William Allen Word & Image

Sisyphus, 1991.

Gold ink printed on purple ribbon, 47.5 x 5 cm, with a safety pin attached. Signed and dated by the artist on verso. Originally created as a video for the 1991 exhibition ‘Candyass Carnival’ at Stux Gallery in New York City, featuring the work of Cary Leibowitz and friends. The piece refers to the Greek myth of Sisyphus - a mortal condemned by the gods to roll a boulder up a hill for eternity, only to have it roll down again - and to phonetic peculiarities in the English language. On the ribbon, Rosen presents 67 misspellings of the word Sisyphus. Great multiple in unknown edition by the master of language-based art works. Unnumbered edition (between 50 and 100 copies made, thought to be c.75 produced). In Greek mythology, Sisyphus pushed a stone up a hill only for it to roll back down from the summit; the myth has been taken up by various philosophers and artists. Rosen misspells the name ‘Sisyphus’ 67 times in gold italicised text on the ribbon here, ending with ‘sissyfuss’. Rosen also created a looped video work – converted by Barbara Krakow Gallery to DVD in 2011 – in which approximately 70 misspellings of ‘Sisyphus’ appear one after another in black italicised text. On the soundtrack, a drum is hit, creating a noise akin to that of Sisyphus’ stone rolling back down the hill.

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