I saw two openings tonight but only one was worth writing about – Eleanor Antin “Helen’s Odyssey” at Ronald Feldman Fine Arts.

 Plaisir d’Amour (after Couture) from “Helen’s Odyssey,” 2007

The photo, masterfully done – was inspired by Thomas Couture’s Age of Decadence which I’ve seen a couple of times when visiting Paris (see below):

A couple of my favorites are Constructing Helen from “Helen’s Odyssey,”and The Tourists from “Helen’s Odyssey.

Saw several people taking pictures though I don’t know why – all of the photos at the opening are online.

 ”…As a pioneering conceptual artist, Eleanor Antin has engaged in a dialogue with history for nearly forty years. Ronald Feldman Fine Arts is pleased to exhibit Antin’s latest work, in which she turns her gaze on the Trojan War. Through Helen’s Odyssey, Helen of Troy is finally allowed to speak for herself in a series of imagined scenes from the life of the two Helens. For in her pursuit of the Spartan queen, Antin has discovered two women, a charming blonde engaging the seductive pleasures of luxury and desire, and a demonic dark Helen smoldering with disgust and venting her rage on her admiring victimizers. In these nine large-scale dramatic photographs, warriors, artists, gods, and goddesses emerge in a set of luminous archaeological retrievals from Helen’s historically fragmented life.”

The only thing I’m wondering about is how easy it is to color my perception of these works!  I walked out of the gallery (after a glass or two of wine – they were small glasses of red wine) and wondered past some more galleries on Broome street – saw a storefront that had similar types of large display photos and that told me the idea of doing historical photos – parody, if you will, is actually not uncommon.

Then I decided I’d seen enough and went home.