Gabriel Zuchtriegel and Katharina Thalbach present: How the Present Began in Greece. A Declaration of Love for Archaeology

Before the Classical period, art brought order to the wilderness of life; with the Classical period, the natural and organically grown burst into the ordered reality of human society. What is unique about this art is the discovery of nature and, building on that, the discovery of science. Humans began to explore and question nature and themselves – to this day, this shapes humanity’s attitude towards the world.

It is all the more astonishing, then, that Classical antiquity – with its fluid, disordered nature – of all things has become the supposed model for art and architecture obsessed with representation, from Leni Riefenstahl to Donald Trump.

Gabriel Zuchtriegel, born in 1981, studied archaeology and the history of Greek literature in Berlin and Rome. After completing his PhD at the University of Bonn, he was awarded a two-year research fellowship by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in southern Italy. However, this turned into more than ten years, during which he conducted research, taught and worked in the field of heritage conservation in Italy. He has been Director of the Pompeii Archaeological Park since April 2021. His books *The Magic of Ruin* and *Pompeii’s Last Summer* were bestsellers.

Katharina Thalbach made her breakthrough in theatre at the age of 15 in the role of Polly in *The Threepenny Opera* at the Berliner Ensemble. Countless theatre roles followed, and since the late 1980s she has also worked as a stage director. She also appears regularly in cinema and television films and has received numerous awards.