athanatai: ‘undying; immortal; indestructible’.
This sculpture is based on the character Herakles. The most infamous of ancient Greek heroes is depicted here in his aspect as a notoriously deadly dinner host and guest. It forms part of the series Powell’s Patterns 2, 11, 20, 25 and was constructed from a fishing buoy, cast iron three-legged pot, Jaffle toaster mould plate, outside spring callipers, rotary saw blade, cork pull, pickle fork, lemon juicer, wood, and enamel paint. It measures 43.2 x 53.3 x 25.4 centimeters.
Herakles ΑΘΑΝΑΤΑΙ front and side views
Homeric poetry is infused with allusions to Herakles, a heroic paradigm against which the heroes of the Homeric epics judge themselves and their accomplishments. Herakles serves as a reputational “ghost” that haunts heroes of later generations. Frustrating their need to be the best. Achilles, Hektor, Aias, Diomedes, and Odysseus can fight each other, and even the gods, but Herakles belongs to a glorious past that, in Hesiodic fashion, can only be emulated, never superseded.
The place in Homer where this ghost is defined most intriguingly (at least by my standards) is the Catalogue of Ships – or more specifically, the set of entries that conform to a structural type identified by Barry Powell – hence “Powell’s Patterns” for the sculptural series that Herakles forms part of.
My take on Homer’s Herakles was based in one part on his characterization as a theomachos (particularly when presented as a role model for Diomedes). This aspect is represented through the metaphor of a solar eclipse. The dark blue sphere here represents Herakles as the dark moon, while the circular-saw blade represents the corona. This was a useful composition as the jagged edges of the blade can also be read as the mane of the Nemean lion.
Herakles ΑΘΑΝΑΤΑΙ front view
For the most part however, my representation of Herakles reflects an intriguing juxtaposition. The Homeric world is clearly structured on strict behavioral norms, particularly when it comes to interactions between hosts and guests. Herakles completely contravenes these codes of conduct when he is a lethal guest and a deadly host. In Homer’s world (as in mine), hosts must offer a beverage and/or food and guests should ideally not decline. So, I framed Herakles’ antisocial behavior in terms of references to food and drink. Hence the cork-screw bow, pickle-fork arrow, lemon-juicer rocket, and the potjie.
If the sphere and saw blade represents Herakles’ actions towards the gods, the potjie represents the gods’ interactions with Herakles.
On the one hand, as it goes directly into the fire, the potjie is a type of crucible. It thrives in an environment that would destroy most things – as tough and indestructible as Herakles. The allusion to Hera’s rage against the hero comes in the shape of the white horns (for ox-eyed Hera) that emerge from the pot and on which the sphere sits. These are sections of calipers, suggesting that the famous tasks are methods of measurement. Potjies also have three legs, as does the Pythia’s tripod, which Herakles stole when he challenged Apollo for ownership of the oracle. Lastly, while a potjie is used to cook food, the three-legged cast-iron pot is also associated with the image of the medieval witch brewing her potions, which brings us back to the danger of dining with Herakles.
Herakles ΑΘΑΝΑΤΑΙ rear view
At the lowest section. Herakles as a demigod gets a half-height plinth decorated with a pattern alluding to the Manhattan project, based on the description of his belt as a masterpiece of equal wonder and horror that “should never have been made or should ever be made again” (Od.11 610-14). An ideal summation of why in Homer, Herakles is a paradigm that may be imitated, but not equaled. The Homeric Herakles lurks in the margins, in allusions, Nestor’s reminiscences, and catalogues.
Herakles ΑΘΑΝΑΤΑΙ with shadow
The sculptural series Powell’s Patterns 2, 11, 20, 25 includes 9 assemblages. Based on 4 entries from the Catalogue of Ships. Herakles is a member of the larger set of 9, a smaller set of 4, and an oppositional pair where his “partner” is Asklepios ΟΙΞΕΣΘΑΙ. In the Catalogue of Ships Asklepios’ sons come from Eurytos’ city Oichalia. As the epithet oichesthai suggests, this city was the Atlantis of its day, known for its destruction with multiple possible places identified in antiquity as its lost location. The association with the healer’s sons and this symbol of absence reflects in my mind the fact that while healers can delay death, they cannot make men immortal.
In the context of the mortality of Homer’s heroes extending even to the sons of gods and goddess, Herakles’ enduring kleos, more than his ascension to Olympus, offers a paradigm of possible immortality.
However, Herakles shares this catalogue pattern with the singer Thamyris, another theomachos whose challenge to the gods sees him lose the ability to transmit kleos. In the end, in a Homeric context, a hero as socially unrestrained as Herakles is best confined to a mythic past, and Achilles for all his Heraclean attributes will not take Troy. In my sculptural catalogue the ghost who enters the text via an oblique allusion is Apollo ΝΟMΟΣ who, according to Odysseus, is the one who really killed Eurytos.
Asklepios ΟΙΞΕΣΘΑΙ and Herakles ΑΘΑΝΑΤΑΙ
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