Orion's Dog

Andrea Zemel

2007
42.5"h x 42.5"w x 3"d
glazed ceramic and glass

    Orion's Dog is an oracular verse from Book 22 of the Iliad. Here, in the mythopoeic vision of Homer's epic, the bard evokes an image of 'god-like' Achilles in battle's hot pursuit. The philosophic ambivalence juxtaposing man's ambitions with his mortal doom is a prevalent theme of the Iliad. For the Greeks, this disquieting contradiction was personified by the brief but glory suffused life of the incensed young Achilles. As the great tragic figure of western Epic, Achilles' unquenchable nature is both a warning and a legacy, Homer's moral epitaph to the disintegration and demise of a once great civilization.

   

also in this issue:

Andrea Zemel's Democrazy
an artist's book with poetry by Joe Brennan

Additional works by Andrea Zemel can be found at her website andreazemel.com

DEMOCRAZY was previously exhibited in Paper, Art & the Book:

"an exhibition of the innovative ways artists utilize paper to express ideas conveyed in books and broadsides" at The Center for Book Arts in New York.