Steven Lauritano at Salon Thursdays at the Dahesh

Once again the Dahesh Museum provides a haven for people passionate about the arts with yet another Salon Thursdays event.  These events are completely free to the public, featuring guest scholars, historians and artists making presentations that instruct and delight.

The Dahesh ushers in May with the delightfully titled Have Caryatids, Will Travel: Karl Friedrich Schinkel’s Architecture in Motion, presented by historian Steven Lauritano.  In his presentation, Lauritano will talk about the anonymous, ancient craftsman who first decided to substitute a sculpted female body for a load-bearing column.  This was a new element in the architectural vocabulary: a “caryatid.”  A caryatid is a fixed, structural member who, by virtue of her human form and gesture, suggests a capacity for movement. Such figures appeared only rarely during antiquity, yet the 19^th Century witnessed a surge in popularity for the caryatid, with female architectural supports popping-up across European cities from London to Berlin. By following a sequence of these ‘modern’ caryatids – copied, modified, multiplied and re-deployed in the projects of Prussian architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel (1781-1841) – Lauritano will showcase a little-appreciated portion of the 19^th Century design world.

Steven Lauritano is a PhD candidate at Yale University in the History of Art Department. Lauritano currently serves as a fellow in the Berlin Program for Advanced German and European Studies at the Freie Universität Berlin, where he is completing his dissertation research on the architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel and the re-conception of spolia in 19th-century design.

The Dahesh Museum of Art Gift Shop is located at 145 Sixth Avenue, near the corner Dominick Street, in Manhattan.  This event is free, and starts at 6:30 PM.  The Dahesh is easily accessible from the 1 train to Houston Street, and the C and E trains to Spring Street.  The space is wheelchair accessible, and seating is first come, first served.  For further details about Salon Thursdays and the gift shop, call the Dahesh at 212.759.0606.