"Possible faces" (b)
Interpretations of Ancient Greek Mythology
My sculptural work focuses on two related themes: the ‘Human Head', and the interpretation of 'Ancient Greek Mythology'. The first theme I call 'Head - Lines' and is about the formal variety, tension and expression in sculpted heads, more or less abstracted, in shapes, planes, lines. The sculpture is not assigned to existing persons. The second theme - also related to heads - I call 'Possible faces'. It is a contemporary interpretation of mainly Homeric protagonists who stand for essential ideas and concepts, which are elementary in our most basic experiences.
Priamos
Stages of Priamos (1)
Agony
Last king of Troy
Mixed techniques, 2018
115 x 50 x 40 cm
Medea retold
Stages of Medea (1)
This sculpture is based on the interpretation of Medea in the retelling of the Ancient Greek Euripides tragedy by the German author Christa Wolf, 1999, Medea. Stimmen, dtv, München. First published 1996.
In the novel “Medea - Voices”, Medea is a tragic heroine who kills no one; a witch who only uses her powers for healing; a daughter who has connived at the theft of her father’s Golden Fleece for the best of political motives.
Christa Wolf has thus made the dominant contrast in her version of the ancient world, not the usual one between Colchis and Corinth, between culture and barbarism, but one between an inhumane patriarchy and a more compassionate matriarchy, an opposition she had already explored in her lectures on Kassandra some years before.
Mixed techniques (detail), 2018
95 x 60 x 55 cm
Playing ball Menelaos
King of Sparta - Cheated husband of Helen
Playing ball Menelaos
Envied by all suitors,
run off with desirable
Helena. For a while it goes
well, but it is not always
easy to be Menelaus.
That damned dominate
brother, that Paris parasite,
that adulterous wife,
pretending to be a phantom
or the shadow of a cloud.
Finally, the Elysian fields,
nectar and ambrosia for
ever, and a lot of eternal
boredom, of course.
Mixed techniques, 2021
48 x 27 x 38 cm
Menelaos Close up
Menelaos Close up
Laertes
Father of Odysseus and Ktimene, husband of Antiklea,
former ruler of Ithaca, Argonaut
Laertes
You don't have
to prove yourself
time over time.
Your views
are covered by
a gossamer veil
of humility - only
your memories
keep you going
on, and maybe
a small trace
of hope.
Birds fly on
and off in their
shadows on the
wall, food for
dreamers and
eager prophets.
Mixed techniques, 2020
48 x 27 x 33 cm
Two sides of Antiklea
Mother of Odysseus
Wife of Laertes
Odysseus met his mother again in the underworld of Hades, where he was looking for advice from the prophet Tiresias. Antiklea told that her grief for her missing son was so great that it led to her death. Odysseus tried to hug his mother, but then he experienced that she was incorporeal, like ghosts are.
Mixed techniques, 2020
47 x 26 x 36 cm
Overlooked Telemachos
Telemachos is the son of Odysseus and Penelope. He grows up at Ithaca during the absence of his father, amongst suitors who compete for the hand of his mother. The first four books of the Odyssee are about Telemachos, the so-called “Telemachy”. In his book “The Many Minded Man. The Odyssee, psychology, and the therapy of epic”, Cornell University Press, 2020, the author Joel Christensen speaks with regard to the poor educational background of Telemachos and his questionable social environment with his mother's suitors, about ‘learned helplessness’. In this hopeless situation the goddess Athene shows up to encourage Telemachos.
Telemachos wants to eject the suitors but he doesn’t feel strong enough to do so. Athene advices him to leave Ithaca for a search for his father, and to collect different experiences as the ones he cherished so far, to be able to help his father after his homecoming.
Mixed techniques, 2020
57 x 34 x 36 cm
No one asked Penelope
Stages of Penelope (1)
Wife of Odysseus
Ruler of Ithaca during his absence
Dignity - Loyalty
Penelope's considerations
after Odysseus' return
Restless wanderer,
I can hardly see the
difference between
my dark dreams and
those of ivory. What
do you want to tell me
during this long night,
struggling with your
memories, trying to
recast your past in
order to handle an
obscure future?
