Attributed to the Somzée Painter. Terracotta pelike (jar), ca. 420–410 BCE. Greek, Attic. Terracotta; red-figure, 14 1/2 x 11 1/16 in. (36.8 x 28.1 cm). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Gift of Samuel G. Ward, 1875 (75.2.7)
I think I'm looking at cartoons of another time that I can't decipher anymore.
Hi, I'm Deborah Kass.
I think everybody who's an artist that we know were those kinds of kids who drew all the time. And my first act of art theft was steal crayons from my nursery school.
It's not a surprise I love these pre-Christian pots. I love the style of this drawing. I can't get out of the pots room, as I've said a million times. I am completely entranced by Greek pots.
I think the way to swim in a Greek pot gallery is to think about cartoons. That's how I think about them. I think I'm looking at cartoons of another time that I can't decipher anymore. Like, in a thousand years I'm sure no one will be able to decipher Peanuts. So I feel like I'm looking at a Peanuts cartoon from 500 B.C.E.
If you were a Greek you knew exactly the stories you were reading. You knew what these people were doing, you knew who they were supposed to be. I mean, I'm not totally dumb about this stuff. This guy's a satyr. They are the party monsters: they're bringing the wine, they're bringing the music, they're bringing the girls or the boys.
Imagine laying around in the togas, drinking wine out of that, during this orgy, before Christianity, before all that morality kicked in. Obviously they had a different aesthetic then, if small penises were in style. And how come small penises aren't in style anymore? Because obviously this was considered beautiful.
And I always thought I was a pagan. Because I thought the idea of one God was kind of silly when you could have so many more, and so many of them could be female.
You know what? All this stuff could be past life. It's like reincarnation. Like, I think I was around for these pots. But chances are I was a potter, not one of the people drinking the wine!
This was another time: a place of pleasure and intellectual excitement. I think if you're a visual person you kind of go through life diving in and just looking at stuff. That's what you do, to just wander around and enjoy the feast. This is about sensuality, and that's the power of it.
