Tag Archives: mythology

Arts and Culture

Jeff Koons’ Porcelain Series at Gagosian Gallery

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aphrodite by jeff koons detail photo by gail worley
Aphrodite Sculpture Detail (Photo By Gail)

In the two decades I’ve been writing this website, Jeff Koons is probably the living artist I’ve covered the most — and that’s because I genuinely love his work. I know he gets a lot of criticism, and not all of it is undeserved, but even when I have my own reservations, I still give him a pass. His work is unique, beautiful, monumental, and often very funny. I’m not about to apologize for the fact that he’s one of my two favorite living artists. So when he has a show in New York, I’m there — every time — ready to experience that particular spark of genius he brings.

aphrodite by jeff koons front photo by gail worley

Braving some truly unfriendly winter weather, I recently made my way to Gagosian Gallery to see The Porcelain Series, Koons’ latest exhibition. Any time I’m in the presence of his mirror-finished sculptures, I swoon a little, so this was not something I was going to miss. The show brings together new and recent sculptures alongside a selection of abstract paintings, all centered around his ongoing Porcelain Series.
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Design and Innovation

Greek Mythology in Modern Casino Entertainment and Game Design

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Greek Gods
Image Source: Canva Editor

Greek mythology keeps slipping into online casino entertainment, sometimes quietly and sometimes with a thunderclap. Ancient gods, strange monsters, messy heroics, they land on the reels and feel familiar enough to click. Visuals do plenty of heavy lifting too, with thunderbolts, marble columns, and hazy dreamscapes setting a mood that feels bigger than a spin.
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Arts and Culture

Modern Art Monday Presents: Meret Oppenheim, Daphne and Apollo

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daphne and apollo by meret oppenheim
Photo By Gail

Meret Oppenheim drew broadly on stories from the past, including Greco-Roman and medieval sources. She reimagined these narratives and the fates of their female protagonists in ways that reflected her views on the role of women in society. In Daphne and Apollo (1943), she reinterpreted the Greek myth of Apollo and Daphne, in which the wood nymph would rather hunt than become the god’s lover. Unable to escape him, she turns into a laurel tree. In Oppenheim’s version, the artist subjects Apollo, too, to a vegetal transformation, depicting him as a potato-like form, surrounded by flies.

Photographed in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

Arts and Culture

Modern Art Monday Presents: Bertold Loffler, Youth Playing the Pipes of Pan

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youth playing the pipes of pan photo by gail worley
Photo By Gail

Bertold Loffler’s most important painting, Youth Playing the Pipes of Pan (1912), reveals his passion for classicism, from the garlanded youth and draped female attendants to the vase at their feet, depicting Pan, the Greek god of untamed nature, playing a double flute. The flat, stylized composition and the bold patterns on the women’s cloaks reflect Loffler’s work as a designer for the cutting-edge Austrian artists’ association the Wiener Werkstätte. Eduard Ast, a major patron of the group, acquired the canvas and hung it in the dining room of his newly-built villa in Vienna, across the hall from Gustav Klimt’s painting of the mythological heroine Danaë (1907 – 08), which is in a private collection.

Photographed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC.

 

 

Arts and Culture

Modern Art Monday Presents: The Judgement of Paris By Johan Joachim Kandler

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the judgement of paris photo by gail worley
Photo By Gail

Kandler’s brilliantly composed figural group, The Judgement of Paris (1762) was intended as a table centerpiece that would appear with dessert. It depicts the story of the shepherd Paris awarding the golden apple to Venus, whose charms he preferred to those of Minerva and Juno. The splashes of color add a frivolous note, in tune with the frothy rococo spirit of the sculpture. Moreover, hints of naturalistic coloring deny these goddesses the timelessness of idealizing sculpture, making them instead into modern beauties who perform a titillating after-dinner entertainment.

Photographed in The Met Breuer (Now Closed) as Part of the 2018 Exhibit, Like Life: Sculpture, Color and The Body.