Can you free yourself
from what you're chasing,
or does it remain the
everlasting burden on your
shoulder that you will never
shed? And what will be our
prospect, if there is one?
Mixed techniques, 2020
56 x 35 x 46 cm
Penelope in disguise
Penelope and Menelaos
Eurykleia
Stages of Eurykleia (1)
Odysseus' nanny, victim of ancient slavery
Respect, dedication, nevertheless slavery.
Laertes bought Eurykleia from her father Ops, son of Peisenor, for twenty cattle. Ops and Peisenor are mentioned in the Odyssee by Homer, without further information about their backgrounds and status. You could conclude that the big deal "outweighed" the daughter's loss and happiness.
Eumaeos, another slave of Odysseus, complains: "Zeus, of the far-borne voice, takes away the half of a man's virtue, when the day of slavery comes upon him".
Slavery was common practice in ancient Greece. It was considered natural and also economically necessary, which says a lot about the moral state of society.
Mixed techniques, 2020
42 x 26 x 30 cm
Eumaeos
Swineherd and friend of Odysseus, victim of ancient slavery
Like Eurykleia, Eumaeos is respected, nevertheless a slave: "Zeus, of the far-borne voice, takes away the half of a man's virtue, when the day of slavery comes upon him".
(Homer, Odyssey, Book 17, 322-324)
Mixed techniques, 2020
43 x 31 x 38 cm
Andromache
Princess of Troy, wife of Hector
Andromache's complaint
Hektor, elegant hero,
you beat Patroclos,
brother-in-arms of
Achilles, who will
never forgive you.
Your wife and mother
of a futureless son,
weeps and laments
at the prospect of
their pernicious
fate.
Homer, however
- the industrious
collector of atrocious
stories – rubs his
hands, satisfied,
looking back at
all that trouble.
Mixed techniques, 2021
67 x 31 x 34 cm
Odyssister - Ktimene
Stages of Ktimene (2)
Ktimene is the rather unknown sister of Odysseus
She is mentioned by Eumaeos in the Odyssee:
Homer, Odyssee (15.361 - 370)
Mixed techniques, 2020
46 x 26 x 33 cm
Kassandra
Stages of Kassandra (2)
Duality of truth
Kassandra is prophet of Apollo,
daughter of Priam and Hecuba
Her faith: not to be believed
Bad business for a prophet
Mixed techniques, 2021
41 x 28 x 36 cm
Severity of Kassandra
Kassandra and Menelaos
Prometheus
Stages of Prometheus (1)
Titan
Foresight
Husband of Pronoia
You – forward thinker –
steal, with glow on your
cheeks, the holy fire
of the gods, for the sake
of civilization.
Everything has its price,
and you know yours.
Zeus breaks with you
and Hephaestos chains
you on a rock, where
an eagle picks out your
liver, again and again,
until Herakles frees you
from this sad fate.
You're still warning your
brother Epimetheus, for
temptation of divine gifts.
Nevertheless - the incorrigible
hindsight thinker - marries
beautiful Pandora, with her
pernicious jar, that she
– Proto-Eva – cannot resist
for long, to misery of people.
Mixed techniques, 2020
42 x 28 x 34 cm
Pronoia
Forethought
Pronoia is the wise wife of Prometheus
Mixed techniques, 2020
43 x 29 x 31 cm
Odysseus on Skheria
Stages of Odysseus (1)
Skheria is the home of the Phaeacians and the last destination of Odysseus before returning to his homeland Ithaca. He landed at the coast of Skheria, exhausted after his shipwreck. All lost and thrown back to itself. Princess Nausikaa found him there and took care. Eventually Odysseus also found himself here again, and maybe finally in a purified form.
Homer uses this stage in the Odyssee as a style tool to make Odysseus look back on his past years. Homer gives Odysseus the role of a reflecting storyteller and himself the role of draftsman of the hero epic.
