* https://youtu.be/Ii-jO0ubNnw
* https://www.albertoballocca.com/ancient-grace/
* https://www.albertoballocca.com/13th-effort/

13th Effort is a mixedmedia painting on canvas exhibited in New York that recalls to the ancient Greek myth of 12 trials of Hercules.

The twelve trials (in Greek dodekathlos) of Heracles, later Hercules in Roman mythology, are a series of episodes of Greek mythology, later reunited in a single story, which concern the exploits carried out by the hero Heracles to atone for the fact of having made himself guilty of the death of his family.

According to one hypothesis, the cycle of the twelve trials was first established in a lost poem, the Eracleia, written around 600 BC. by Pisander of Rhodes. Currently the labors of Heracles are not present all together in a single text, but must be collected from different sources.

In the metopes of the Temple of Zeus in Olympia, which date back to 450 BC., approximately, there is a famous sculptural representation of it. It may have been precisely the number of these metopes, 12 in fact, that since ancient times led to fixing the traditional number of undertakings at this heroic figure.

A philosophical, moral and allegorical meaning can also be attributed to the superhuman feats of Hercules, often performed with an attitude of defiance towards death, which goes beyond the immediate one of a simple narration of heroic deeds: the figure of Heracles represents a tradition of interior mysticism and the Labors can easily be interpreted as a sort of spiritual journey. The last three Labors of Hercules, in fact, are generally interpreted as a metaphor for death.

"13th Effort"

* https://www.albertoballocca.com/katagmapaperversion/
* https://youtu.be/4F6LNdDNvGw
* https://www.mmmac.it/

  
Paper version of the Unique work on paper entitled 'Kàtagma' that is part of the private collection of Museo Materiali Minimi d'Arte Contemporanea (MMMAC) of Paestum - Capaccio (SA).

Kàtagma in Greek language means 'fracture', identifyies a clear symbol of opening as well as an inspiration source of some personal meditation about the ancient process of antithesis between 'fysi-nomos'.

This concept is expressed through the unification of different compositional elements such as the red line, the grey wing, the yellow car and the orange background

Kàtagma was born as one of several preparatory sketches made by the artist for a larger canvas based on the same inspirational source and compositional structure, but evolved and concluded as a unique piece.

With the 'Sophistry' movement (2nd half of the 5th century) term Physis (Greek translation of Nature) takes on a political value, giving rise to what is nowadays conventionally defined as the antithesis Physis/Nomos.

The nomos, understood as a positive law of the Polis, thus defines the identity of a population through the structural compendium of habits and customs, becoming distant and often detached from the urban context.

* Katagma, this fracture, is that which exists between natural entities (physis) and the so-called western civil laws. (nomos)

'Kàtagma'

13th Effort is a powerful mixedmedia canvas I made back in 2021; mixture of the charcoal drawing of the sculpture of Giambologna 'Ercole e Il Centauro Nesso' in Florence, preserved in the Loggia dei Lanzi united with wall-enamels, natural pigments, acrylics, collages, sprays, synthetic paint and manual collages that generates compositional effects aimed to add on the timeline a non-existing part to the classical Greek myth of the 12 efforts of the hero Hercules. The 13th one. 

  
The Greek hero who, together with Achilles, favored the creation of the model of the warrior par excellence, had to overcome 12 absurd and humiliating efforts to redeem himself from madness, but the story of the son of Zeus does not end positively. An homage to the ancient and powerful Greek mythology, 13th Effort, draws your attention to the sense of courage in life in general, adding a new philosophical bridge to the mythological description of courage, deeply conceived.

'13th Effort' Overview

_"Hiero and glyphs are two separated words that generate that one we use to indicate the vast, complex and fascinating ancient Egyptian language mechanism and world, but, what does these two separate words can \*accidentally mean, within more analytical and contemporary terms?"_

This work is inspired by the figure of the ancient Egyptian scribes, responsible for the hieroglyphic transcriptions on behalf of the pharaoh and the ruling royal courts.

  
* https://www.albertoballocca.com/the-scribe/

"The Scribe"

_"Ancient Egyptians believed that a man's memory was tied more to the things he had written than to the monuments he had erected. Phoenicians and Greeks knew how to demonstrate this belief. Every block of historical traces we learn to unfold linguistic processes and evolution are sublimated within every medium I used to perfom Alef."_

This sculpture is inspired by the evolutionary process behind the birth of the letter A.

Phoenicials traced the head of the ox, which they pronounced 'Alef'.

With the Greeks, Alef became written, but in 'Alpha', with another well-known sign and nowadays, in the alphabet we all know, we use and write A letter as it is the first one of the word Alef..

* https://www.albertoballocca.com/sculptures/

"Alef"

Jinzo is a japanese term meaning 'made by humans'. This work has been created without any external references. Jinzo's headgear represents the protection of the intellect: elements that make up his body are ferrous and electronic scraps taken from my father's workshop who is a craftsman.

* https://www.albertoballocca.com/jinzo/

Add

Alberto Ballocca