03-01 The Invention of Antiquity

I start with a brief introduction to Greek sculpture but my focus is on the fundamental questions regarding our understanding or rather our lack of understanding of the role and context of art in antiquity. All we can do is interpret classical works based on our present day cultural assumptions and our limited knowledge from the few remaining objects and texts. We often take it for granted that we understand an artwork but even the simplest questions of why, what and when make it clear that we can easily slip into interpreting works from the point of view of our culture. The talk gives many examples of mistaken cultural associations, cultural appropriation and cultural misalignment regarding issues such as power, sex and nudity. For full PDF notes see