Apotheosis of Homer

Apotheosis of Homer has no fixed shape. Named for a painting of 1827 by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, in which great figures from Virgil to Molière are gathered to pay homage to the author of the Odyssey, Paolini’s piece consists of a list of 45 famous artists and other historical personages, along with 32 photographs of actors who have played these characters in the movies, all set on music stands, as well as an optional audio recitation of the names. Each “performance” or installation of the work could be different. Paolini described his piece (the commentary appears alongside his list) as a set of visually articulated hypotheses concerning the theatrical, the classical, and the modern as incongruous pieces of data, assembled by the actors themselves to “celebrate a dazzling fiction” of the unity of time, place, and action.