Saturday, April 28, 2018 | 3:30pm-5:00pm - 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Dr, San Francisco, CA 94118. Free Admission | RSVP Required
The Ancient Art Council of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and the Italian Cultural Institute of San Francisco invite audiences to participate in a exclusive event combining ancient art and contemporary poetry. As a double bill with the Council’s lecture – “The Munich Doryphoros” by Prof. Rolf Schneider – Italian poet Gabriele Tinti will present poems inspired by classical sculpture, in this particular case the Greek statue of Asklepios, one of the most prominent antiquities of the Legion of Honor’s collection.
An exceptional guest star, actor Robert Davi, will read some of Mr. Tinti’s poems against the backdrop of captivating sculptures. Similar performances have been held in other major museums with ancient sculpture in the US and Europe. After the presentation, Mr. Tinti will be available for Q&As.
My compositions focus on the subject of death and suffering and are mainly composed in the form of reasoned, epigrammatic poetry. The humanity sung in my writings is the dramatic life of boxers, suicides, defeated heroes, and the disabled. […] The goal of my poetry is to revive the now lost aura of ancient works of art, relics of worlds and heroes that no longer exist. A sense of humanity in ruins – death, fragility, emptiness, masterpieces that we wish to be eternal – is the instigation for my work. --- Gabriele Tinti
Immersed in a unique visual-to-spoken-word experience, the audience is encouraged to question whether ancient sculpture might have lost its religious intensity—its “aura.” Mr. Tinti attempts to counter the shortcomings of linguistic play by reintroducing the tradition of oral poetry. Focusing on ancient statues, his poems will be read as if sung by an ancient bard to convey a sense of tragedy, which was once a preparation for such themes as death, the divination of the forebears, or the glorification of failure.
Robert Davi is an American actor, singer, and entertainer. Over the course of his acting career, Mr. Davi has performed in more than 130 films, including Die Hard (1988), License to Kill (1989), Predator 2 (1990), and Showgirls (1995). On television, he portrayed FBI Special Agent Bailey Malone in the NBC TV series Profiler (1996–2000).
The recipient of the 2018 Montale Poetry Award, Gabriele Tinti is an Italian poet and writer. Working with prestigious institutions such as the J. Paul Getty Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, British Museum, LA County Museum of Art, and Musei Capitolini, he has composed poems on ancient sculptures that include the Boxer at Rest, the Diskobolos, the Victorious Youth, the Farnese Hercules, the Elgin Marbles, the Barberini Faun, and many others. His poems have been performed by talented actors such as Joe Mantegna, Michael Imperioli, Burt Young, Alessandro Haber, Robert Davi, Vincent Piazza, and Franco Nero.
Rolf Schneider is Professor Emeritus for Classical Archaeology at the Ludwig-Maximilians University of Munich and currently Visiting Professor at the University of California, Berkeley. His lecture will discuss the making and reception of Polykleitos’s famous Doryphoros (Spear Bearer) in the collection of the Ludwig-Maximilians University. An exceptional piece of sculpture, the statue is a reconstruction of the lost bronze statue made by the Greek sculptor, Polykleitos, around 440 BC.
