The Bacchae Tickets Given Out

We've selected and notified the winner of a family four-pack of tickets to the new exhibit at the Nasher Sculpture Center in downtown Dallas.

The exhibit, "Elliott Hundley: The Bacchae" runs through April 22, and is inspired by Euripides' play The Bacchae. Go see it.

Here's more about the show:

It features 11 recent medium- to large-scale wall-mounted and free-standing constructions highlighting Elliott Hundley's investigations of the ancient Greek tragedy The Bacchae (ca. 406 BC) by Euripides. Encompassing a variety of media including assemblage, theatrical staging, and photography, this exhibition continues the Nasher's exploration of sculpture's rich and myriad possibilities.

Hundley conceives of his imposing mixed-media collages—or billboards, as he sometimes calls them—as theatrical landscapes that restage and animate classical texts. First orchestrating elaborate photo shoots using sitters who play characters from Greek mythology, he interweaves the resulting photos with a vast array of organic and found materials, from wood to textiles, bamboo to spray paint, and a variety of found ephemera. The works become dense narratives that take the form of monumental wall-mounted collages complemented by free-standing, obliquely figural sculptures. Drawing on classical mythology, art history, philosophy, and drama—subjects of long-standing interest to Hundley—he uses his idiosyncratic visual language to collapse historical and narrative time and to examine current social and political conditions.

The Bacchae is a tale of revenge set in the ancient city of Thebes. The god Dionysus (Bacchus to the Romans) has decided to punish its citizens when they refuse to accept his claim that he is the son of Zeus. After bringing the women of Thebes under his influence, Dionysus leads them out of the city and into the wilderness where they join his followers, the Bacchae, in worshipping him in ecstatic rituals. The god then convinces the king of Thebes, Pentheus, to spy on the women, who, upon discovering him, mistake him for a wild beast. Led by Pentheus's own mother, Agave, the women rip the king limb from limb, killing him in the process. Agave then returns to Thebes, carrying her son's head as a trophy, still unaware of her delusion. When Dionysus's influence on her finally loosens, she is horrified to discover that she has murdered her own son.

◊ Ticket giveaways coming up include: The Royal Winnipeg Ballet's "Moulin Rouge" at the Eisemann Center; "Liaisons: Re-imagining Sondheim" with Anthony de Mare by Cliburn Concerts at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth; Riverdance: The Farewell Tour at the Music Hall at Fair Park; the musical Bring It On at Dallas Summer Musicals; Monty Python's Spamalot at Bass Performance Hall; Dixie's Tupperware Party at McDavid Studio in Fort Worth; Ailey II dance company at Bass Performance Hall; Travelling Light, the next play broadcast in the National Theatre of London's NT Live series; the musical concert extravaganza Do You Hear the People Sing (featuring Lea Salonga, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Stephanie J. Block and others) at the American Airlines Center; and more.