The Art Angle
How a ’90s Cult Novel Is Still Inspiring Artists
Alissa Bennett discusses the group show she curated at Gladstone 64 and her circuitous career path.
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Artnet News
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The Gladstone gallery director Alissa Bennett was one of a legion to fall under the thrall of Donna Tartt’s 1992 novel The Secret History. A years-spanning mystery told in reverse, the book has sold some five million copies and remains a cult fan favorite. It details a small cadre of college students studying ancient Greek at an isolated North East campus. Myth, reality, and ritual overlap, and ultimately, Dionysian rites collide with hubris.
Here is how Bennett sums up the protagonists: “while their fantasies ricochet around a technicolor past filled to overflowing with gods and mysteries and the seismic tragedies of Homer, their bodies remain tethered to a Taco Bell present.”
Michele O’Marah, Jonesy and Tim Jackson, Faustus’s Children (2006) [still]. Courtesy of the artists and Gladstone 64.
Alissa Bennett in one of her many incarnations.
Bennet joined Artnet editor William Van Meter to discuss the show, and her meandering path in life that includes a stint as a runway model, a co-host alongside Lena Dunham of the acclaimed podcast The C-Word, a teacher at the Yale School of Art, and author of the zine “Dead is Better.” Now, she holds a post as a gallery director, and along the way she remembers her mentor, Barbara Gladstone, the legendary gallerist who passed away last month.
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