Don Joint: Manufactured Gods

In Manufactured Gods, multimedia artist Don Joint reflects upon the eroticism of ancient mythology through contemporary models posed as heroes and deities from antiquity. Showcasing the artist's work in cyanotype and collage, the exhibition is an unabashed display of male sensuality framed within the context of pre-Christian mores, in which sexuality and reproductive processes were seen as a part of religious and normal secular life. Nudity and phallic symbols were frequently found in public art and positively associated with prosperity, fertility, protection, guidance, and luck. 

Manufactured Gods is Joint's second solo exhibition at Childs Gallery. His first, Narcissus, similarly looked to myth for inspiration, specifically that of the Boeotian hunter who wastes away after glimpsing his irresistible reflection in a pool of water. In Manufactured Gods, Joint expands his cast of characters to include other notables from history and legend: Hadrian's deified lover Antinous, Alexander the Great's general and companion Hephaestion, the dolphin-riding musician Arion, as well as various powerful, yet unnamed gods and other anonymous figures whose honed, disrobed bodies recall the sinuous lines of antique statuary. 

The exhibition highlights Joint's interest in cyanotype and collage. Combining found letters, objects, fabrics, handmade papers, and photographs, Joint carefully constructs his own personal deities and mythologies. Many of Joint's works make use of cyanotype, an early photographic process in which chemical solutions exposed to ultraviolet light produce images in a startling shade of blue. The cyanotype medium neatly ties Joint's Classical themes with the modern era, and its vivid hues further recall the Mediterranean's sapphire waters and lapis lazuli stones favored by ancient Egyptians and Mesopotamians. Joint uses cyanotype as a modern form of apotheosis – his mere mortal models become eternal, otherworldly deities, ready-made to be worshiped by the viewer.

Joint's pantheon of nubile, young gods are frank in their sensuality, with direct gazes and brazen nakedness, but they also speak to deeper meanings and hidden stories, sometimes referenced in a cheeky or vague title, to be puzzled out by their audience of devotees. They are gods of fortune, guardians, psychopomps, and liminal deities who beckon for their due reverence through the timeless rites and rituals of observation and adoration.

Don Joint: Manufactured Gods is on view at Childs Gallery July 18 through September 14, 2015. The gallery is hosting an opening reception with the artist on Friday, July 18, 6-8pm.