Dante’s Divine Comedy is the latest idea for a exhibition in the often unused 10th floor galleries at Sotheby’s New York headquarters. Carol Vogel announces Lisa Dennison’s latest project:
Not everything in “Divine Comedy” will be for sale either, Ms. Dennison said, because she wanted to include material that would flesh out the show’s theme. On view will be one of Richard Prince’s nurse paintings from 2005, a Flag Art Foundation loan that is not for sale. The same goes for a 1950s painting by Francis Bacon that is coming from an anonymous collector.
The show will be organized by themes from the poem: Inferno, Purgatory and Paradise. Most of the works will be contemporary, but there will be a first-century Roman marble and several old master paintings as well as examples of 19th-century European art and 20th-century design. Among the contemporary artists represented will be Maurizio Cattelan (a sculpture of Hitler), George Condo (two paintings, including one of a cross-eyed God) and Damien Hirst (two butterfly paintings).
Dante Enters New Realm, Sotheby’s 10th Floor (New York Times)