Aelius Galenus or Claudius Galenus Anglicized as Galen and better known as Galen of Pergamon, was a physician and philosopher in the Roman Empire. Arguably the most accomplished of all medical researchers of antiquity, Galen influenced the development of various scientific disciplines, including anatomy, pathology and neurology, as well as philosophy and logic; the son of Aelius Nicon, a wealthy architect with scholarly interests, Galen received a comprehensive education that prepared him for a successful career as a physician and philosopher. Born in the ancient city of Pergamon, Galen traveled extensively, exposing himself to a wide variety of medical theories and discoveries before settling in Rome, where he served prominent members of Roman society and was given the position of personal physician to several emperors. Galen's understanding of anatomy and medicine was principally influenced by the then-current theory of humorism, as advanced by ancient Greek physicians such as Hippocrates.
His theories influenced Western medical science for more than 1,300 years. His anatomical reports were based on the dissection of monkeys. However, while dissecting them he discovered that their facial expressions were too much like humans; the reason for using animals to discover the human body was due to the fact that dissections and vivisections on humans were prohibited at the time. Galen would encourage his students to go look at dead gladiators or bodies that washed up in order to get better acquainted with the human body. Galen’s most famous experiment that he recreated in public was the squealing pig; the squealing pig experiment was when Galen would cut open a pig, while it was squealing he would cut the nerve, or vocal chords, showing they controlled the making of sound. His anatomical reports remained uncontested until 1543, when printed descriptions and illustrations of human dissections were published in the seminal work De humani corporis fabrica by Andreas Vesalius where Galen's physiological theory was accommodated to these new observations.
Galen's theory of the physiology of the circulatory system remained unchallenged. 1242, when Ibn al-Nafis published his book Sharh tashrih al-qanun li’ Ibn Sina, in which he reported his discovery of the pulmonary circulation. Galen saw himself as both a physician and a philosopher, as he wrote in his treatise entitled That the Best Physician Is Also a Philosopher. Galen was interested in the debate between the rationalist and empiricist medical sects, his use of direct observation and vivisection represents a complex middle ground between the extremes of those two viewpoints. Many of his works have been preserved and/or translated from the original Greek, although many were destroyed and some credited to him are believed to be spurious. Although there is some debate over the date of his death, he was no younger than seventy when he died. In medieval Europe, Galen's writings on anatomy became the mainstay of the medieval physician's university curriculum, but because of the collapse of the Roman Empire in the West they suffered from stasis and intellectual stagnation.
However, in the Eastern Roman Empire and the Abbasid Caliphate they continued to be studied and followed. Some of Galen's ideas were incorrect. Greek and Roman taboos had meant that dissection was banned in ancient times, but in Middle Ages it changed: medical teachers and students at Bologna began to open human bodies, Mondino de Luzzi produced the first known anatomy textbook based on human dissection. Galen's original Greek texts gained renewed prominence during the early modern period. In the 1530s, Belgian anatomist and physician Andreas Vesalius took on a project to translate many of Galen's Greek texts into Latin. Vesalius's most famous work, De humani corporis fabrica, was influenced by Galenic writing and form. Galen's name Γαληνός, Galēnos comes from the adjective "γαληνός", "calm". Galen describes his early life in On the affections of the mind, he was born in September AD 129. His father, Aelius Nicon, was a wealthy patrician, an architect and builder, with eclectic interests including philosophy, logic, astronomy and literature.
Galen describes his father as a "highly amiable, just and benevolent man". At that time Pergamon was a major cultural and intellectual centre, noted for its library, second only to that in Alexandria, attracted both Stoic and Platonic philosophers, to whom Galen was exposed at age 14, his studies took in each of the principal philosophical systems of the time, including Aristotelian and Epicurean. His father had planned a traditional career for Galen in philosophy or politics and took care to expose him to literary and philosophical influences. However, Galen states that in around AD 145 his father had a dream in which the god Asclepius appeared and commanded Nicon to send his son to study medicine. Again, no expense was spared, following his earlier liberal education, at 16 he began studies at the prestigious local sanctuary or Asclepieum dedicated to Asclepius, god of medicine, as a θεραπευτής for four years. There he came under the influence of men like Aeschrion of Pergamon and Satyrus. Asclepiea functioned as spas or sanitoria to which the sick would come to seek the ministrations of the priesthood.
