Modern Urns: Andy Antippas
After reading Sir Thomas Browne's "Hydriotaphia, Urne Buriall, or A Discourse of the Sepulchrall Urnes lately found in Norfolk," an essay written in 1658, Andy Antippas thought a lot about urns. Sir Thomas Browne's essay was inspired by the discovery of forty ancient burial urns, and serves today as a meditation on the nature of death itself, and the fear experienced by the living concerning the unknown. After reading the landmark essay, Antippas was impressed by Browne's mention of death as an erasure of identity.
As an art gallery owner, Andy Antippas felt strongly about the ability of art to reflect identity. Meditating on Browne's assertion of the absence of identity after death, and marveling at the essayist's eloquence, Andy Antippas came to the conclusion that an urn designed by the very individual destined to be contained by it would be an appropriate method of maintaining identity after death.
Antippas argued that this funeral rite would preserve the deceased's own personality and life, and would thereby allow for a more unique and meaningful funerary service. He also suggested with poetic great aplomb that because an artist pours his or her own soul into every piece of artwork they produce, any piece of art could serve as a funerary urn.
Barrister's Gallery is a New Orleans gallery well known for its exhibitions of ethnographic and folk art. An exhibition at Barrister's will typically feature a host of delightful works that are 'off the beaten path'. Andy Antippas, as the owner of Barrister's, has directed installations of several unique and thought-provoking shows such as “Hydriotaphia: New Orleans Artists Design Their Own Funeral Urns,” as well as a Lenin show in 2001 built on a semi-laterally related theme. In many cases these exhibitions provide a platform for artists to create new works. In the “Lenin” show, artists were provided with identical busts of the communist figure and instructed to transform the plain plaster representations into unique works of art. For “Hydriotaphia,” artists were instructed to take the concept of their own identity, and to transform that idea into a funerary urn.
Tragedy struck the already fundamentally morbid show when Roy Ferdinand, an artist associated with Barrister's Gallery for over 15 years, died of cancer in 2004. Heavily involved with the workings of Barrister's, Ferdinand had planned to participate in the “Hydriotaphia” show before his battle with illness rendered him powerless to do so. In the stead of his own work, two artists and longtime friends of Roy Ferdinand were commissioned to create a unique urn for the ashes of the “urban realist” artist: an urn which would serve as the centerpiece of the entire exhibit.
The idea of an urn that is individually conceived of and rendered is one which appeals more to my sensibilities than those which are mass-produced, or even those so ancient that the human touch of its creator has long been forgotten. I do wonder, however, if the concept of designing one's own urn isn't playing too much into a fascination with death, crossing the line from spiritual awareness to a dangerous obsession with the macabre. Yet in another sense, the late Roy Ferdinand received the ultimate tribute to his life when his friends created a personalized urn to honor him and his living accomplishments at Barrister's Gallery. Is there a better, final tribute than such a gift?