TIMOTHY HULL The Swarm of Possible Meanings
Surrounding the Ancient Pyramids
ÒOÕ Occident, OÕ Orient!
Rapprochez, regardez, reconnaissez, saluez, Žtreignez-vous.Ó
- Papal envoy at Suez Canal, 1864
Rummaging through histories of
Egyptology and the incidence of Egyptomania in the Occidental world, Timothy
HullÕs exhibition at Freight + Volume will resemble a conceptually focused yet
rambling cabinet of curiosities. This variegated Wunderkammer will consist of
sundry, plaster Egyptian tourist statues, scents of funerary unguents, sounds
of Egyptologists describing their discoveries, armchair
traveler landscape videos, and a collection of feathery, heavily patterned
drawings and built-up, mosaic-like oil paintings.
A varied cast of characters make
appearances throughout the exhibition via drawings, paintings and mixed media
works... men of adventure and tomb robbers, scientists, archeologists, ancient
Egyptians, pharaohs and their personal effects, icons, books, museum pieces and
venerable statues, the mysterious sphinx, and of course the great pyramids
themselves. Together they comprise a sense of something justified and ancient to quote the esoteric
stadium-house band the KLF.
I met a traveler from an antique land Who said, Two vast
and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand, Half
sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold
command Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamp'd
on these lifeless things, The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed. And
on the pedestal these words appear: My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look
on my works, ye mighty, and despair! Nothing beside remains: round the decay Of
that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, The lone and level sands stretch far
away.
-Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1817
This project is born out of a
particular passion and interest in a certain process of understanding; Ônon
satis scire...Õ to know
is not enough. It is difficult to discover meanings, even through exhaustive
research and digging. One can only distill what they read, see and what they
find and then compose an idiosyncratic tableau vivant of what has occurred.
Timothy Hull continues to concern himself with the nuances and intersections of
history and mythology to locate an eclipse within fact and fiction. He further
explores the way Westerners digest and perceive ancient cultures and
artifacts– demystifying and reinforcing the stereotypes equated with
them, casting a new light on Orientalism.
The swarm of possible meanings acknowledges that the search is conceivably as
fascinating as the discovery.