Catharsis: Human Fragility and Aspects of Purification in a Corona Inspired Exhibition – a Curatorial Case

Abstract

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. Purification is a term particularly related to in Antiquity, and hence to the Aristotelian 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. The study focuses on several aspects of the corona pandemic that were reflected in this exhibition: Birth, death, and human fragility; the validity of purification rites in the present era; and nature and its degeneration or annihilation by humankind. The main conclusion deriving from the exhibition and this study is that the human need for purity and purification is a primordial one and has never ceased to be the focus of a basic desire of humanity.