Those ancient Greeks certainly knew how to spin a perverted yarn. One of the most famous characters from the classical tales is the Minotaur, the fierce creature with the head of a bull and the body of a man who roamed a maze on the island of Crete. The Minotaur was the result of a curse put on his mother Queen Pasiphae by the goddess Aphrodite, who cursed the poor woman to fall madly in lust with a beautiful bull that was supposed to be sacrificed to Poseidon. The craftsman Daedalus built Pasiphae a huge wooden cow which she crawled into to copulate with the magnificent white bull, and one eye-watering birth later, the Minotaur came into being.
Pretty strong stuff, and certainly not the sort of thing that the straight-laced Victorians would have cared to discuss around the dinner table. It’s no surprise that Victorian poet Algernon Charles Swinburne’s racy version of events wasn’t published until after his death, but his text did make it to print and it’s the template for video artist Mary Reid Kelley‘s latest work, Swinburne’s Pasiphae. It’s the second in a trilogy looking at the Minotaur’s family tree, following 2013’s Priapus Agonistes, and plays with gender roles and theatrical presentation while adding plenty of cheeky humour into the mix. The American artist’s film, along with props, costumes, and photographic portraits, is being shown at London’s Pilar Corrias gallery from 10 September to 4 October.
Stills from Swinburne’s Pasiphae (2014, HD video)
Mary Reid Kelley with Patrick Kelley.
© the artist. Courtesy Pilar Corrias, London