Mixed techniques, 2020
24 x 34 x 34 cm
Questionable Kalchas
Danger of ideologies
Kalchas: questionable seer
Maybe I didn't really want
to see what is, or what will
come. I do not know the
language of lost traces, and I
see only afterwards the faded
signs on flaking walls, omen
of translucent birds. They didn’t
prevent me from recommending
that atoning sacrifice. Poor
divination, Iphigeneia is always
on my mind.
I am wirelessly connected
to false notes on my staff:
a password, ever sent to me,
is for my memory too
long. I am sitting on the
worn cushion of a rolling
chair, on my way to an
abyss that I will achieve
foresight, laughing until
I choke.
I drop time as a useless
instrument, I embrace
chaos, I renounce duration,
repeating doesn't exist.
Finally I recognize a glimpse
of an ungodly existence.
Mixed techniques, 2018
75 x 40 x 35 cm
Homesick Antiklos
Agony
Greek warrior inside the Trojan horse
Helen circled the horse and imitated voices of warriors' wives. Antiklos was the only one who attempted to answer. Odysseus, next to him, shut his mouth, so tight that Antiklos died.
Mixed techniques, 2018
85 x 30 x 50 cm
Aeolos, keeper of the winds
Stages of Aeolos (1)
Mixed techniques, 2018
70 x 40 x 40 cm
Patroklos
Stages of Patroklos (1)
Close companion of Achilles
Killed by Hektor during the Trojan war
Beyond friendship
What is left when
there is nothing left,
unreasonable space
maybe, remains of a
membrane, vibration
of broken connection
perhaps, or the lack of
wonder.
Mixed techniques, 2018
30 x 30 x 30 cm
Patroklos and Achilles
More than a friendship
Brothers in arms and lovers till the end
Two fused faces. If you concentrate on the middle, you see one face
Mixed techniques, 2018
70 x 45 x 45 cm
Prometheus in doubt
Stages of prometheus (2)
Mixed techniques, 2018
30 x 30 x 30 cm
Comrade Elpenor
Elpenor is one of Odysseus' companions. After a long stay on the island of the sorceress Kirke, he wakes up one day on the roof of her house, where he has fallen asleep. He sees Odysseus' fleet being prepared to leave. "Not without me, is it?", he thinks. Still half misty, he stumbles down the stairs, falls and dies. Odysseus finds him again during his visit to the underworld, where Elpenor is refused entry because he hasn’t been properly buried. He begs Odysseus to bury him with dignity, so that his soul can find eternal rest. Odysseus sails back to Kirke to properly bury Elpenor. This story is a model for the importance of burial rituals in Greek mythology and in ancient Greek culture.
Mixed techniques, 2018
60 x 30 x 30 cm
Companion of Odysseus
Odysseus left Ithaca with twelve ships to take part in the trade war against Troy. Men from prominent families accompanied him. Many of them remained nameless, as is often the case in histories in which the main characters receive honor or defamation, but depending on the presence of mass support. In the case of Odysseus, things turned out badly for all his companions.
Mixed techniques, 2017
25 x 25 x 25 cm
Odysseus wanderer
Stages of Odysseus (2)
Mixed techniques, (detail), 2018
90 x 50 x 30 cm
Cunning Odysseus
Stages of Odysseus (3)
Mixed techniques, 2018
30 x 30 x 30 cm
Hades
Stages of hades (1)
Hades is the ruler of the underworld. He is a brother of Zeus and Poseidon. Actually, he is entitled to a position among the Olympic gods, but he prefers to live almost always in the underworld. He can make himself invisible by putting on a helmet forged by the Cyclops. Hades is married to Persephone, daughter of Demeter, whom he kidnapped from the upper world.
Mixed techniques, 2019
90 x 60 x 40 cm
Aeneas
Stages of Aeneas (1)
Aeneas is a Trojan prince. During the decisive attack and destruction of his city, he fled – by order of the gods – together with his young son and old father and a number of confidants. After long wanderings he landed in Italy where he founded a new state from which the later Rome arose.
