It was my pleasure

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P5_AnastasiaPelias_@jccotto+(11+of+18).jpg

Title

It was my pleasure

Creator

Anastasia Pelias
www.anastasiapelias.com

Anastasia Pelias received a BFA from Newcomb College of Tulane University, New Orleans (1981), and an MFA from the University of New Orleans (1996). A painter and sculptor, her work explores color and the tension between object and form. Her site-specific installations examines personal history, familial relationships, and human ritual. She draws from her Greek and New Orleanian heritage to infuse her work with her preferred subjects: love, sex, death, destiny, and the female experience. Pelias’s work invites viewers to immerse themselves in the expression of her story, but also to examine that story introspectively. Pelias has exhibited her work in numerous solo and group exhibitions at galleries and museums nationwide, including the McNay Art Museum, San Antonio; Ford Foundation Gallery, New York; Pensacola Museum of Ar, Floridat; Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans; Newcomb Art Museum, New Orleans; Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans; and the Louisiana State University Museum of Art, Baton Rouge. Her work is included in the permanent collections of the New Orleans Museum of Art; McNay Art Museum; Ogden Museum of Southern Art; Newcomb Museum; Mobile Museum of Art, Alabama, and in private and public collections around the world. Pelias is represented by Jonathan Ferrara Gallery, New Orleans.

Courtesy Prospect New Orleans.

Coverage

Capdevielle Place Park, Esplanade Avenue & Crete Street, New Orleans, LA 70119

Date

Created 2021; Documented 2021

Contributor

Photographer(s): Jose Cotto, Neysa Page-Lieberman

Description

It was my pleasure is a sculpture comprised of fiberglass, polyester resin, steel, concrete, pine bark, bay leaf, water-based paint, soundscape, scent; dimensions variable. The soundscape accompanying It was my pleasure was composed by Athenian sound artist and electroacoustic music composer Sophocles Arvanitis.

Abstract

It was my pleasure responds to feminist histories of spirituality and power, through a meditation on ancient Greek history. The sculpture is a reimagining of the tripod of the Oracle of Delphi, a position occupied by a priestess known as the Pythia, who foretold the future for individuals and heads of state who travelled to Delphi to seek her counsel. This position was occupied by women for more than one thousand years (1400 BC to the 4th century AD), and exerted great influence throughout the Mediterranean and Mesopotamian empires; emperors made no significant decision without her consultation. The sculpture, as well as the scent and sound that accompany it, is intended as a meditative space for contemplation and for honoring divine feminine energy across space and time. Through this sculpture, Pelias seeks to create connections between her native city of New Orleans and her family’s ancestral country, Greece.

Courtesy Prospect New Orleans.

Subject

Feminist History, Women Healers

Source

www.anastasiapelias.com

https://www.prospect5.org/artists/anastasia-pelias

Provenance

This project was specifically commissioned for Prospect.5: Yesterday we said tomorrow, 2021–22. Courtesy the artist and Jonathan Ferrara Gallery.

Publisher

M2M

Rights

Artist: Anastasia Pelias, https://www.anastasiapelias.com/contact; Photographer(s): Jose Cotto, Neysa Page-Lieberman

Identifier

M2M_0014

Collection

Feminist History

Citation

Anastasia Peliaswww.anastasiapelias.comAnastasia Pelias received a BFA from Newcomb College of Tulane University, New Orleans (1981), and an MFA from the University of New Orleans (1996). A painter and sculptor, her work explores color and the tension between object and form. Her site-specific installations examines personal history, familial relationships, and human ritual. She draws from her Greek and New Orleanian heritage to infuse her work with her preferred subjects: love, sex, death, destiny, and the female experience. Pelias’s work invites viewers to immerse themselves in the expression of her story, but also to examine that story introspectively. Pelias has exhibited her work in numerous solo and group exhibitions at galleries and museums nationwide, including the McNay Art Museum, San Antonio; Ford Foundation Gallery, New York; Pensacola Museum of Ar, Floridat; Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans; Newcomb Art Museum, New Orleans; Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans; and the Louisiana State University Museum of Art, Baton Rouge. Her work is included in the permanent collections of the New Orleans Museum of Art; McNay Art Museum; Ogden Museum of Southern Art; Newcomb Museum; Mobile Museum of Art, Alabama, and in private and public collections around the world. Pelias is represented by Jonathan Ferrara Gallery, New Orleans.Courtesy Prospect New Orleans., “It was my pleasure,” Monuments to Movements , accessed March 23, 2023, https://m2m.omeka.net/items/show/14.