Eleanor Antin: Inventing Histories

The Last Days of Pompeii

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Antin has created three series using ancient Greece & Rome as her inspiration. Her first series, The Last Days of Pompeii (2002), re-imagines what daily life was like before the cataclysmic disaster as a lens for examining contemporary existence. Says Antin:

"The image of Pompeii on the brink of annihilation has always suggested uncomfortable parallels with the contemporary world, where the sunlit life turns out to have dark shadows in which cruelty, pain, and death lurk at the edge of consciousness. I am excavating a Pompeii of my own invention where beautiful, affluent people live the good life innocent of the disasters waiting just around the corner."

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Art21 first featured artist Eleanor Antin in 2003
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Watch the original & uncut 13 minute film online! (via Hulu)

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Own Season 1 & 2 Today: DVD or iTunes
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Eleanor Antin is featured in the Art21 episode "Humor" along with fellow artists Walton Ford, Elizabeth Murray, and Raymond Pettibon. The Season 1 & 2 DVD features 8 episodes, 37 artists, and is available from PBS and Amazon.

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Soviet film director Yevgeny Antinov
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"Despised by the modernists for his love of narrative, hated by the traditionalists for his modern techniques, disapproved of by the government for his self-indulgence and individualism, and ignored by their lackey scholars, he was loved only by the people." Yevgeny Antinov is a fictional persona created by Eleanor Antin, and director of films such as The Last Night of Rasputin (made in 1924; "rediscovered" in 1989) and Man Without a World (1991).

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Starring & Directing
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In earlier works such as Love's Shadow (1985) and The Ballerina and the Poet (1986), Antin created a fictional worldview by adopting various persona such as a ballerina, a nurse, and a king — acting as both star in the film and director behind the camera.

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See the Finished Work
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All for Love from Helen's Odyssey, 2007 Chromogenic print, 39 x 98 inches Edition of 5 (via Ronald Feldman Fine Arts)

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The Last Days of Pompeii
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Antin has created three series using ancient Greece & Rome as her inspiration. Her first series, The Last Days of Pompeii (2002), re-imagines what daily life was like before the cataclysmic disaster as a lens for examining contemporary existence. Says Antin:


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Roman Allegories
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Antin's second series, Roman Allegories (2004), focuses on a band of traveling players journeying through a ruined landscape:


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Helen's Odyssey
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The third and final chapter in the series is titled Helen's Odyssey (2007). A number of paintings in the exhibition are modeled after famous paintings, such as this work: Judgment of Paris (after Rubens) - Dark Helen.

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Helen of Troy
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"The face that launched a thousand ships." Learn more about the saga of Helen of Troy.

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Gericault's The Raft of the Medusa
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The composition for Antin's photograph The Tourists (2007) is loosely based on Gericault's The Raft of the Medusa.

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Channels: American ArtContemporary ArtPhotographyRoman Art
Artists: Eleanor Antin
Themes: Materials and ProcessStories

Exclusive Episode #019: Eleanor Antin reveals the process behind her photographic series Helen's Odyssey (2007), in particular the work The Tourists (2007) which recasts the destruction of Troy in the southern California desert.

An influential performance artist, filmmaker, photographer, and installation artist, Eleanor Antin delves into history—whether of ancient Rome, the Crimean War, the salons of nineteenth-century Europe, or her own Jewish heritage and Yiddish culture—as a way to explore the present. Antin is a cultural chameleon, masquerading in theatrical or stage roles to expose her many selves.

Learn more about Eleanor Antin: http://www.art21.org/artists/eleanor-antin

VIDEO | Producer: Wesley Miller & Nick Ravich. Camera & Sound: Larissa Nikola-Lisa. Additional Footage: Daniel Martinico. Editor: Jennifer Chiurco. Artwork courtesy: Eleanor Antin. Thanks: Ronald Feldman Fine Arts.

This video is really involving! It captured my imagination, as I always glad to know something. And here, particularly, Eleanor Antin has made a very interesting research and described it in her own way. So I liked it
Marinachka's picture
Submitted by Marina on Sun, 03/18/2012 - 07:52.

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