Mixed techniques, 2019
40 x 40 x 40 cm
Demeter
Stages of Demeter (1)
Mixed techniques, 2018
30 x 30 x 30 cm
Ikaros falling
Mixed techniques, 2018
95 x 70 x 100 cm
Tiresias, blind seer
Stages of Tiresias (1)
Mixed techniques, 2018
60 x 20 x 20 cm
Alkinoos: a friend at the end
Odysseus is shipwrecked on the coast of the island of Skheria (Phaeacia in some translations). Alkinoos is the wise king of the Phaiacians. He is married with the even wiser Arete. They have five sons and one daughter, Nausikaa. The daughter is playing a special role in the story. She finds the castaway and takes care of him. She falls in love, but Odysseus plays for time. According to some sources (Aristotle and Dicktys of Crete) Nausikaa later marries the son of Odysseus and Penelope, Telemachos. Skheria is the last stage of Odysseus’ long journey. Alkinoos brings him home to Ithaca with an enormous amount of gifts. During his stay on Skheria Odysseus recounts his adventures to Alkinoos and his court. His storytelling to Alkinoos is a large part of Homer’s Odyssee (Book 6 to 13).
I tried to depict Alkinoos in a sculpture. Not as an old man with a beard and with the signs of his dignity, but as the seafarer he is, with a hat against the coldness of the winds, and as father of a large family.
Alkinoos
to Odysseus
I did not find
your ship on
my beaches
where you
washed ashore,
no wreckage,
no goods and
chattels, no ties
at all. Your past
consists exclusively
of yourself. Your
stories come slowly.
They resemble the
epic songs of passing
singers, about love
and war, passion
and suffering,
recurring betrayal.
I'll take you home,
vagabond.
Mixed techniques, 2021
76 x 28 x 29 cm
Penelope
Stages of Penelope (2)
Mixed techniques (detail), 2018
67 x 55 x 35 cm
Zeus, Olympic CEO
Ruler of all gods
God of fate, law, lightning, thunder and sky
Son of Kronos and Rhea - Titans
Brother of Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Poseidon and Hades
Husband of his sister Hera
Father of a lot of children, among which: Aphrodite, Ares, Apollo, Artemis, Athene, Dionysus, Eris, Hephaestos, Moirai, Pan, Persephone, Helena, Herakles, Minos, Perseus, Sarpedon
Supreme deity of the Greek pantheon
Mixed techniques, 2018
30 x 30 x 30 cm
Implacable Hera
Stages of Hera (1)
Hera, goddess of women, marriage, family and childbirth
Sister and wife of Zeus
Mixed techniques, 2018
50 x 35 x 40 cm
Hephaistos
Stages of Hephaistos (1)
Blacksmith. God of fire, metalworking, sculpture
Son of Zeus and Hera
Mixed techniques, 2018
30 x 30 x 30 cm
Charon: no free crossing
Transition
Ferryman of Hades
Carries souls across the river Styx,
nevertheless: only when a coin had
been placed in the mouth of a dead person
Mixed techniques, 2018
35 x 30 x 30 cm
Polyphemos - Kyklope
Nobody's enemy
Mixed techniques, 2018
30 x 30 x 30 cm
Dionysos
Ecstacy, frenzy
Mixed techniques, 2018
30 x 30 x 30 cm
All those royal daughters
Fate
A lot of royal daughters died because of revenge, or ideologic fanaticism
Mixed techniques, 2019
100 x 60 x 50 cm
Kassandra
Stages of Kassandra (1)
Trojan priestess of Apollo. Daughter of Priamos and Hekuba. Her fate: not to be believed, because of a curse by Apollo.
