Ruins

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).

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

—Fiona Sampson

"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

"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

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

–Vincent Piazza

"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