Purcogitoresque

David Normal’s Crossroads of Curiosity is an epic suite of lightbox murals that extends the notion of a “cabinet of curiosity” outward from the rectilinear arrangement of objects in glass cases to encompass the world in a series of dramatic tableaux featuring provocative juxtapositions of vastly different times, places, and peoples.

Crossroads of Curiosity was installed at Burning Man 2014 and had a 5 month exhibition at the British Library in 2015. The collage-based paintings were composed exclusively from the digitized antiquarian illustration collection of the British Library. Crossroads was essential to supporting the Burning Man Festival's 2014 theme, "Carvansary", in close collaboration with Larry Harvey, and was displayed prominently at the "Man Pavilion" where the Burning Man Effigy stood.

David Normal’s Crossroads of Curiosity is an epic suite of lightbox murals that extends the notion of a “cabinet of curiosity” outward from the rectilinear arrangement of objects in glass cases to encompass the world in a series of dramatic tableaux featuring provocative juxtapositions of vastly different times, places, and peoples.

Crossroads of Curiosity was installed at Burning Man 2014 and had a 5 month exhibition at the British Library in 2015. The collage-based paintings were composed exclusively from the digitized antiquarian illustration collection of the British Library. Crossroads was essential to supporting the Burning Man Festival's 2014 theme, "Carvansary", in close collaboration with Larry Harvey, and was displayed prominently at the "Man Pavilion" where the Burning Man Effigy stood.

Purcogitoresque is perhaps the most personal of the Crossroads series. David Normal personally identifies with the characters in the painting - particularly the artist, a Prince Myshkin like figure, who is seeking for his salvation through his own work. However, the figure of the Sultan who is simulataneously sacred and profane also appeals directly to the artist's own sensibilities since he finds beauty in the paradoxes and contradictions of human nature. The two dandies reaching out to a jellyfish as though hailing a cab represent Normal's own predilection for fashion and style, seemingly a pedestrian concern, while being preoccupied with truly otherworldly matters that transcend not only the latest trends, but the very fabric of space and time.