Odysseus’ shield

HEPHAESTUS

FORGES

ODYSSEUS’

SHIELD

Once the work is finished, Hephaestus steps aside. He rests. Odysseus’ shield still lies on the forge.
A ridiculous defense – what can a thin sheet of aluminum do!
And more: a shield already bent, battered, wrinkled. 
It is skin. Skin becoming skin.
A limen between the inside and the outside.
And in becoming skin, it becomes a mirror as well.
A crooked mirror; a mirror beyond.
And Odysseus appears – the thief – he who stole all faces and performed them.
Faces for facing battle.
Layers of skin.
He takes it up, he breathes, he fights.
But, after so many blows, so much hammering, could it be that behind the "puppet" Ulysses, there beats the heart of Hephaestus?
Between each blow and each lifting, is there not breath? 
Between the reflections of light and the atoms of aluminum, perhaps there is me...

Working this sheet of aluminum, hammering it almost to the point of perforation, led me to linger on its surface.

There, between reflection and matter, skin became threshold.

ODYSSEUS’ SHIELD – 2024 – aluminium, 60x75x40 cm