Eleanor Antin - Photographic Series (2001-2007)

Photographic Series (2001-2007)

In her three most recent photographic series, The Last Days of Pompeii (2001), Roman Allegories (2004), and Helen’s Odyssey (2007), Antin weaves historical references into her interpretation of the contemporary American empire. These staged photographs are layered with choreographed historicism and mythology from the ancient worlds of Greece and Rome. These are filtered through the compositional styles of 19th-century French and English academic salon painting and kitschy Hollywood historical films.

The Last Days of Pompeii depicts scenes of opulent excess and impending doom. This series is inspired by the dramatic destruction of Pompeii, buried by the ashes of Mount Vesuvius, as a precursor to the downfall of the entire Roman Empire. Antin’s interpretation casts affluent, beautiful people enjoying the good life on the verge of annihilation. The photographs each tell a different story and several works – such as the Death of Petronius and the Golden Death - are derived from documented events or classical stories that have previously been depicted in visual or literary form. These dramas serve as meditations, dramatic representations, and possible warnings on the parallel lifestyles of the self-indulgent that existed in the Roman Empire and that still exist in the shrinking American Empire of today.

Emblematic characters—the beautiful Columbine, the Lover, the Trickster, an ex-gladiator Strong Man, the Poet, and a magical little girl - make appearances in her following series, Roman Allegories. This series uses visual narrative to depict dramatic moments inspired as much by Greek mythology as they are by the melodramas of present day soap operas. One follows the characters as they navigate their way through comic tragedy, doomed love affairs, and ultimately death.

Helen’s Odyssey is also inspired by Greek and Roman history and draws upon the conflicted identity of Helen of Troy, who was simultaneously revered for her intense beauty yet blamed for the inability of men to resist it. This series turns the classical story on its head by casting two individuals as Helen, each representing a different side to her identity. Both sides are simultaneously presented in various scenarios but are shown reacting differently in each one. Ultimately, the sexy, vengeful Helen becomes bored with the dramas and desires imposed on her and seals her own fate with the scandalous murder of Homer, the narrator from Greek history who verbally passed the original story of Helen of Troy down from generation to generation. Classic characters from the Trojan War and Greek mythology populate Antin’s contemporary, photographic takes and include Helen of Troy, Paris, Petronius, Agamemnon, Homer, the gods Hermes and Hades, and the goddesses Athena, Hera, Aphrodite and Persephone. These stock characters are recast to play contemporary versions of their original roles using 21st-century digital photography and the complex, conflicted dramas Antin has derived from history.