Thinking Inside of the Box

Warwick Goble's Victorian illustration of Pandora releasing evils into the world

Personally, I'm with those of you artists who enjoy the challenge and creative kick-in-the-pants that a well-conceived theme show can generate. Sometimes just the process of thinking through what I would do in response to a particular exhibit theme is enough to get my work going.

The fantastic Torpedo Factory in Alexandria, Virginia (no -- it's not too far; besides, when's the last time you spent a day in the museums and burgeoning gallery scene down in Washington, DC?) has issued a Call for Entries for Pandora's Box. There's plenty of time to work on a piece: entries aren't due until October 5, 2009. Exhibition dates are December 10 – January 10, 2010.


The Pandora myth is pretty much the Garden of Eden story told Greek-style. Pandora, like Eve, was the first woman on earth, created by a God (Hephaestus, god of craftsmanship, in Pandora's case,) and she -- like Eve -- gets blamed for unleashing all the toils, troubles, backbreaking labor, and other heartbreaks on a previously edenic and 'innocent' world. Both of them were guilty only of two things: ignoring a Godly warning that didn't seem to make sense, and being "too curious."


Poor Pandora. When she was created by the gods, Zeus deliberately instructed that she should be given an enormous curiosity about things. He also arranged to have a massive, remarkable pithos (a storage jar that could house a human -- which later morphed to "box") sent to her -- with a warning never to open it. At least the Greeks admit that this was a deliberate set-up on the part of Zeus! At least, after all the cares and woes came out into the world, Hope remained in the pithos.


Pandora’s Box invites new works based on the theme of “Pandora’s Box” Artists are invited to submit their own interpretations of Pandora’s Box and how it relates to the times we are living in today. Work must be based in/on a container form with dimensions that can not exceed 12 inches in any direction. Work inside the container may stay within or explode/peek/ooze from the box, peek outside the box. These elements may exceed the 12” limits of the container, but must fit the gallery’s limitations (described in the full prospectus, on their site.)


[Note: this opportunity -- as well as the Pen & Brush show posted below -- comes via the interactive NY Foundation for the Arts site. They have a lot of wonderful resources for artists in many genre. Consider linking to them.]