Here’s some text I put together for the show at Rocky Mountain College of Art & Design, which opens, I believe, on the second of September, a Thursday. (Be there around 7 or 8 or later.) There’s a longer version that mentions Nickel-Odeons, refers to my Wednesday (Woden’s Day) night printmaking sessions, and so on, but this is the concise version. Thought I might as well post it for you. Hope it sounds inviting. It certainly sounds grandiose and pompous. Part of the fun. Grandiose, yes, but all true.
In Odin/Odeon, Eric Waldemar takes a maximalist approach to a small installation space, assembling a piece of “visual chamber music” that combines an intricate arrangement of monoprints with tiny abstract video work. In ancient Greece, an Odeon was a type of small theater, designed for more intimate productions. The Norse god Odin, as the tale goes, hung upside down from the World Tree for nine days until vision and knowledge arose in his mind. In Waldemar’s studio, imagery is invited, awaited, then shaped as it emerges. In an art world that favors shrewd, spare concept and wry sampling, he persists in affirming the mysteries and depths of an open, exploratory work process that hangs between picture and nameless form.
grandiose and pompous indeed! is this a performance? r u hangin’ urself upside down for nine(9) dehs from the ceiling? can’t wait!!
I’ll only be suspended upside down during normal business hours, and of course, I’ll stop for good as soon as cosmos-shaking visions have concluded, after which there’s no reason to persist.