Vasile Stefanoiu

Arachne – metamorphosis

The message conveyed through my sculpture is about the skilful, industrious and sensitive but at the same time strong woman, qualities that have remained eternal.
The message can also be read in another key: as a parable about the power of art and the secular antagonism between creativity and authority. Or about commercial competition, where the status of winner is the privilege only of the great and powerful, a dominant mechanism that has not changed from ancient civilization to the new contemporary gods of the era of globalization (large corporations).
In my sculpture, I created the moment of the metamorphosis of the young girl Arachne, by reducing her body, becoming a spider with a big belly from which she draws the thread (Poet Ovid).
In ancient Greek legend, the world's first spider was born out of a woman's pride.
The goddess Minerva (Athens, in the civilization of ancient Greece) was recognized as the most skilled weaver but a young girl, Arachne, surpassed her, although this girl "Neither by rank or nation is famous, but by skill" (Poet Ovid) .
In the competition between the two, the fabric of Athens was predictably large: a scene of Olympus and a tribute to the glory of the gods.
The canvas of the young girl Arachne is more beautiful, she surpassed the goddess in the craft, but in her canvas she described the gods as carnal beings whose whims, passions and petty jealousies create suffering in the lives of mortals.
In revenge, the goddess Minerva punished the young girl Aracne, tore her fabric and hit her forehead three or four times with a shuttle.
Arachne tried to hang herself but Minerva saves her by telling her "She lives, but still hanged" and sprinkles her with Hecatean poison (a herb of the goddess of the Hecate spells) and metamorphoses her into a spider to weave into eternity.
Video: https://youtu.be/kyrgEh_2-JU

Factsheet

Dimensions
70cm, 37cm, 19cm (Height, Width, Depth)
Weight
31kg
Year
2021
Material
Video, Marble
All artworks from Vasile Stefanoiu
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