Vengeance, haunting, guilt and betrayal: these recurring themes run through Shakespeare’s works, but how are they interpreted in art? How does the afterlife affect the living? How does the supernatural permeate the dramatic and the visual arts? Why does Shakespeare’s legacy persist with such fervour?
“Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damn'd,
Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hel
l,
Be thy intents wicked or charitable,
Thou comest in such a questionable shape
That I will speak to thee” (Hamlet, 1.4. 40-44)
Artists draw inspiration from literature in order to advance similar sets of ideals, and consequently, traces of universal truth are embedded therein. From negotiations with death in Romeo and Juliet, to powerful hauntings in Macbeth and Hamlet, passages from life to death define the journeys of characters that have remained resonant through the centuries. These resonances of Shakespeare’s themes appear in contemporary art practice in increasingly varied forms, which will be all the more fascinating to examine with the upcoming celebration of the four-hundred year anniversary of Shakespeare’s death put on by the English department in 2016. This exhibit will be the first of many celebrations of Shakespeare’s influence throughout the years. Gallery 115 invites you to explore the ways in which Shakespearean themes of the afterlife are referenced, tackled and reinterpreted in contemporary art.
