Corrections or additions?
This article by Nicole Plett was prepared for the October 15, 2003
edition of U.S. 1 Newspaper. All rights reserved.
The Odyssey Sets Sail at the College of NJ
Sing to me O Muse! The intrepid words of Homer’s
2,700-year-old "Odyssey" will ring out at College of New
Jersey
beginning at 8 a.m. next Wednesday, October 22, as the campus
celebrates
the launch of a six-week campus adventure. "Verbal-Visual: Homer’s
Odyssey" is the theme of the six-week program tied to the college
gallery exhibition by the Princeton Artists Alliance, which also opens
on Wednesday, October 22, with a reception from 5 to 7 p.m.
The PAA project has been on a successful Odyssey of its own. Beginning
early in 1998, members of the professional artists’ organization,
immersed themselves in Robert Fagles’ modern translation of Homer’s
epic poem. Fagles helped open windows onto a poem some had not read
since high school and others had never read. The resulting works
became
a 1999 group exhibit, curated by Pamela V. Sherin for the Gallery
at Bristol-Myers Squibb.
Next the PAA secured its first museum showing with a group exhibit
of many of the same works in the Community Gallery of the Newark
Museum
in fall 2002. College of New Jersey Gallery director Judy Masterson,
who saw the exhibit at Bristol-Myers Squibb, decided the show would
make a good fit on campus.
The TCNJ show is accompanied by a color catalog, nattily bound in
green to imitate a well-worn linen bound volume of "The
Odyssey"
from the stacks of the Roscoe West Library of the college, formerly
known at Trenton State.
Homer’s story of the hero’s perilous journey from the wars in Troy
to the home he finds occupied by a horde of rivals who are eating
his livestock and plotting to kill his son and heir was probably
composed
around 700 to 650 B.C. The huge sales of Fagles’ modern translation,
published in 1996 by Viking Penguin, as well as his previous success
with the "Iliad," bears testament to Homer’s continuing spell.
"These poems weren’t meant as literature or words on a page to
be read, but as a song in the air," Fagles told his audience at
the original PAA show. "Homer’s work is a performance, even in
part a musical event." Remarkably, Fagles, engaged in the study
of Homer’s poetry for decades, found that the artists’ creative
interpretations
gave him a new vision of his familiar subject.
"I found the whole range of inventiveness a kind of
revelation,"
said Fagles after the first exhibit. "So many styles, so many
impressions, so many media. And they all seem to have something to
say about Homer."
New and returning readers to "The Odyssey" are bound to be
surprised at how gripping Homer’s story remains "for our
time."
As Charles McVicker of PAA told CNJ catalog author Meghan Gandy: The
Odyssey "is the story of everyone’s life. We are all trying to
get home, some of us make it and some of us don’t."
— Nicole Plett
Ewing,
609-771-2198. Six week event begins with day-long reading of Homer’s
text, translated by Princeton’s Robert Fagles. Wednesday, October
22, 8 a.m.
Curated by Lee Ann Riccardi, the art exhibit will be complemented
by six weeks of special events beginning October 22 at 8 a.m. with
oral readings of the Odyssey in a tent in front of Holman Hall. The
show has its own website at www.tcnj.edu/~odyssey. Gallery hours
are Monday through Friday, noon to 3 p.m.; Thursday 7 to 9 p.m.; and
Sunday, 1 to 3 p.m., for the exhibit that continues to December 3.
Holman Hall, 609-771-2198. Opening reception for the exhibition of
24 works inspired by Robert Fagles’ English translation of Homer’s
epic. Wednesday, October 22, 5 to 7 p.m..
130, 609-771-2198. "Odysseus in Dublin: James Joyce and
Homer,"
a lecture by Lee Harrod in conjunction with the College Art Gallery
exhibition "Homer’s Odyssey." Free. Wednesday, October
29, 4 p.m.
Music Building Concert Hall, 609-771-2198. "The Afterlife of
Penelope,"
a lecture by classics professor Sheila Murnaghan, University of
Pennsylvania,
in conjunction with the College Art Gallery exhibition "Homer’s
Odyssey." Free. Wednesday, November 5, 4 p.m.
Forcina 132, 609-771-2198. "The Odyssey in Greek Art," a
lecture
by classics professor Ann Steinman, Franklin and Marshall College,
in conjunction with the College Art Gallery exhibition "Homer’s
Odyssey." Free. Wednesday, December 3, 6 p.m.
Robert Fagles
In a related event, Robert Fagles reads from his acclaimed translation
of Homer’s "Odyssey" at the Princeton University Art Museum
in conjunction with the exhibition, "The Centaur’s Smile: The
Human Animal in Early Greek Art." Exhibit features more than 100
Centaurs, Satyrs, Sphinxes, Sirens, Gorgons, and other fantastic
creatures
in ceramic, stone, bronze, gold, and terra cotta.
Art Museum , Sterning Morton Gallery. By reservation only, call
609-258-3043. Thursday, November 13, 6 p.m.
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