Romans frequented the temple at Pergamon in search of medical
Grand Arts was a nonprofit contemporary art space in downtown Kansas City, whose mission was to help national and international artists realize projects considered too risky, provocative or complex to otherwise attract support. It was co-founded by Margaret Silva and Sean Kelley in 1995 and operated until 2015 with sole funding from the Margaret Hall Silva Foundation. Facilities included a 4,000-square-foot fabrication studio, exhibition spaces, an on-site apartment available for visiting artists. Margaret Silva and Sean Kelley co-founded Grand Arts in 1995 to give artists "a place for radical experimentation, without the constraints of too little time and less money". Kelley left Grand Arts in 2003. Stacy Switzer served as artistic director from 2004 until the gallery's close. In total, Grand Arts produced 90 exhibitions with more than 120 artists. Projects took years to produce, from concept to realization, the organization's full-time staff tended to each phase of the process: research, fabrication, programming and beyond.
Grand Arts' practice of long-term collaborative project development is in part what distinguished it from other granting organizations, according to Switzer: "That's what was special about the Grand Arts process. It wasn't that an artist would propose something and we would fabricate it according to the artist's specs. There was a long conversation about how to push and tease the idea, pull out the most provocative threads and find other people in other fields who could help us enhance it in other ways". Following exhibition, projects produced at Grand Arts belonged to the artist; the works were then exhibited in museums, commercial galleries and/or art fairs. For example: Isaac Julien's 1999 Long Road to Mazatlan was co-produced by Grand Arts and ArtPace in 1999 and exhibited as one of two Julien works at Tate Britain in 2001, when the artist was short-listed for the Turner Prize. Patricia Cronin's Memorial to a Marriage, a three-ton marble mortuary statue produced by Grand Arts in 2002 and installed thereafter at Woodlawn Cemetery, has been shown in more than 35 exhibitions, including the Brooklyn Museum, Palmer Museum of Art, Neuberger Museum of Art, Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati, the FLAG Art Foundation.
Sanford Biggers' Blossom, produced by Grand Arts in 2007, was acquired by the Brooklyn Museum in 2011. Laurel Nakadate's Stay the Same Never Change, produced by Grand Arts in 2008, was a selection at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival and screened at MoMA’s New Directors/New Films series. William Pope. L's Trinket, produced by Grand Arts in 2008, was re-staged at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles in 2015 and featured in a performance by Kendrick Lamar at the 2015 BET Awards. Christopher Knight writes in the Los Angeles Times: "Nearly seven years on, the sculpture still resonates." Cody Critcheloe/SSION's feature film BOY was produced by Grand Arts in 2010 and screened at Peres Projects, in Los Angeles and Berlin. The Propeller Group's 2015 A Universe of Collisions — Grand Arts' last-ever show — was included in the Venice Biennale that year. Upon Grand Arts' closing, Silva donated the building, a former auto shop located at 1819 Grand Boulevard, to the Kansas City Art Institute. In 2016, Grand Arts published Problems and Provocations: Grand Arts 1995-2015, co-edited by Stacy Switzer and Annie Fischer, with a foreword by Margaret Silva and an introduction by Switzer.
