Odyssey
pandemOnium
a migrational metaphor
November 15th - December 16th
2015
121 Orchard Street
New York City
*
works
in the show
computer-robotic
assisted acrylic on velours canvas
penelOpe
in agOny
2014
44 x 66Ó
penelOpe
pandemOnium
2014
44 x 66Ó
drifting
telemachus
2014
44 x 66Ó
pOseidOn
palimpsest
2014
44 x 66Ó
nimble
Odysseus
2014
44 x 66Ó
vexed
telemachus in agOny
2014
44 x 66Ó
siren
2014
44 x 66Ó
pOlyphemus
palimpsest
2014
17.7 x 23.6 Ò
vexed
telemachus adrift
2014
17.7 x 23.6 Ò
gallant
telemachus in flagrante
2014
17.7 x 23.6 Ò
Odyssey pandemOnium
a
migrational metaphor
Odyssey pandemOnium is a new
series of paintings by Joseph Nechvatal that returns us symbolically to HomerÕs
displaced champion and his odd wanderings. However, Odyssey pandemOnium does not
illustrate HomerÕs epic poem. Rather, hints of classical sumptuousness and
visual order are here submitted to controlled disorder through indeterminacy.
This chance element is important in the construction of a lyrical consideration
of human migration.
The characters Odysseus, his
son Telemachus, his waiting wife
Penelope, Polyphemus, Poseidon and a lyric siren loosely come together to
suggest the beauty and pain of the migrating world. Present in the paintings is
a partially hidden world of people and places (and images) lost and at
ideological drift, looking for scenic alternatives.
The 10 paintings of Odyssey pandemOnium are
conceptually situated within NechvatalÕs immersive noise theory. They make
use of a complicated turmoil produced from close exchanges within figure/ground
relationships that challenges us to think outside of the normal system of human
perception. Classical looking figures are embedded into a complex and
subtle ground so that the normal figure/ground relationship more or less
merges. Painted on suede-like velours canvas, the colors used are dusty and
subtle. This new support better contributes to the fugitive nature of the floating
and migrating imagery. That double intricacy is what Odyssey pandemOnium is about,
in one sense: being misplaced and adrift. The viewerÕs eye must navigate the
visual pandemonium in a way that suggests OdysseusÕs wanderings.
This pandemonium is
characteristic of NechvatalÕs art-of-noise
theory that he established in his book Immersion Into Noise in 2011 and
further developed last year in his Punctum Press
book, Min—y.
Within the framework of Odyssey pandemOnium, Punctum Press has launched a book with an
original epic poem about the eros of the eye by Joseph Nechvatal entitled Destroyer of
NaivetŽs.
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