The Theran Spiral: Involute of a Circle.
Subseries, 2024. Item #3909 8 3/4 x 9 in., 46 pp., perfect bound in French paper wrappers. Printed in full color by David McNamara at Publish Publish. Text by Vicuña and O'Hern, and drawings and paintings by Vicuña. Designed and edited by M.C. Kinniburgh, and distributed by Granary Books.
The Theran Spiral is a dialogue between Vicuña and O'Hern, and part of a larger project titled The Ritual Commons which developed from their work at documenta 14 in Athens (in 2017). Struck by the connections between the Andean quipu and the motifs of Ancient Crete, Vicuña and O'Hern follow the "red thread" of a series of powerful fresco fragments at the site Akrotiri, which depict menstrual rites. In conversation, Vicuña and O'Hern re-imagine these rites, with several drawings and new paintings by Vicuña as part of their response.
From the introduction by Vicuña:
In 2016, I was invited to join documenta 14 in Athens, a year ahead of the exhibition that took place in 2017. Once in the city, I suddenly remembered that as a child I was in love with a Cretan image: “La Parisienne.” I looked her up, and for the first time I saw her in color! She had a huge red knot in her back, and I thought: “like an Andean quipu.” In that instant, the idea of creating a Quipu to honor the commonality and difference between the Andes and ancient Crete was born.
I created my Quipu Womb, with the help of Greek artist-sailors who knew how to make knots, and this majestic sculpture rose as a cosmic umbilical cord of menstrual blood. Intrigued by the Cretan knots, I began to research and learned that in multiple frescoes in Knossos and Akrotiri, women carried red knots, not only in their backs, but also on their arms and waists. I knew then that my partner, James O’Hern, and I would have to travel to Crete to see them firsthand.
documenta 14 was an invitation to “Learn from Athens,” and that’s exactly what happened to us. In Greece we encountered the living traces of the old cultures, and we began weaving our own stories and perspectives as indigenous mestizos of the Americas with the memory of the ancient initiatory rites. Jim and I were invited to teach a five-day seminar at the A.S.F.A. (Athens School of Fine Arts) as part of documenta 14: “The Ritual Body of the Commons.” During that seminar, and the long conversations with the artists that took part, the idea of writing a book took hold. Our guide in the journey was the red thread. Following its discontinuous movement, our book The Ritual Commons was born.
The chapter you now have in your hands is part of that book (yet unpublished). Crete for us is the language of blood speaking, and the frescoes of Akrotiri are its supreme expression, a celebration of life created for the ritual initiation of boys and girls. Nanno Marinatos writes that “the blood of the goddess is the source of the sacred crocus ... suggesting that the blood of the goddess gave rise to plant life” (Akrotiri, Thera and the East Mediterranean, 63). For us, the frescoes must have been part of a multidimensional visual and oral story experienced both by the individual and the social body participating in the transformative emotion of the rites.
This chapter reimagines the initiation following the painstaking reconstruction of the fresco fragments by the archaeologists, focusing on the collective joy and abundance expressed in these works, and the pain of loss of the cosmic mother culture after the entire Minoan (Cretan) universe collapsed circa 1600 BC.
As oral poets, Jim and I composed the book and this chapter as a recorded dialogue that becomes a trialogue when a Third Voice emerges; the voice of our togetherness, what we say in common.
This is from an edition of 123 copies, of which 33 are numbered and signed by the authors, with a unique, small drawing in neon pink pencil by Vicuña. This is from the signed edition. As new.
Price: $75.00