Suits, 2020, by Mikel Elam (Courtesy of the artist)
but what’s he seeing out in the world? Each figure
storytelling, it’s probably the most ancient narrative
represents a different sensory relationship.
in the show, coming from Greek mythology:
WIESNER: I love the blurring, the smearing of the
figures. You’re right, there seems to be something very different going on with each of them that’s hard to pinpoint—and maybe that’s the point.
the Judgment of Paris. On the face of it, there couldn’t be a more sexist story, and we have to ask why an artist like DuSold, whose sensibility is forward looking, would focus our attention on it today. Forced to select that most beautiful of the
VALERIO: The historic placement is also important;
Olympian goddesses, the mortal, Paris, chooses
the dark suits and ties suggest the late 1960s and
Aphrodite, who is of course the goddess of beauty.
the civil rights era, and so do the bright, graphic
I presume she is the figure at right in shadow,
colors. That the figures are connected from
emerging from the water. But in this rendering, the
shoulder to shoulder suggests a unity in the face of
goddesses do not seem to need Paris’s approval.
external threat. That an artist today wants us to look
They seem confident. The reclining figure in the
back in this way speaks to the degree to which so
lower left even seems self-absorbed. And the
much hasn’t changed with regard to the struggle
process was corrupt to begin with. In exchange for
for racial equality.
the prize, Aphrodite had promised Paris to arrange his marriage to Helen of Troy, thereby setting in
History also plays a role in the work you selected
motion the Trojan Wars and the violent upheaval
by Paul DuSold, who is a friend and a teacher
of the Greek world. Again, I can’t help but interpret
in Woodmere’s studio program. In terms of
the painting somewhat darkly, despite the rococo THE WOODMERE ANNUAL: 79TH JURIED EXHIBITION
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