Ruins - by Gabriele Tinti (Paperback)

About the Book

Ruins gathers writings in the form of verses, fragments, and short essays that Gabriele Tinti has dedicated to the "living sculpture of the actor".

Book Synopsis

Ruins gathers a series of writings in the form of verses, fragments, and short essays that Gabriele Tinti has dedicated to the "living sculpture of the actor".

The poet moves from the tragic sense of death and vacuity which afflicts even those masterpieces we wish eternal, with the aim of giving new life and thought to Graeco-Roman statuary, to all those relics of a now-lost humanity. Through its many courses and varied ideas, the book explores a distinctive relationship with the ancient world, and with the very reasons behind the making of art.

This volume is the culmination of live readings by some of the best-known actors of our time (James Cosmo, Marton Csokas, Robert Davi, Abel Ferrara, Stephen Fry, Alessandro Haber, Joe Mantegna, Malcolm McDowell, Jamie McShane, Franco Nero, Vincent Piazza, Michele Placido, and Kevin Spacey), all performed before important works of ancient art.

Ruins includes essays by the eminent scholars of ancient art Seán Hemingway (Metropolitan Museum), Kenneth Lapatin (Getty Museum), Christian Gliwitzky (Staatliche Antikensammlungen und Glyptothek), Andrew Stewart (UC Berkeley), Lynda Nead (Birkbeck, University of London), and Nigel Spivey (University of Cambridge).

Review Quotes

I find great joy reading the work of Tinti. He carefully combs the work of ancients revealing our indelible humanity.--Vincent Piazza

Lending my voice to these poems on classical statuary made me feel in some ways a participant in the survival of such a profound, tragic and influential civilization as was the ancient--Franco Nero

Like archaeological ruins, [Tinti's poems] stand complete, even as they sketch a past completeness that is, now, a far country.--Fiona Sampson

The characters Gabriele Tinti draws from the Greek myths, the muses, the slaves, enable 'the actor' to inhabit the essential struggle of what it is to be human, like a Noh play, doomed to repetition and the transcendence gained from it, to be human under the burning sun, which both gives life and destroys...--Marton Csokas

To be able to put a poetic voice to timeless art is a noble enterprise. I'm proud to have been a part of it.--Joe Mantegna

About the Author

Gabriele Tinti (Author)
Gabriele Tinti is an Italian poet and writer. He has worked with the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the British Museum (among many other institutions), and his poems have been performed by actors including Abel Ferrara, Willem Dafoe, and Kevin Spacey. His work is focused on the theme of death and suffering and is mostly composed in the form of ekphrastic and epigrammatic poetry. In 2018 his ekphrastic poetry project Ruins was awarded the Premio Montale with a ceremony at the Museo Nazionale Romano in Palazzo Altemps.

David Graham (Translated by)
David Graham lives in Venice and has been translating from Italian to English for almost thirty years. He specialises in art, including art criticism, mainly for exhibition catalogues. He has translated guide books for almost all of Venice's museums and art galleries, and for some years also the catalogues for the Venice Art/Architecture Biennale. His more recent work has included several major publications for the Vatican Museums. He also likes to dabble in poetry from time to time.