Scooter LaForge's exhibition "The Odyssey" is inspired by and named after Homer's literary work.
Scooter LaForge’s latest exhibition will be displayed in London’s Jealous Gallery. (Reuters pic)
LONDON: Contemporary artists have drawn upon everything from comic books to Campbell’s soup cans for inspiration in recent years, but New York artist Scooter LaForge has drawn his from a much older source, with a new exhibition based on Homer’s poem “The Odyssey.”
The exhibition, hosted in London’s Jealous Gallery and curated by DJ Seth Troxler, features paintings, prints, and wall murals that blend imagery from Greek mythology with elements of the LGBT+ scene of 1980s New York.
Some of the artworks depict what Troxler describes as “sexy boys and subversive fairies masquerading and transforming into cyclops, nymphs, magical creatures, angels, and monsters.”
“It was very sexy to me and then the violence in there was appealing to me, and I thought it was very visual,” LaForge said.
LaForge’s artworks include depictions of Odysseus and the goddess Circe, who turned the hero’s men into pigs, as well as Odysseus’ confrontation with the cyclops Polyphemus.
LaForge said he feels that there is room for artistic interpretation in “The Odyssey”, allowing him to incorporate his own unconventional elements into the classic tale.
“It’s a poem by Homer who was blind, written in 800 BC, so who even knows if this story is what he recited? I’m sure it’s been interpreted a billion times. So this is my version of it.”
The Odyssey is not the only literary classic that LaForge is interested in adapting. Inspired by his time in the UK, he also hopes to tackle Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales”.
“The Odyssey” runs at London’s Jealous Gallery until April 10.
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Sumber Homer’s Odyssey gets modern art treatment at London exhibition