ATLANTIS

This exhibition came about as the result of an invitation by the Ministry of Culture of Catalonia to participate in the 1992 quincenteniel celebrations in Barcelona. Nissen chose the theme of Atlantis, as a fable linking both America and Europe. The first interpretation of America sent back to Europe was that it was Paradise; Eden - while others subsequently reported it to be Plato’s lost Atlantis. The exhibition starts with a section of invented maritime maps of Atlantis, and in the area in which they are displayed one hears the faint sounds of whale song. Other works include relief paintings — evocations of sea beds; sub aquatic archeology, floating volcanoes and drifting pyramids. Wood and bronze sculptures of erupting pyramid/volcanoes propose an invented archeology — signs and detritus of the lost continent. At a certain point in the exhibition one enters a darkened area - a conjectured ‘Aquarium of Atlantis’ in which there are illuminated tanks containing transparent acrylic sculptures. As an extrapolation of Plato’ Atlantis, this exhibition is conceived a single work.

FINDING ATLANTIS

Brian Nissen

Early in 1990 I was given the opportunity to do an exhibition in Spain in the context of the 1992 celebrations of the ‘discovery’ of America (promptly renamed the ‘encounter’). This led me to develop a theme that I had been toying with for sometime but had not been able to get a grasp on - AMERICA/ATLANTIS. Since the second interpretation of America to reach the Spanish court was that they had indeed found lost Atlantis, it seemed the perfect opportunity to undertake a visual exploration of aspects of the great legend, and look at it again in the context of these celebrations linking the old and new continents.

Atlantis is one of the most durable and popular of the great myths that have come down to us from antiquity. It is also one of the great deluge myths, common to so many of the world’s religions. From the Popol-Vuh to the Bible they appear and reappear - a metaphor of fall and redemption. Atlantis is a classic deluge myth, but with an important difference. There is no Noah. No survivor. No witness. No first hand account. In fact Atlantis was invented by Plato, and first made mention of in two of his Dialogues, Timaios and Critias.

Plato claims he heard of Atlantis from his great grandfather, who in turn heard of it from a relative of his ,Solon, who claimed he heard of it from priests on his travels in Egypt. But why did this particular story become one of the great myths of all time? Why did the Greeks cultivate this story? What was its attraction for them and why was Plato so much interested in it? It may well be that the story of Atlantis was used by Plato to demonstrate that such a society as he had proposed in his ‘Republic’ was not only plausible, but possibly existed long ago in Atlantis. This, of course, would give it a credible origin.

For his contemporaries it had a different attraction. It was fashionable at the time for wealthy Greek citizens to travel to Egypt, where they would marvel at the splendor and antiquity of their monuments. The Egyptians, inhabiting a much poorer country than Greece, insisted on reminding them that Egypt had a history that went back all the way to its creation; while no record of ancient Greek cultures existed. And not only that, but Greek art and culture derived directly form the glories of Egypt. This probably did not go down too well with the Greeks. Imagine, then, the appeal of Plato’s Alantis, which demonstrated a great, self-engendered Greek culture that prospered some thousand years before Egypt, and clearly showed that Greek culture owed nothing to Egypt. We now know that this kind of thing is typical of cultural politics - a nation’s re-arrangement and invention of its origins, ancestry, and the hierarchies that go with it. This process has been, and still is, common practice.

Take for example a recent event in Mexico. The tiny island of Mexcaltitán in a lagoon on the shores of Nayarit , in northwestern Mexico, was the object of a presidential visit; a state occasion. The only remarkable thing about this island is its curious configuration - concentric streets bisected by four perpendicular avenues . Local aficionados had compared this layout to early maps of the great Aztec city of Tenochtitlán, and had found strange similarities and correspondences between the two. This led them to the idea that this little island must have been Aztlán, the mythic home of the Aztecs. Their proposition gained such standing that in 1989 the president of México visited the little island and designated it a national monument, and by official decree it was declared to be Aztlán, origin of Mexico and ‘Mexicaness’. This act in effect invents a pre-hispanic nation ‘Mexico’ which never existed. A minor operation of ‘Manifest Destiny’, legitimizing the ancestry of modern Mexico even though the area it now covers was made up of many different nations, cultures and languages. Again we see the same Atlantis syndrome at work. Countries, nations and empires invent and re-invent their origins, nation memory and identity to suit their own ends.

Of course Mexcaltitán had not escaped notice as a candidate for the site of Atlantis. Every few years a new location of Atlantis is proposed and hits the headlines. Santini, the Azores, Bermuda, the straits of Gibraltar, and so on. America was a great candidate, and from 1492 on has been the subject of intense speculation. We know that the first chronicles sent back to Europe by Spanish priests depicting and interpreting their encounter with the New World concluded that they had found Paradise. Eden. Columbus believed the Orinoco to be the fourth river of Eden. Unknown, exotic fauna and flora that bloomed all year round in an eternal spring had to be the Garden of Eden. Among other proofs given was the curios observation that strange birds had been found (parrots) that imitated human speech. It was well known that in Eden, before the ‘original sin’ — the fall of man — animals had the faculty of speech. The next interpretation of the ‘New World’ to arrive in Europe was that it was Plato’s lost Atlantis. Friar Bartolome de las Casas wrote a whole chapter corroborating this, and other reports confirmed it. Columbus had landed at a town on the Panamanian coast called Atlán. Atlán means ‘on the water’. Strange how much closer it comes in sound and meaning to ‘Atlantis’ and ‘Atlantic’ that the Greek given origin ‘Atlas’ The third and final interpretation of America came via Amerigo Vespucci who claimed that it was indeed a continent whose existence had been unknown to Europeans.

Atlantis is then, like all great myths, a metaphor. Each of us will find in it a meaning that arouses and feeds our imagination. Buried somewhere in Atlantis is our own personal Garden of Earthly Delights, our Lotus Land, Arcadia, Shangri-La, Jauja, El Dorado, Limbo Xanadu. It is our day dream, chimera, fuego fatuo. Our siren’s song. A mental image that reveals the all-enveloping sense of wonder we lost when we grew up.

Brian Nissen