MYTHOLOGICAL DISCOURSE IN CONTEMPORARY ART AS REFLECTED IN THE WORKS OF MATTHEW BARNEY, AI WEIWEI AND TRACEY EMIN
MYTHOLOGICAL DISCOURSE IN CONTEMPORARY ART AS REFLECTED IN THE WORKS OF MATTHEW BARNEY, AI WEIWEI AND TRACEY EMIN

Summary/Abstract: The presence of our mythological heritage of past ages is easily recognizable in many areas of today's culture and society. Over the past century, several social and philosophical theories have shown that the current collective knowledge of these pervasive invisible forces, premises from the past are distorting our relationship to our present in an unnoticed way, taking the form of false evidences. These theories highlight, among other things, that those patterns with which we grow up, are ensuring the integration of the individual, defining the frames in which he/she can define himself/herself and others, and his/hers position and his/hers relationship with society as a whole. But in the same time they select a predefined worldview for him/her, in an order in which he/she can get answers to the fundamental questions of life. In the contemporary art, both kinds of mythology are present in the manner described above. One of the contemporary artists in whose work the motifs borrowed from classical myths are directly recognizable, is Matthew Barney. The American artist’s relationship with the mythos will be exposed mainly through the complex Cremaster Cycle, which is in its self a multi-genre: it is assembled from video creations, sculptures, photos, drawings, installations and even books, which are all approximating from various points of view a not easily definable content. The second artist, through whose work I will analyze a different form of connection to mythology in this study, is the conceptual artist and political activist of Chinese descent, Ai Weiwei, an artist who works in multiple genres. Another artist is Tracey Emin, with a focus on her own life, with a shocking sincerity. She processes her memories in different genres which, as she states, attract the most attention from her during their creation, in the form of installations, sculptures, drawings, auto-biographical texts and neon signs.

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