QUEERING MUSEUM. Part 1: The Sarcophagus
performed by the mediators and educators for the public at Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek Museum in Copenhagen on August 15, 2019
Dionysus (modeled on Antinous) in Ny Carlberg Glyptotek Auditorium
This object represents the life path of Dionysus, the son of Zeus and mortal woman Semele. Dionysus is referred in ancient literature as ‘thrice-born’: as he, beyond his birth, was resurrected according to some sources two times from the dead. The image of Dionysus in mythology and especially in following it appropriations in monotheistic religions such as Christianity is a question of the hot debate. Look at the face and appearance of the Dionysus - does he remind you someone? Some hints: Dionysus was described as well-built, but effeminate in appearance young man, tender and beautiful, with long curly hair and sometimes accurate beard and mustache. In fact, the resemblance of the physical appearance of Dionysus and Jesus is striking - especially if you compare the imagery produced in the early ages of Christianity. There is strong evidence to claim that Jesus’ character is based on Dionysus: the similarities in rebirth, sacrifice and all-loving nature of the god are omnipresent. But a lot of taken away: Dionysus multidimensional character is reduced to a simplistic dogma. Dionysus referred to as a child-god, eriphos, with his mortal mother being raised to the status of divine (as was Christian Mary). Dios-nysus is ‘the son of god’.
The sarcophagus can be read as a book with different scenes being the chapters in it. It tells the queer story of difference of Dionysus from all the other gods and about him being representation of the multiplicity of life in all possible forms - as well as resistance of life to attempts of its destruction by ‘the normality’. The latter is signified in the figure of Hera, the consort and primary wife of Zeus, whose jealousy of Semele and hatred of Dionysus as being the offspring of Zeus from mortal woman brought upon Dionysus death and oblivion.
He (or rather they?) is unusual, our we could say ‘queer’ god for the Olympus for many reasons. He isn’t a purely immortal as his mother is mortal. He is distinctively polysexual and pansexual, gender-fluid, cross-dressing, connected closely to transgender transitions. It is strongly illustrated in Euripides tragedy “Bacchae”, where effeminate appearance of the god is the centre of the plot - the repulsion of king Pentheus, who doesn’t believe that a male god can be feminine, leads him to the ultimate and tragic end. The depictions of Dionysus as androgynous beauty are omnipresent in the archeological finds which are now part of the collections of National Archeological Museum in Athens and Metropolitan Museum in New York, among others.
He is a god that embraces the change over any established status quo, as opposed to the idea of everlasting stability represented in the figure of Zeus. He represents the ‘life’-side of dichotomy between ‘existence’ and ‘living’ - with the first one being the continuous production of sameness and pre-established normative structures, such as a family and a state. Dionysus shared a special relationship with Athena: both are parthenogenic (born of the one parent’s body) after Zeus’ ‘conquest’ of their mothers. Panathenaea and Dionysia, celebrated in Athens and other poleis, were among the most important festivals of the year.
The theatre of Dionysus played the political function: being ‘a moral parliament’ where the challenging normality concepts could have been addressed. ‘Creative madness’ that had been assigned to the followers of Dionysus: such as driving women ‘mad’ in the sense of inspiring them to challenge the patriarchal rule of men, the maenads living in separate communes and bringing up children on their own – in fact can be seen as his gestures towards their liberation. One of the epithets of Dionysus is “the Waker of Women”. In comparison to Apollo he is the democratic and pluralistic god: accessible in prayer to all, seeing the beauty in all the forms of life. The coming of Dionysus and his returns symbolised the return and possibility of restitution for the repressed, hope for the oppressed and future for the doomed.