My enthusiasm for one of our past projects inspired me to write my first blog post.  The project consisted of a marathon reading of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, which was presented in the context of the exhibition Ideal (Dis-)Placements: Old Masters at the Pulitzer (October 24, 2008 – October 3, 2009). The idea for the reading, as well as the presentation of paintings by Old Masters, was to bring recognized classics into a contemporary realm and reach as broad and as diverse a public as possible.

Most exhibitions are documented with catalogues, and we did this both on the web and in print for the Old Masters exhibition. But how does one communicate the experience of an ephemeral two day reading in our exhibition space? Laurent Torno, a St. Louis based videographer, filmed each of the 74 readers and we ended up with an enormous amount of footage. The question of how to condense this in a web-relevant form was discussed at length.

I think that Laurent’s solution worked well: each participant is represented while reading a short passage, showing the spectrum of the text, the different reading styles, and the diversity of readers. When I was going through the final result, I was struck by the focus of each of the readers, but also by the different ways each bended over the text  – their methods of intonation, how they dealt with the hair that inevitably gets in the way, etc. Some pronounced the words more to themselves, others were in a theatrical mode, while yet others were treading carefully through the minefield of Greek names. What also comes through is that this ancient text continues to be of relevance to our modern world.

Take a look and, by all means, feel free to share it with your friends if it does something for you.–Matthias Waschek, Director of the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts

Here is the final schedule of Sunday readers for A Marathon Metamorphoses. Be sure to listen to Rob Henke, Lamonte Johnson, and Catherine A. Neville read a selection of myths from Ovid’s Metamorphoses by clicking on the video link next to their name. And please stay tuned for future marathon readings at the Pulitzer!

Read the rest of this entry »

Here is the final schedule of Saturday readers for A Marathon Metamorphoses. Be sure to listen to K. Curtis Lyle, Carol North, and Avery Springer read a selection of myths from Ovid’s Metamorphoses by clicking on the video link next to their names. Read the rest of this entry »

The buzz around the Pulitzer yesterday morning was that Saturday marathon reader Tyler Green of Modern Art Notes (one of the most read art blogs in the country) wrote a second post about his trip last week to the Pulitzer. If you haven’t caught all the skinny surrounding last weekend’s marathon, I’ve compiled Green’s notes along with a few other internet sources into a list for you. Read the rest of this entry »

For more photos from the weekend, please visit the Pulitzer’s Flickr page.

Or is it your bookmark?

Well, in any case, since 10am this morning, A Marathon Metamorphoses has been going full-throttle. I would like to tell you more, but I’m in a rush to listen to Stefene Russell, who begins in a few, so here are a couple video tidbits to tide over anyone out there glued to the computer, eagerly awaiting a blog update:

Prominent writer and David May Distinguished Professor of Emeritus William H. Gass kicks-off the marathon with the first 15-minute read at 10am.

2:00pm reader Richard Newman, Editor for River Styx, reflects on his fifteen minutes.

Chris King is creative director of Poetry Scores, which translates poetry into other media, and editorial director of The St. Louis American newspaper. He reads at 3:45 p.m. on Sunday.

I suppose I am still not quite over the exceedingly pleasant surprise that The Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts is hosting a marathon reading of the Metamorphoses by Ovid. You see, I had thought Ovid was, if not my secret, then the secret of people like me, and I didn’t think there were all that many of us, at least not in St. Louis, and certainly not running august art institutions in St. Louis. Let me explain. Read the rest of this entry »

August 30 marathon reader Elizabeth Ketcher is Executive Director and founder of StudioSTL, a non-profit, in the Grand Center Arts District of St. Louis, which empowers youth through writing programs. You can find StudioSTL  young authors’ published works in bookstores or online.

I confess I haven’t read all fifteen books of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Okay, I haven’t read even one. When I tell my friends that I am participating in the Pulitzer’s marathon reading, they casually say, “Oh, yeah. I read that in college.” Huh? All fifteen books? I learned that my friends (and husband) are confused. Not Kafka, The Metamorphosis!  This is OVID, Metamorphoses! Duh. Read the rest of this entry »

Judy Mann, a curator at Saint Louis Art Museum, describes Joachim Wtewael’s idealized rendition of Ovid’s Cephalus and Procris, a dramatic couple who can be read about in Book 7 of the Metamorphoses. The painting is in the Pulitzer’s Main Gallery for Ideal (Dis-) Placements: Old Masters at the Pulitzer, and is on loan from the St. Louis Art Museum.

This post was written by Lorin Cuoco, a consultant for the St. Louis Poetry Center, who has written and edited six books, including St. Louis: A Literary Guide, which she co-wrote with A Metamorphoses Marathon reader William Gass. She and Gass also founded the International Writers Center at Washington University.

The author of the Arabian Nights, Boccaccio, Dante, Chaucer, Spencer, Marlowe, Shakespeare, Milton—all were students of Ovid, some were thieves. Publius Ovidius Naso was born in Sulmo in 43 B.C. His father took him to Rome at an early age, to study law, the preparation even then for a public career. It was the study of rhetoric, though, that he was drawn to and which would bring him fame and then infamy. In A.D. 8 the emperor Augustus banished him to Tomis on the Black Sea. His reason? The immorality of Ovid’s love poems, Ars Amatoria (the Art of Love). Ovid himself makes reference to the offense, saying it was a poem, (and a mistake) in a poem called Tristia, written in exile. Sad, devastated, abandoned to a bad climate and unrefined inhabitants, never to return to his beloved Rome after many appeals to Augustus, and his successor, Tiberius, Ovid died in A.D. 17 or 18. Read the rest of this entry »