Installation view of Kappatos Gallery Athens, Greece, in the exhibition “Siren Symphony in G sharp.”
“Myths are stories whose real subjects lie elsewhere, somehow unbound by the minor narrative through which deeper meanings are inevitably conveyed.”
This quote is taken from Contemporary Art and Classical Myth by Isabelle Loring Wallace and Jennie Hirsch, professors at the University of Georgia and at the Maryland Institute College of Art. Their 376-page book, which focuses on Greek and Roman Mythology, is composed of 14 original essays and is organized into three sections: (1) Myth as Meaning, (2) Myth as Medium, and (3) Myth as Method. This substantial work addresses a topic, which has been surprisingly ignored by most art historians: the role that classical mythology plays in contemporary art.
But why this topic is ignored intrigues both the editors and myself. Perhaps many art historians consider art as merely an illustration of mythology. In the simplistic view, art is the practice of telling good stories; therefore, it is natural to link myths with it. Mythology provides a fount of good story ideas. However, this view overlooks something essential: The meaning of myths—not just the stories told within them—lies elsewhere. That is, the viewer or reader must interpret and construct the meaning. This is precisely why contemporary art, which has freed itself from representation and is preoccupied with analysis, is ever more linked to mythology. Myths, adequately understood, prefigure concepts central to contemporary art. As Professors Hirsch and Wallace observe: “…we do mean to characterize classical myth as a container for ancient and immutable mysteries that are at last unlocked in the twentieth century.” And: “Thus, if modern art can be said to renew the question of art and myth by unhinging art and mimesis, contemporary art continues that call, while at the same time establishing through art’s conceptual turn an unprecedented circumstance in which to think art and myth.”
The two editors further suggest that myths can be used to interpret complex contemporary artworks even if the artist did not directly reference them. For example, Sophie-Isabelle Dufour has an exciting essay on page 295. This essay links Bill Viola’s work Ocean without a Shore with the Greek myth of the House of Hades. Other texts relate classical mythology with the works of Yayoi Kusama, Cy Twombly, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, and many others.
Being Greek, it was disappointing not to find essays by Greek art historians in the book. Perhaps Greeks assume that these myths are universally known and require no further exposition since they constantly “swim” in the sea of ideas that come from them. Others are less accustomed to these waters. They might be buoyed by our voices, as we are raised with these myths from childhood, and our language gives us an additional tool to comprehend these texts better. Instead, we have given them silence.
Our silence, it seems, confirms that no one is a prophet in their land.
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