The Color of Myth in the Tangled Age is a show that explores varying interpretations of myth in art, as well as their necessity and inevitability. Each artist in the exhibition grapples with, explores, or celebrates different aspects of myths in intimate and unexpected ways. Myths have been around since humans learned to communicate, and while it may seem the increasing secularization of the world has made myth irrelevant, the works in this show shows their everlasting endurance and importance. People need to see the world through a more perfect and simple lens, and that’s all myths are: representations of the world in a form that is easy to grasp and learn from. The many approaches the artists take is wide-ranging. Some work with abstraction, while others make works that are both hyper realistic and surreal. This inherent quality of myth is what makes them both inevitable and intensely confrontational. The Color of Myth in the Tangled Age is a show which incorporates mixed media, primarily video and performance, and is meant to be seen in a venue that straddles the manmade and the natural. 

Tianzhou Chen’s Adaha II is a performance that challenges the viewer through its creation of a myth for the contemporary age dealing with sexuality and extreme freedom, both of which aren’t 100% possible to achieve in today’s society and therefore mythic. Although the work is performed on a stage, it is still confrontational, with its heavy use of color, light, and bizarre imagery. Sky Hopinka’s film, maɬni – towards the ocean, towards the shore on the other hand, is a subdued work which incorporates both Native American and modern American myths, and proposes melding the two. His work also makes heavy use of nature in order to show the mythical qualities of the natural world, explaining one possible way that any and all myth could come about in the first place. Takeshi Murata’s Untitled (Pink Dot) showcases the ways modern media can become legendary. In this short film, Murata meshes scenes from Rambo with a constant blinking pink dot. The colors of melting images turn the movie into an otherworldly affair that both compliments the other works in the exhibit and creates a myth of the digitized world. Nalini Malani’s You Don’t Hear Me reveals how myth can become personal. This work pulls from many cultures: being reminiscent of East Asian screen paintings and incorporating characters that seem Western and Eastern. It also is being informed by Malani’s upbringing as affected by the partition of India and her experiences of the fear and uncertainty of the time. Her work uses myth to examine violence and womanhood, among other topics, and shows the relevance of ancient stories. Finally, Cody Lawrence’s unfinished piece, currently called Amen lays the groundwork for later and larger works dealing with Christian myth and how these well-known stories can be used as a starting point for conclusions which are more secular and universal. The film itself attempts to examine what it means to sacrifice and to be a sacrifice, through the lens of the world’s most well-known sacrifice: Jesus’s crucifixion.

Today, myths come to us through forms like movies, TV, rumours, and social media. They keep us connected to the world around us and the people we encounter, they are universal enough for everyone to understand, while specific enough to touch each person individually. The Color of Myth in the Tangled Age will pull back the curtain on many ways myth makes us who we are.