The Minotaur’s Tapestry is on display from October 23rd to November 3rd at the ARTWORK Gallery in Palm Springs, 610 S Belardo Road. Find the background information about this art work here below.

76 x 93 in (193 x 263 cm)

21.000 USD

Desing by Fausto. Developed by Fausto in cooperation with WEBEREI (Berlin) 2022.

Produced by WEBEREI in Como, Italy 2022.

Woven on a “full-width loom” with 12,420 warp threads (polyester); 80 warp threads per cm.

Weft-threads:

Dark Gold („oro nero“): Coromflex 1/42 NM SPMV15025 NON RES (origin Japan)

black: Cotton-Chenille

The tapestry depicts a labyrinth surrounded by a pictorial narrative. At the center of the labyrinth sits Asterion, a hybrid creature - half human, half bull - also known as the Minotaur. This name derives from his father, King Minos of Crete, and the Greek word for bull, tauros. To securely imprison the fearsome monster born to him by his queen, Minos had the legendary labyrinth built by the architect Daedalus. In the tapestry, the entrance to the labyrinth is at the bottom edge of the image and is entered through a tower gate. The tip of the tower indicates the direction in which the path into the labyrinth begins. The surrounding frieze tells the myth of the Minotaur, starting at the lower left next to the tower and continuing chronologically clockwise around the labyrinth.

The tapestry was woven in five segments, which were sewn together by hand in Berlin after production in Como. To avoid visible seam lines crossing through structures in the image, the seams were carefully hand-stitched along the structures dictated by the design: for example, around the horn of the bull in the lower left corner. Due to the weaving technique, the image is also visible as a negative on the reverse side of the tapestry. Thus, the tapestry has two display sides and can be freely hung - such as to divide space.

The Myth of the Minotaur in the Tapestry

[In the following description, references to the left or right refer to the dark-gold side of the tapestry visible in the exhibition. On the black reverse side, these references are mirrored.]

The first scene at the lower left corner shows the god Poseidon rising from the sea. Minos, the king of Crete, had previously begged him for assistance in the war against the Athenians. Poseidon gifts Minos a divine bull with the condition that it must be sacrificed in thanks after victory over the Athenians. However, Minos keeps the divine bull after his success and sacrifices a different one from his herd instead. Poseidon notices the deception and punishes Minos by making his wife, Pasiphaë, desire the bull. She has the king’s architect, Daedalus, build a contraption under which she disguises herself with a cowhide and receives the bull. The frieze rising from the lower left corner depicts the second scene: Pasiphaë in her contraption, waiting for the bull.

The union of Pasiphaë and the bull produces their son Asterion, the so-called Minotaur - a man with the head of a bull. King Minos is determined to hide the monster from the world and imprisons him in the labyrinth built by Daedalus. Scene 3, in the upper half of the left-side frieze, shows King Minos straining with all his might against a door, behind which the furious bull-headed Asterion is visible.

The Athenians, defeated by Minos, are subjected to a cruel tribute: every seven years, the city of Athens must send seven handsome youths and seven virgins to Crete, where they are left to the Minotaur in his labyrinth to appease him. The upper edge of the image shows “upside down” on the left a group of youths and on the right a group of maidens. Between them is the bull’s head, into whose mouth one of the youths is already disappearing.

To free Athens from this tribute, the hero Theseus mingles with the youths of the second tribute. He wins the favor of the king’s daughter, Ariadne, who falls in love with him and reveals a trick by which he can find his way out of the labyrinth. She gives him a ball of thread that he must unwind as he travels through the labyrinth. On the way back to freedom, he simply has to follow the thread. In the fifth scene, at the upper right edge of the image, Theseus and Ariadne are depicted as she hands him the ball of thread.

After the Athenians are sent into the labyrinth, Theseus succeeds in killing the Minotaur. Thanks to Ariadne’s thread, the Athenians find their way out of the labyrinth and escape from the island of Crete. Out of rage over Asterion’s death and the Athenians’ successful escape, King Minos banishes the architect Daedalus and his son Icarus to a lonely, rocky island. Daedalus collects bird feathers and glues them together with beeswax to form pairs of wings for himself and his son, allowing them to escape from the island. In his overconfidence, Icarus flies too high and too close to the sun. The wax on his wings melts, and he falls into the sea before his father’s eyes. The descending frieze on the right shows the grieving father, Daedalus, and the right-side conclusion of the pictorial narrative at the lower edge of the tapestry shows Icarus plunging into the sea.