THE MYTHIC BODY
To see the body through Darryl Babatunde Smith’s eyes is to see it as a form ripe for translation. In the curve of a neck he finds Ancient Greek poetry, in the stretch of a shoulder he discovers Latin musings, in the stiff bend of the knee, German description. A polyglot who glides easily from Greek to German to French, Smith’s work is never divorced from the texts that he voraciously consumes. His depictions are instead enhanced by the richness of his textural muses, as he unearths the images buried in the descriptions of bodies, beauty, and the natural world that fill the writings of Philostratus, Pliny the Elder, Orpheus, and Aristophanes. As he renders the body on paper, Smith creates an image begging to be read, with the delicacy of his line bringing forth the whispering narratives that underscore his work.
Smith’s multidisciplinary appreciation for the art historical and textual fabric of antiquity is complemented by his choice of medium- Smith works in metalpoint, a material popularized in the Northern Renaissance by artists like Albrecht Durer that remains virtually unchanged to date. With small styli of gold, silver, or bronze that yield unerasable marks, Smith creates unchangeable works that carry with them the same permanence of stone. The delicacy of this medium prompts the viewer to look closely at the fine work, craning necks and squinting eyes at the precise and miniature drawings. Such an intimate viewing experience is perhaps alien to the typical process of viewing sculpture, with its large, space defining presence. Yet for Smith, to view his work mimics even the physical act of reading—we lean in, to tease out every line made on paper, to search for Smith’s meaning as he shows us his place in the ancient world.
The sculpture of antiquity that grounds Smith’s work is itself yielded from a text-rich society, and one can hardly be considered without the other. Mythological source material served as a vibrant basis for artistic inspiration, with the stories of heroism, beauty, and tragedy replete with the visual minutiae that made the image of their subjects emerge from the page. Hellenistic sculpture, the product of the artistic era that followed the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BCE, stands apart for its emotive departure from idealism. In the Hellenistic works that Smith drew from, including Sleeping Ariadne, and the Crouching Venus de Vienne, the ideal human forms of the classical era changes as they contort, soften, and express the passions similarly found in the flourishing written traditions that mirrored the developments of the sculptural world. Smith’s figures appear like ekphrasis leaping off the page, granting visual presence to the literary musings that described the relaxed musculature of sleep, to the crumpled form of embarrassment, to the fleshiness inherent to our human forms.
Through Smith’s exploration of both the mythological and present day body, he unifies his contemporary identity with the storied visual language of ancient art and text and coaxes the viewer to translate his visual narratives into their own lexicon of understanding. He simultaneously contemplates the forms of the sculptures as well as his own body’s place within the classical canon through drawing himself in many of the carved poses, casting his own body in the postures observed in the hellenistic sculptural influences. As such, he becomes a member of the narratives that underscore his compositions. He is the King, disguising himself to avoid madness; he is Ariadne, slumbering away under the watchful eye of Bacchus; he is the blinded bird, yearning for a utopian world.
Mollie Wohlforth
Gallery Manager, Institute of Classical Architecture and Art, New York