in attendance were gathered up for an unexpected and delightful intermezzo when AAR Director Christopher Celenza (1994 Fellow), offered brief remarks to acknowledge the organizational efforts of Andrew Heiskell Arts Director Karl Kirchwey (1995 Fellow) and to thank Arion Press. After introducing and thanking both artists in attendance, Celenza ceded the podium to Heaney, who graciously offered an impromptu reading of his poems “The Stone Verdict” and “Hercules and Antaeus,” both the subject of watercolors by Artin. Artin, whom Heaney described as a “master watercolorist,” has produced a body of work inspired by ancient sculpture. Large works reinterpreting the Venus Anadyomene scene on the Ludovisi Throne at Palazzo Altemps and a Dancing Maenad are set among smaller-scale ones that include striking portrayals of Hercules, Laocoön, and Actaeon. Two copies of the Arion Press limited-edition book are also on display, set alongside seventeen two-page spreads. Each pairing sets Heaney and Artin into dialogue and revives an ancient conversation about the relationship between the visual arts and poetry. This serendipitous meeting of creative minds was set in motion by Eric Fischl (1996 Fellow), who suggested Artin to Arion for a possible artistic collaboration, and has produced a compelling example of the enduring significance of Roman culture.
Like Heaney’s literary translations (included in this show are his accounts of the Death of Orpheus, from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and of a choral passage from Heaney’s version of the Antigone of Sophocles, entitled The Burial at Thebes), which give contemporary meaning to ancient verses, Artin’s exquisite watercolors translate ancient sculptures and reliefs into a highly modern visual language that supplants the solidity of those ancient stones with newly shifting and fluid forms. In this respect the exhibition highlights the shape-shifting art of translation itself, a theme that was also taken up in “Ovid Transformed: the Poet and the Metamorphoses,” a related two-day conference of literary readings and conversations organized by Karl Kirchwey and dedicated to exploring the enigmatic life and enduring legacy of the Roman poet Ovid and his Metamorphoses.