Word: theseus
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...that, a visitor might at first be disappointed that the show's chronological reach ends in the early 5th century, just as sculpted form is approaching the perfected classical style. Several works, however, look ahead to that style and even beyond it: the overlapping figures of the hero Theseus carrying off the Amazon queen Antiope, in a broken 5th century sculpture, lay the seed for the upwardly spiraling corkscrews of the baroque...
...freedom -- the sort of deliberate clumsiness by a highly gifted draftsman, the sense of the ludicrous posture, the gross energy of the old satyr, that fires up our responses when we look at a good late Picasso. Nowhere does this come out better than in Theseus and Antiope, the huge canvas he began in 1958 and worked on intermittently for 16 years, leaving it unfinished at the time of his death. If one can speak of neo-expressionism by an original expressionist, this painting is it. Everything about it, from the violently suffused colors to the lumpish drawing...
...when, at the beginning, Philostrate, master of King Theseus' revels, makes his way through the underbrush and starts doing card tricks, he creates a mild sense of foreboding. Magician Ricky Jay is a deft dealer, but his sleight of hand tips the hand of Director James Lapine. This will be an evening of chipper invention, but one that will skirt the deeper, darker depths of this forest, where magic turns to mystery and the tumbling appearance of the fairy kingdom's wayward spirits becomes a metaphor for the wayward heart's enigmatic leapings...
Ariane (the French name for the Cretan princess of Greek mythology whose thread helped Theseus escape from the Labyrinth) took nearly a decade to develop. It is not only a triumph of European technology, but a stellar example of something much more rare: real international cooperation. The big rocket's first and third stages were built in France, the second in West Germany. Britain developed much of the computer software. Contributions came from Belgium, Spain, The Netherlands and, in fact, all of the founding partners in this billion-dollar collaboration. Ariane's first commercial flight is scheduled...
...best of the Germans is probably A.R. Penck (born Ralf Winkler), who was on show at the Sonnabend Gallery. An East German emigre to the West, he does mock-archaeological images blown up to "American" size. On a flat ground, flat pictographs: Ariadne holding her thread, Theseus as a stick figure with spear, a Minotaur. This primitivism is meant to suggest a heroic Aegean prehistory, a lost age when sibyls muttered in every cleft, and any scratch or spiral meant something. But Penck's images are mere quotation suffused with graphic charm; they are little more than the husks...