The exhibition ‘To Delphi’ upholds and partakes in the deliberate or blatant ambiguity of the oracle. The artist is shaping the partial signs from different journeys transmitting heightened perceptions into a coherent, if ambiguous, response.
Various cities such as Dakar, Swansea and London become the sites where loose associations of time, myth and dirt collide, fuse into new expressions and contemporary interpretations. The work ‘The Conception of Perseus’, a golden splash on a garage door, recalls the Greek myth of the heroic medusa-vanquisher, conceived by a confined Danaë through Zeus coming down as a “golden shower”.
Linking the works is also the artist’s interest in spaces under construction. Referring to Ucello’s painting of the Battle of San Romano, the work “The Battle” captures a luminous structure that has been transformed into an ambivalent hybrid with a similarity drawn between the structure of the glistening metal and the sharp perspective formed by the shiny staves in the historical painting.
The exhibition “To Delphi” includes a part of the artist’s collaborative opera “Liebeslied/My Suicides” with support from the Genesis Trust. The opera is based on the artist’s photographic series of the same title, with a libretto by philosopher Alexander Garcia Düttmann and a score by composer Paul Clark.
Rut Blees Luxemburg lives and works in London. Recent solo exhibitions include ‘Phantom’ at Tate Liverpool, 2003 and ‘ffolly’, an exhibition and publication commissioned by the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Swansea and ffotogallery, Cardiff. The complete opera ‘Liebslied/My Suicides’ will be performed at the ICA in October, 2004.