As with Medea's sculpture, my interpretation of Kassandra was inspired by a novel by the German writer Christa Wolf (1929-2011). Wolf talks about the siege of Troy from the perspective of the seer and priestess Kassandra. Her story is an internal monologue about the course of her life and the decisions she has always made. She knows she will be killed soon by the hand of Agamemnon’s wife Klytemnestra. Wolf gives Kassandra a strong voice, that of a vulnerable, but self-aware woman in a predominantly patriarchal society. Kassandra also tells the extraordinary story of a matriarchal counterworld, lettery on the outskirts of the city. In my sculpture, I wanted to depict both the power of her character and the vulnerability of a woman who loses everything through ideology, violence, oppression and incomprehension.
Wolf, Christa. Cassandra. trans. Jan van Heurck. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1984.
Nancy Rabinowitz: Christa Wolf's Cassandra: Different times, different views.
Mixed techniques, 2018
115 x 55 x 40 cm
Iphigenia
Cheated innocence
Stages of Iphigenia (1)
Daughter of Agamemnon and Klytaimnestra of Mykenae
Agamemnon intended to sacrifice her at insistence of the prophet Kalchas at Aulis, because of a lack of wind to sail with the fleet to Troy. In some sources the goddess Artemis rescued her and took her to Tauris to become her priestess. In some versions she should have been transformed into the goddess Hecate.
After the Trojan war Klytaimnestra killed her husband because of his terrible act. Orestes, brother of Iphigenia, killed his mother for that, had to flee, landed in Tauris, should be sacrificed on his turn and was saved by his sister. (Euripides: Iphigenia in Tauris).
I hope you recognize my struggle to express something of the impact of the dramatic content in this sculpture. As the sculptor Constantin Brancusi once said: "Things are not difficult to make; what is difficult is putting ourselves in the state of mind to make them."
Mixed techniques, 2020
100 x 80 x 40 cm (195 cm with chassis)
Odyssister - Ktimene
Stages of Ktimene (1)
Ktimene is the rather unknown sister of Odysseus
She is mentioned by Eumaeos in the Odyssee
Homer, Odyssee (15.361 - 370)
Eumaeos speaks about Odysseus' mother Antiklea and his sister Ktimene
“So long as she was alive, even though she was grieving, it was dear to me to ask about her because she herself raised me along with slender-robed Ktimene, her strong daughter, the youngest of the children she bore. I was raised with her, and her mother honored me little less. But when we both arrived at much-desired youth, they sent her to Same and received innumerable gifts in return. She gave me a tunic, a cloak, and sandals—wonderful clothing, and sent me to the field. She loved me more in her heart.”
Mixed techniques, 2020
50 x 26 x 34 cm
Odyssister: Sibling constellation
Stages of Ktimene (1)
Ktimene is the rather unknown sister of Odysseus
She is mentioned by Eumaeos in the Odyssee
Mixed techniques, 2020
50 x 26 x 34 cm
Polyxena
Victim of ideology and violence against women
Youngest daughter of king Priam and queen Hekuba of Troy
Sacrificed on the tomb of Achilles by the Greeks, after the fall of Troy
Mixed techniques, 2021
50 x 38 x 32 cm
Penelope
Ithaka delayed
"Odysseus' lamentation"
I can hardly be further
away, reaching with
rigging and mast to
unmistakable signals
from Ithaka, where
I left you.
Trapped in the web
of fatal sisters, they
torn - without
compassion – the
fragile wires of my
faded provenance.
In rags of mist and a
soft moon, my lamentation
seems really hard to sing,
I do not master fado,
blues, or other elegies.
I should resist the
beckoning of tender,
feathered Sirens,
to sail finally home.
Anodos - Kathodos
After months of meagreness
earth opens up, timid
and early, preparing
for the divine.
But, cyclical fate,
of what begins the end
is already said ahead, slow
transforms the new spring
in languid excess.
Hidden from decadent
sun glow, autumn is
waiting - with freakish
shrill strokes - on the
room summer is leaving,
created to be worn out.
Inclement wind and rough
rain allocate the days now,
until it winter pleases to
descend - like Persephone,
Demeter’s daughter:
tributary to Hades,
year over year.
