By MICHAEL NOONAN
Eleanor Antin brings her postmodern lens to the hills of La Jolla with three sets of history-inspired photographic essays entitled, Roman Allegories, Last Days of Pompeii and Helen’s Odyssey. The photos capture Antin, her friends and other models acting out an exercise in societal collapse as they watch the Greco-Romanized La Jolla suburbs drown in its own unchecked wealth. The cast of characters engages in orgiastic revelries and dissolute depravities, clothed in period-piece costumes from ancient times but clearly situated in modern San Diego.
Antin’s activity on the art scene has had an electrifying impact on conceptual art for decades. She is best known as a performance artist working in multiple personas and fractured mediums channeled through installation, photography, video, film, performance, drawing and writing. Her renown is international with work appearing to great acclaim in venues as diverse as the Venice Biennale and the Ford Theatre in Washington DC. In perhaps her best-remembered, most groundbreaking work entitled "100 Boots," she photographed 100 big black army boots in various locales, sending the pictures via postcard to her friends and relations. With its allegorical impact, the foreboding and apocalyptic "Last Days of Pompeii" won the prestigious International Arts Critics Association award.
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