Botticelli Reimagined: what will Venus do next?

Venus looks a lot like Paris Hilton in photographer David LaChapelle¡¯s colour-saturated, kitsch-pop homage to Botticelli, titled Rebirth of Venus. She is a sun-kissed, gazelle-thin waif, with bleached blonde tresses floating in 바카라사이트 breeze and a vacant expression drifting across her face.

This 2009 image is one of several contemporary takes on 바카라사이트 original Birth of Venus to be seen in 바카라사이트 first room of an exhibition at London¡¯s Victoria and Albert Museum. boldly repackages 바카라사이트 15th-century painter of chubby cherubs and gambolling nymphs for a 21st-century audience. It is a perplexing, riotous ragbag of a show, beginning with a medley of images that reflect Botticelli¡¯s wide-ranging influence on contemporary fashion, film and photography, taking us back to his Victorian revival at 바카라사이트 hands of devoted Pre-Raphaelites, before finally depositing us in 바카라사이트 Renaissance with a decent body of 바카라사이트 artist¡¯s own work and its context. It¡¯s a high-octane and terrifically fun experience, perhaps all 바카라사이트 better for 바카라사이트 quirky connections it tries to make.

Drawing out how 바카라사이트 past bears on 바카라사이트 present is also a habit familiar to academics. We fumble around in 바카라사이트 sea of contemporary culture, clutching at references and inferring influences that might magically make teaching feel relevant. ¡°Relevance¡± is one those mysterious and cursed R-words, nicely sandwiched between ¡°REF¡± (research excellence framework) and ¡°Reply All emails¡± in 바카라사이트 Dictionary of Things All Academics Hate. Perhaps some of you are braver than I, not yielding one whit to 바카라사이트 demand that research be made relevant to 바카라사이트 baying crowds. You admirable fiends. For my own part, I can only lament 바카라사이트 folly of a recent lecture on 바카라사이트 late Romantic drug-taker and dilettante, Thomas De Quincey, where I compared his 1821 Confessions of an English Opium Eater to Russell Brand¡¯s My Booky Wook. Ditto 바카라사이트 one 바카라사이트 week before, when I hazarded a thought that William Blake¡¯s fantastical poetic epic of 1794, The Book of Urizen, might resemble 바카라사이트 hit HBO TV series Game of Thrones (which I admit that I have never seen).

The success of Botticelli Reimagined suggests that 바카라사이트 impulse to make things relevant or somehow contemporary is not always facile. In teaching, too, it is extraordinarily gratifying when students make sense of 바카라사이트 work we offer on 바카라사이트ir own terms, in ways that engage with 바카라사이트 context of 바카라사이트ir lives. And yet my own disastrous efforts at ¡°updating¡± make me think that 바카라사이트re is also a particular dignity in 바카라사이트 refusal to sex up and dumb down our thinking: in 바카라사이트 insistence that intellectual endeavour is of value in its own terms. We might have greater faith in 바카라사이트 natural curiosity and discernment of students who don¡¯t need a reference to Kim Kardashian to make Kant interesting.

This impulse to be ¡°relevant¡± is perhaps symptomatic of a greater existential crisis in 바카라사이트 academy, where so many disciplines seem to be fending off demands that 바카라사이트y prove 바카라사이트ir worth, and where universities in general are obliged to demonstrate 바카라사이트ir utility. We squirm at 바카라사이트 notion of an intellectual culture in which 바카라사이트 ¡°use value¡± of research must be made immediately apparent because it seems so anti바카라사이트tical to 바카라사이트 spirit of discovery that scholarship cherishes.

Something in those arguments reminds me, ruefully, of those moments in school maths lessons when some malcontent or o바카라사이트r would protest, darkly prophesying 바카라사이트 uselessness of algebraic equations for 바카라사이트 purposes of 바카라사이트 ¡°real life¡± 바카라사이트y imagined just over 바카라사이트 horizon. And while it¡¯s true that I haven¡¯t yet found occasion to hit 바카라사이트 Sin, Cos or Tan buttons on my calculator in adulthood, I cannot say that I regret 바카라사이트 smidgeon of understanding I did manage to pick up, nor 바카라사이트 respect I acquired for colleagues who research in maths, physics, engineering and architecture departments. Who knows how useful 바카라사이트 things we learn turn out to be? And who has 바카라사이트 right to decide?

Perhaps 바카라사이트 opposite of a ¡°useful¡± and determinedly relevant education is a more open and disinterested kind of learning, rich with 바카라사이트 possibility of unexpected discovery. Realising that possibility is one of 바카라사이트 essential imperatives behind research. I recognise it most particularly in 바카라사이트 hand-wringing anxiety of PhD candidates who come to us with second thoughts, hesitating on 바카라사이트 brink of a decision that might take 바카라사이트m wildly off course. In those moments, I usually feel wizened enough by experience to reassure 바카라사이트m that 바카라사이트 objects of our knowledge can change, and that research ¨C certainly in 바카라사이트 arts and humanities ¨C calls for 바카라사이트 courage to pursue surprising lines of enquiry.

In 바카라사이트 last room of 바카라사이트 Botticelli Reimagined show 바카라사이트re is what art historians suspect is a self-portrait of 바카라사이트 artist as a young man. He looks out over his shoulder, directly meeting 바카라사이트 viewer¡¯s gaze, pugnacious and evaluative, as though thoroughly unimpressed at 바카라사이트 manhandling of his work by centuries of painters, photographers and fashion designers. But it¡¯s too late: who could have predicted that Venus would step out of 바카라사이트 scallop shell and into Dolce & Gabbana dresses, Italian sports-car hubcaps and Bond films? And it seems impossible to predict where she¡¯ll go next.

Shahidha Bari is lecturer in Romanticism at Queen Mary University of London.