The Oldest Song We Know: Essay by Dana Turkovic

September 10th, 2007 · No Comments · 2007 The Oldest Song We..., Greece

Qbox_theoldestsongweknow

From the essay by Dana Turkovic which accompanies our current exhibition at Qbox gallery in Athens (through Nov 10)…

“The Oldest Song We Know” is undeniably, and in many complex ways, tightly linked to the current state of re-building on the island of Kea and the Parthenon’s literal and linear approach to its telling of stories, but particularly aligned with the displacement of a large portion of the friezes from Athens to London in the early 1800s by the British ambassador and antiquarian Lord Elgin. The McMillans describe the scandal of the “Elgin Marbles” as one inspiration for the piece: “it is a deconstructed narrative that exists in two places at once; between the people who experience the pieces in England and the people of Athens, as they approach the works in different ways with different readings; both a historical reading and a modern one; where narrative itself is deteriorated over time.”

Download the essay here.

Dana Turkovic is an independent curator based in St. Louis, Missouri.

Related: from The Los Angeles Times, Taking the Long View of Architecture in Athens; from The International Herald Tribune, Campaigner urges Greece to fight for Marbles for new Acropolis museum, and from The Guardian, Should we give the Parthenon marbles back?

Category: 2007 The Oldest Song We... · Greece

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