The 100 Day Project #13
After Anonymous (Laocoön)
Musei Vaticani, Rome, Italy, 2014
The 100 Day Project, Day 13.
There are works of art that you simply have to stand in front of to fully feel their power. The Laocoön is one of them.
Held in the collection of the Vatican Museum, this 2,000-year-old monumental sculpture is one of the most visceral depictions of human suffering that I have experienced. It’s hard to look at. Harder to look away.
The mythology is worth knowing. Laocoön was a Trojan priest who went against the Gods to warn his people not to accept the wooden horse (yes, that Trojan Horse) left outside the city gates by the Greeks. He was punished — not for being wrong, but for his honesty. Truth-telling, it turns out, has always carried a cost.
There is nothing hidden about his suffering. He is a man in full, undisguised pain. The Laocoön has been venerated as one of the greatest achievements in Western art for millennia. Yet the culture that has praised this image for centuries is the same one that tells men that displays of pain are unmanly, unacceptable.
In my photograph, I have multiplied that Laocoön across the frame. His pain blurred, frozen, compounding — a reminder that unrecognized or unprocessed pain does not leave. It follows. It accumulates. It haunts, sometimes with disastrous outcomes.
This image is part of my project Co-Authored — a collection of abstract photographs born from my discomfort with artistic appropriation. I embarked on pilgrimages to photograph artworks in some of the most inspiring museums around the world, resulting in a collection that is playful and mysterious, yet sophisticated and elegant. Because museums are largely filled with art made by men, I titled each artwork after the partner or spouse of the artist whose work I photographed — my way of giving voice to the unrecognized support systems that have made so many male artists' careers possible.
About the photo: After Anonymous (Laocoön)
The Laocoön group was created by sculptors of Rhodes and is believed to date to around 40–30 B.C. Discovered in Rome in 1506, it was immediately recognized as the masterpiece described by the Roman writer Pliny the Elder. Pope Julius II acquired it that same year and placed it at the center of the Vatican's collection, where it has remained ever since.
Artwork: Laocoön (approx. 40-30 B.C.)
Artist: Attributed as a masterpiece of the sculptors of Rhodes
Location: Musei Vaticani, Rome, Italy
About the 100 Day Project: A global creative challenge where thousands of artists share a piece of their practice every single day for 100 days. I'm joining creatives around the world, and I'm excited to bring you along. Each day I'll be sharing one of my photos — some recent, some old, and some from my current project — along with the story behind it: where I was, who I was with, and why I love it