Ulysses

In the 8th century, soon after writing the Iliad, Homer wrote its sequel, The Odyssey, another epic poem about the Trojan War. Twelve centuries later, James Joyce used the structure of The Odyssey as a framework for his novel Ulysses. He published it in installments from 1918 to 1920 in The Little Review before it was published by Sylvia Beachon in its entirety in 1922. Nine and a half decades later, Montez Press invited a diverse group of artists and writers to occupy Mathew NYC, a gallery in Chinatown, for the second year of our residency program. The residents were asked to create 18 distinct works, each inspired by a chapter of Ulysses. This new edition of Ulysses features their interpretations, complimenting and complicating the great epics from which they are borne, reminding readers that time changes, but our concerns—mortality, identity, sex, justice, love—remain the same. The only thing that’s new is us.