Maclíes
Ceramic, wooden structure, high-density foam, brass, textile, Korean paint
165 x 60 x 100 cm, 2025
Maclíes shows us two lotus-eaters grabbing young Ulysses by his limbs and pulling at them as though about to subject him to a brutal medieval torture. However, the Maclíes were not inquisitors from medieval Europe, but rather a supposed Berber tribe that popular imagination associated with the lotus-eaters. According to Herodotus, they were so prone to communal orgies that no one knew who was the child of whom. Greek historians viewed their neighbors across the Mediterranean as a kind of avant-garde hippies—polyamorous and hedonistic. Seen from this perspective, our ceramic Ulysses is not to be tortured with infinite pain but with overwhelming pleasures. One Maclí grabs his feet, the other his hands, shaking him as if they were airing out a sheet. His limp body is drugged with the soma of shallow happiness, an opiate joy that nullifies free will.
Anna Adell