Trojan
First hack: lady
kidnapped, not
entirely against
her will.
Last hack: game
over, because of
a treacherous horse,
meanwhile: a lot
pawns wasted.
Fingers of dawn,
groping the burnt
remains of a fortress
that seemed so
impregnable.
Mixed techniques, 2018
40 x 25 x 30 cm
Trojan woman (1)
I could easily have
run into you, just
around a corner, or
at the marketplace,
outside the city walls
of Troy. Only coincidence
got in our way, and a
trifle like fourteen
centuries. You said
goodbye before I
could arrive.
Due to time, we have
been separated from
each other, your possible
faces are anchored in my
mind, they continuously
change, like stories I'm
telling about you.
(Detail) Mixed techniques, 2021
56 x 43 x 38 cm
Trojan woman (2)
Possible faces
Multiple variety,
light and darkness,
sculptors of your face
- it changes while I'm
watching - I see you
often, your silhouette,
your looks, not steady
enough to describe, yet
recognizable, occasionally.
Trojan woman, I never
knew you, but that doesn't
prevent me from seeing
your possible faces.
Detail. Mixed techniques, 2021
56 x 36x 34 cm
Chivalrous Troilos
Troilos is a relatively unexposed figure in the Iliad. He is Kassandra's youngest brother. The German author Christa Wolf pays a bit more attention to him in her novel ‘Kassandra’ (1983), which comments on events of the Trojan War from the perspective of the Trojan king's daughter and seer Kassandra. On the very first day, Achill killed Troilos brutally without following the rules of the fight. Since then Kassandra (in Wolf’s view) has always called him "Achill, the beast".
Shakespeare payed attention to Troilos and to Kalchas’ daughter Kressida in his eponymous play (1602) "Troilos and Kressida".
Mixed techniques, 2021
52 x 40 x 24 cm
Hektor, Prince of Troy
Stages of Hektor (1)
Hektor’s last fight
Daylight has not yet
completely disappeared
on the lower fields before
the closed gates of my
lofty town.
The beast is coming
soon, I am his prey.
The child cries: "Daddy,
daddy!" and I curse my
hubris. People stare as
petrified from high walls,
to a king foretold, who
will never be one. The
ruthless hunter drives
me three times around
the ramparts, until I face
him in despair.
If I will fall, hope and last
dreams do also die, of those
I love and leave too soon.
Mixed techniques, 2021
45 (60 with pedestal) x 27 x 32 cm
Hektor, prince of Troy
Stages of Hektor (2)
Achilles - the Greek hero - defeats Hektor, the idol of the Trojans. For Achilles, however, his death is not enough. Hektor is dishonored in front of his family and his people, tied behind Achilles' chariot, dragged through the dust, humiliated.
In my paintings and sculptures I have depicted Hektor several times, in different stages. In two sculptures I depict his transience, symbolizing the demise of a human being, the degeneration of humanity, and the downfall of a dynasty. It's not pretty, art isn't always beautiful.
Mixed techniques, 2021
52 x 42 x 42 cm
Hektor, prince of Troy
Stages of Hektor (3)
It's not beauty I try to express, it's emotion in many facets
Hektor is defeated by Achilles who dishonored his dead body
“We have won great glory, and killed the noble Hector, whom the Trojans prayed to like a god, in Troy. So saying, he found a way to defile the fallen prince. He pierced the tendons of both feet behind from heel to ankle, and through them threaded ox-hide thongs, tying them to his chariot, leaving the corpse’s head to trail along the ground. Then lifting the glorious armor aboard, he mounted and touched the horses with his whip, and they eagerly leapt forward. Dragged behind, Hector’s corpse raised a cloud of dust, while his outspread hair flowed, black, on either side. That head, once so fine, trailed in the dirt, now Zeus allowed his enemies to mutilate his corpse on his own native soil.”
Homer, Ilias Bk. XXII: 393 – 404
Mixed techniques, 2021
41 x 44 x 38 cm