The book chronicles 30 of Grand Arts' projects — works by figures including Alice Aycock, Alfredo Jaar, Isaac Julien, William Pope. L, Sanford Biggers, Laurel Nakadate, Stanya Kahn, Tavares Strachan — with archival materials and project documentation presented alongside newly written anecdotes and reflections by artists and other collaborators. Essays by Pablo Helguera, Iain Kerr, Emily Roysdon, Gean Moreno and Rob Walker consider the models and ethics of art institutions. A critical study conducted by the research studio RHEI identifies and describes Grand Arts’ unorthodox organizational model. In 2016, former Grand Arts associates Stacy Switzer, Lacey Wozny, Eric Dobbins and Annie Fischer relocated to Los Angeles to develop a new organization named Fathomers, similar in mission to Grand Arts but with a focus on long-term thinking and transdisciplinary practice. Fathomers' founding board members are Andrew Torrance and Glenn Kaino; the organization's first project is a seven-year collaboration with artist Michael Jones McKean.
Switzer and Annie Fischer, ed. "Problems and Provocations: Grand Arts 1995-2015" ISBN 978-0692625538 Grand Arts website Fathomers website
František Sláma was a significant Czech chamber music performer. He was the first Czech cellist, he was born in Bohemian-Moravian Highlands. Until the age of 18 he worked in the quarry, his meeting with the famous Czech cello pedagogue Karel P. Sádlo proved to be a turning point in his life. Sádlo introduced him to the cello and tutored him for the Conservatoire. Between 1948-52 Sláma completed his studies at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. By this time he had been a member of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra; the legendary conductor Václav Talich encouraged Sláma's enthusiasm for chamber music and had, along with K. P. Sádlo and Milan Munclinger, a lasting influence on Sláma's musical development. During the next 45 years Sláma performed with leading chamber ensembles in Czechoslovakia. In 1946 he was a founding member of Talich's Czech Chamber Orchestra, between 1953-1976 the viol da gambist of Pro Arte Antiqua and between 1954-1997 a member of the ensemble Ars Rediviva, whose performances and recordings played an important role in the revival of the Baroque music in Czechoslovakia.
With these ensembles he made a large number of recordings, which received several awards both in Czechoslovakia and abroad. He participated in first performances of modern compositions. Since the 1970s he was a teacher at the Conservatoire in Prague, he wrote about music and musicians, cooperated with Czech Radio. In 2001 his book "Z Herálce do Šangrilá a zase nazpátek" was published - reminiscences about the Prague music scene between the 1940s and the 1990s as well as about Sláma's musical colleagues and other personalities whom he had met. František Sláma archive collection donated to his native village Heralec consists of more than 5000 negatives and photos, over 150 hours of authentic recordings and documents about Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, Václav Talich, Milan Muclinger, Ars Rediviva, etc. Live recordings of Ars Rediviva performances in Rudolfinum are deposited in the Czech Music Museum. Koláčková, Ivetta. "František Sláma". Rudolfinum Revue. Praha: Česká filharmonie. 4: 47. Vašatová, Jana.
"Filharmonikové v souboru Ars rediviva". Rudolfinum Revue. Praha: Česká filharmonie. 1: 33–34. Tyler, Sean. International Who's Who in Music and Musicians. Sixteenth Edition. Cambridge: IBC. Pâris, Alain. Dictionnaire des interprètes et de l´interprétation musicale au XX siècle. Paris: Laffont. ISBN 2-221-08064-5. Československý hudební slovník osob a institucí, II. Praha: State Music Publishing. 1965. Kozák, Jan. Českoslovenští hudební umělci a komorní soubory. Praha: State Music Publishing. Pp. 427, 454, 479. Sláma, František: Z Herálce do Šangrilá a zase nazpátek. Říčany: Orego, 2001. ISBN 80-86117-61-8 The Art Of Jean-Pierre Rampal ABC Classic FM, 11 June 2007 J. S. Bach Home Page, Ars Rediviva, Brandenburg Concertos J. S. Bach Home Page, Ars Rediviva, The Art of Fugue J. S. Bach Home Page, Ars Rediviva, The Musical Offering The Czech Music Museum František Sláma Archive Ars Rediviva Discography Czech Radio: František Sláma's recordings Czech Radio: Ars Rediviva recordings WorldCat Libraries