Devon Deimler

ARIADNE IN THREADS: HEARTBREAK, LAMENT, AND THE ARRIVAL OF TRUE LOVE ONLINE TALK for MORBID ANATOMY

Tuesday March 4, 2025 @ 7:00pm (EST)/4:00PM (PST)

Tickets & more info via Morbid Anatomy

When Theseus enters the labyrinth to slay the Minotaur, Ariadne provides the thread that leads him back to daylight. For this, Theseus promises to marry smitten Ariadne and whisk her away to Athens. But midway through their journey, Ariadne is abandoned while slumbering on the beach. Waking to the sight of Theseus’ sails in the distance shocks and rends Ariadne into an outpouring of lament, a scene captured painstakingly across literature, art, and music. And yet, this lament is ultimately a song attracting the heart of Dionysos. Unlikely as it may seem for the god of uninhibited sexuality and transgression of norms, the marriage of Dionysos and Ariadne is the sole loyal union on Olympos. Then again, there is no one version of any myth. In this illustrated talk, we will look deeply at the devastation of heartbreak and the ecstatic arrival of true love as mythically entwined.

In this illustrated talk, we will look deeply at the devastation of heartbreak and the ecstatic arrival of true love as mythically entwined. Throughout, we will entertain multimedia versions and interpretations of the myth. Ariadne’s laments and her fate with Dionysos vary intensely across sources, even while themes of trauma and transformation archetypally repeat. Was Ariadne abandoned, or was her sleep a ruse to absolve herself of Theseus? Did her tears draw the chariot of Dionysos or had the god already driven the hero away? Can this new love thrive in the heavens or will it return to the dark mazes in which it began? Yes and yes and yes.

This talk previews a portion of an upcoming class for Morbid Anatomy on myths of metamorphosis, radical transformations of embodiment, disembodiment, and hybridization across Greco-Roman mythology and myths of pop culture.

 “A SMILE THAT MAKES FOREVER”: A MEMENTO MORI OF TEETH for MORBID ANATOMY’S MEMENTO MORI FESTIVAL @ the PHILOSOPHICAL RESEARCH SOCIETY, LA

September 7, 2024, 3:30pm

With each gnash, smile, or showing of teeth, the human skeleton peeks through. This illustrated talk presents examples from art, myth, and dreams to play with the poetics and phenomenology of teeth and toothsome smiles as biting ready-made memento mori of the everyday.

Bound & Infinity
PRS Salon Group Exhibition, Hansell Gallery
On View: September 21 - October 19, 2024 —- More info

Devon Deimler. Mutatas Formas: Bathroom Window, 2024. Photo collage.

33 
PRS Salon Group Exhibition, Hansell Gallery
On View: September 2nd - 30th, 2023

Devon Deimler. Janus Ghost (first draft), 2023. Unfinished clay.

The inaugural PRS Salon exhibiting 33 distinct works by PRS staff, contributors and volunteers. This group exhibition will be on display from Saturday, September 2nd to Saturday, September 30th at the Hansell Gallery.

Featuring works by: Alexandra Burden, Amanda Brass, Amanda Maciel Antunes, Anthony Cozzi, Brooke Brenton, David Orr, Devon Deimler, Dillan Conniff, Edgar Fabián Frías, Eliza Swann, Elizabeth Gill Lui, Elizabeth T. Vazquez, earpediem, Fahad Siadat, Kai Sugiyama, Kristen Phillips, Michael Dorsey, Sara Alessandrini, Stephen Reedy, Taylor Johnson, theatre dybbuk, Tiensirin Tienngern, Victoria Kraus

Curated by: Michael Dorsey, dama, Kelly Carmena, Amanda Brass, and Liz Vazquez

“Rocks in Our Heads”

Curators’ talk for Feeding the Unseen: Remediations of Earth, with co-curator Heidi Gustafson

Feeding the Unseen: Remediations of Earth

Exhibit co-curated by Heidi Gustafson and Devon Deimler

June 3-July 30, 2023 @ the Philosophical Research Society

Spiritually-charged rocks, soil, metal, and pigment. Intimate acts of alchemy. Renewed cultural practices. Remediations of earth with earth. Elemental magic. The artists of Feeding the Unseen critically engage the metamorphic gravity of living on a mortal planet.

Works by: Camas Logue, Sarah Hudson, Valerie Piraino, Onya McCausland, Charles Simonds and Rudy Burckhardt, Yuri Shimojo and Jason Logan, Kelley O’Leary, Morgan Williams, Treasure of Abundance, Alana Siegel, Maru García, Marilú Ríos Guerrero, Heidi Gustafson, Thomas Little and Dylan Kehde Roeloefs, Tilke Elkins and Wild Pigment Project, Charles Deimler, Corwin Fergus.​

Hybrid Moments: Myths of Crisis, Metamorphosis, and Aesthetic Survival

December 13, 2022 @ the Philosophical Research Society Watch via PRS

Myth and folklore are known for their hybrid creatures—minotaurs, mermaids, sphinx, and satyrs—as well as bizarre transformations between gods and animals, humans and objects, angels and monsters, underlings and kings. These strange fascinations are not only wonders of the imagination but look-alive images of emotional truth. Metamorphic myths portray the necessity of metaphorical and bodily change during moments of crisis—when survival is a matter of changing form.

This presentation dwells on feminine figures who become trees (Daphne) or birds (Nyctimene, Cornix) to escape sexual violation; the transfiguration of trauma into objects like ceiling fans and tin machines (Twin Peaks); and how real-world drastic times call for drastic measures—and drastic myths.

Dir. Dennis Hopper, 1969

Presentation by Devon Deimler, PhD

Dir. Clint Eastwood, 1992

Guest presentation by Aaron Kemp, PhD