Leda and the Rock and the Swan

The concepts of looking, watching and bearing witness are paramount in Heather B Swann’s sculptural installation Leda and the Rock and the Swan 2021.

The work proposes a contemporary reading of the ancient Greek myth in which the god Zeus disguises himself as a swan to seduce a princess called Leda. Swann considers how the story’s dimension of sexual violence has often been suppressed or ignored by artists over the centuries in favour of coyly erotic interpretations. Rather than submitting to the swan, or suggestively reclining with it, Swann’s Leda stands poised, on guard and protected by her rock. She is modelled on the austere Korai sculptures of the Archaic Greek period, which depict inscrutable female youths who appear not of this world. To this mysterious figure Swann adds the power of Janus, inserting blue glass eyes in the back of her head. Leda
can watch out for the approaching swan from behind, and as the artist explains, she is also ‘the one who watches out for all of us.’

Swann is fascinated by the endurance of classical myths over time, and how they evolve and splinter into countless variations. Her retelling of Leda and the Swan is yet another variation, but one where the persistent undercurrent of sexual surrender is artfully extinguished. Like Janus, who has the power to see into the past and the future, Swann looks back to this ancient myth with her eyes firmly forward.