“Catharsis: Human Fragility and Aspects of Purification in a Corona Inspired Exhibition – a Curatorial Case”, Journal of Arts and Humanities, Vol. 10 No. 9, 2021, pp. 19-27.
Nava Sevilla Sadeh, “Catharsis: Human Fragility and Aspects of Purification in a Corona Inspired Exhibition – a Curatorial Case”, Journal of Arts and Humanities, Vol. 10 No. 9, 2021, pp. 19-27.
This study focuses on an exhibition entitled – Purity/Purification/Pure, which engaged with questions regarding the condition of humanity in light of the present Covid 19 pandemic. Most of the works displayed in this exhibition were not created during the Covid 19 outbreak, but during the years preceding it. The context of the present pandemic was arrived at through the curatorial work. Catharsis is an Aristotelian concept, defined as a tragic action happening to an individual, and purifying him through feelings of fear and compassion. "Purification" is a term particularly related to in Antiquity, and hence to the concept of catharsis. In affinity with Classical reception studies, the analysis and interpretation of the works are supported here by ancient literary and philosophical sources such as the Poetics by Aristotle, the Symposium and Phaedrus by Plato, the Enneads by Plotinus, and others.