One For Sorrow Two For Joy

Two Athens artists collaborate for 'Kaunakes'

Fashioned from red plastic newspaper bags (the very ones in which this newspaper is delivered), these 50 works have an ethereal quality, suspended as they are and filling the gallery like beautifully clad dress forms, spinning ever so slightly with the movement of air within the space.

It's this ethereal quality that draws us in. And here we find the deeper intent.

These sculptures are, as the title "Ghosts of Mesopotamia" suggests, symbols of loss, lives taken in the war in Iraq -- present-day Mesopotamia. Cloaked in Kaufman's modern vision of "kaunakes," the traditional garments worn in the region during the Early Dynastic period of Mesopotamia, the sculptures recall the spirits of our ancestors, silent, observing. They recall for us the lives lost -- with sculptures presented in adult and children's sizes as well, we're given pause to consider the vast scope of civilian deaths, not just in numbers, but what this only can begin to mean in life-size scale.

And at the same time, they recall life in all that it presents us; red can be as much a symbol of joy and celebration as it is a symbol of war and bloodshed, and with that, the deep abiding sorrow that accompanies loss.

That's part of the emotional impact the exhibit has had on Kaufman's collaborator and former student, Andrea Trombetta, who in the opening and closing events, presents a performance art piece wearing a garment -- a work from her "Chime Dress Series" -- she created that reflects Kaufman's kaunakes.

She tells the story of how, during the opening event in July, she'd planned her movements as best she could, considering the gallery would be filled with guests in various and unpredictable spots. A new mother, she said she felt drawn to a couple of child-sized kaunakes in a corner of the gallery, and planned to move through them. As she got to this place, she looked up and saw the godmother of her child standing with her own children.

"It was an incredibly emotional experience," Trombetta said. "You could really feel, too, a potent energy in the room. And that's part of the performance, this opportunity to step into a role and feel this connection to the work and all that it means. You can't put a price on that -- it's the reward of being involved in performance art."

Kaufman, who has exhibited "Kaunakes" previously in Poland and Japan -- though on a smaller scale, with just eight and 15 of the works showing, respectively -- retired from his post as a professor in fabric design at the University of Georgia's Lamar Dodd School of Art in 2008.

Typecast: Guest : One For Sorrow, Two For Joy

Mummy say, daddy?”), my daughter (‘Girl’, 2) regards my instruction with a pick-and-choose flippancy that drives me to distraction.  Obedience was something proffered up by Boy without much question.  Of course he had his Terrible Twos, during which we established – through a series of exhausting tantrums, each one of which left me feeling as if I’d run with the Pamplona bulls* – that Mummy I’ll begin by asking nicely, repeating myself patiently until I resort to monosyllabic commands (“Weetabix.  Now.  Eat.”).  These will increase in volume until I’m pretty much yelling, at which point she’ll look directly at me, smile her adorable, gap-toothed grin, glance down demurely and shake some golden curls prettily in my direction as she whispers a near-inaudible, “Noooooo”. A silence in the house when Boy was her age meant he was engrossed in play or had dozed off.  With Girl, the realisation that five minutes have passed during which I haven’t been hollered at dawns with a dread feeling in the pit of my stomach.  I rush to seek her out and inevitably encounter some kind of devastation: lipstick smeared across mirrors; tampons ripped out of their packets and strewn across the bathroom floor; dolls, walls and wooden toys daubed with permanent marker. But Girl also has a way of looking at me, of cocking her head inquisitively as she stares directly into my eyes, then throwing her arms around my neck and burrowing, as if she couldn’t get close enough.  She knows exactly when to do it, and it melts me.  This determined, stroppy little bundle has me completely sussed.  Maybe it’s a daughter thing, a second sibling thing, or just her, but Girl sees right through me with a startling clarity.  And the fantastic thing is that she still loves me anyway.

One for Sorrow, Two for Joy

One for Sorrow, Two for Joy

One for Sorrow, Two for Joy

One for sorrow, two for joy, ten years of New society

One for Sorrow Two for Joy