Antigone


Curated by Anna Stephens and Zoe Macdonald Purge Projects

Featuring work by: Annie Attridge, Adam Burton, Anna Chrystal, Dora Garcia, Patrick Goddard, Bruce Ingram,
Matthew The Horse, Scott Massey, Catalina Niculescu, Herman Steinmeitz, Laurie Storey, Sophie Wiltshire and Carla Wright.

15th May until 15th June, 2009

The Greek tragedy Antigone is the departure point for this multi-disciplinary exhibition of new work from emerging contemporary artists. Housed in an old tram depot in East London the project uses the unique structure of the semi-industrial space as a set, gallery and stage to present work exploring and inspired by both Antigone’s character and themes within the play.

In the story Antigone, the daughter of Oedipus and Jocasta, struggles against King Creon for her dead brother’s right to a proper burial. Purge Projects is interested in the dual readings of Antigone’s character - she appears strong minded, noble and heroic yet on the other hand she is irrational, crazy and somewhat obsessed with this notion of respect for her brother in her quite bizarre and unconventional family. The play deals with loyalty, loss, madness and death and is a prime example of Greek tragedy.

The exhibition explores the text in an interactive and theatrical way, resulting in a dialogue between the artworks and the nature of performance. Purge Projects incorporates Nietzsche’s ideas of “Dionysus” as a state of enthusiastic loss of control, lack of reason and sense of ecstasy induced by wine or exemplified in Greek tragedy. The idea is to excite the audience into a “deep frenzy” through music and emotive entertainment in order to arrive at a deeper understanding of human nature.

















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