Pulcinella in Hades

Art Hazelwood

"Pulcinella in Hades is a decent into Hades in the form of an eight foot tall accordion book. The borders of Pulcinella in Hades contains marginalia texts by historical authors, written in longhand by 17 contributors. The text refers to the underworld from different writings. Pulcinella from the Commedia dell'Arte is here a stand in for Orpheus or Christ in a comic harrowing of hell ... The idea of a comedy in Hades hit me when I heard an excerpt from the comic opera Orpheus in the Underworld. Why an underworld journey should be treated as a comedy can perhaps best be explained by the tremendous amount of literature to back up the view that Hell is a merry place. Comic journeys to Hell and Hades are long standing traditions ..."--Artist's statement from Vamp & Tramp website. "In most early printed books there were few indexes, so marginal notes were often printed right in the text...