SODOM & GOMORRAH

"At night they will think they have seen the Sun, 
When they see the half-pig man. 
Noise, screams battles seen fought in the skies. 
The brute beasts will be heard to speak". 
Nostradamus, Century I, Quatrain 64 

1- The two angels arrived at Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gateway of the city. When he saw them, he got up to meet them and bowed down with his face to the ground. 2- "My lords," he said, "please turn aside to your servant's house. You can wash your feet and spend the night and then go on your way early in the morning." "No," they answered, "we will spend the night in the square." 3- But he insisted so strongly that they did go with him and entered his house. He prepared a meal for them, baking bread without yeast, and they ate. 4- Before they had gone to bed, all the men from every part of the city of Sodom-both young and old-surrounded the house. 5- They called to Lot, "Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them." 6- Lot went outside to meet them and shut the door behind him 7- and said, "No, my friends. Don't do this wicked thing. 8- Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them. But don't do anything to these men, for they have come under the protection of my roof." 
Book of Genesis, chapter 19

"Just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, 
since they in the same way as these indulged 
in gross immorality and went after strange flesh, 
are exhibited as an example, 
in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire"
Epistle of Jude. 1:7

30- Lot and his two daughters left Zoar and settled in the mountains, for he was afraid to stay in Zoar. He and his two daughters lived in a cave. 31- One day the older daughter said to the younger, "Our father is old, and there is no man around here to lie with us, as is the custom all over the earth. 32- Let's get our father to drink wine and then lie with him and preserve our family line through our father." 33- That night they got their father to drink wine, and the older daughter went in and lay with him. He was not aware of it when she lay down or when she got up. 34- The next day the older daughter said to the younger, "Last night I lay with my father. Let's get him to drink wine again tonight, and you go in and lie with him so we can preserve our family line through our father." 35- So they got their father to drink wine that night also, and the younger daughter went and lay with him. Again he was not aware of it when she lay down or when she got up. 36- So both of Lot's daughters became pregnant by their father. 
Book of Genesis, chapter 19

10- And the vale of Siddim was full of slimepits; 
and the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, 
and fell there; and they that remained fled to the mountain. 
Book of Genesis, chapter 14

Introducing the men-women, 
descendants of those of the inhabitants of Sodom 
who were spared by the fire from heaven. 
Sodom and Gomorrah 1921/22, Page 9 [introduction], Marcel Proust

10- And Lot lifted up his eyes, and beheld all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered every where, before the LORD destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, even as the garden of the LORD, like the land of Egypt, as thou comest unto Zoar. 11- Then Lot chose him all the plain of Jordan; and Lot journeyed east: and they separated themselves the one from the other. 12- Abram dwelled in the land of Canaan, and Lot dwelled in the cities of the plain, and pitched his tent toward Sodom. 13- But the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners before the LORD exceedingly. 
Book of Genesis, chapter 13

And the harp, and the viol, the tabret, and pipe, and wine, are in their feasts:
but they give no thought to the work of the Lord, 
and they are not interested in what his hands are doing. 
Isaiah, Chapter 5, Verse 12

23- By the time Lot reached Zoar, the sun had risen over the land. 24- Then the Lord rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah-from the Lord out of the heavens. 25- Thus he overthrew those cities and the entire plain, including all those living in the cities--and also the vegetation in the land. 26- But Lot's wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.
Book of Genesis, chapter 19

STATEMENT

Many things have been said about sodom and gomorrah but still nobody knows anything.

The only "plentiful" evidence that Sodom and Gomorrah actually existed has been handed down to us by the Book of Genesis. 
Some think that they are submerged under the heavy waters of the Dead Sea, destroyed by a natural disaster as was Pompeii. In fact, according to geological studies, the area where they stood appears to be rich in sulphur, bitumen and oil (not yet found). 
When it is said that Lot's wife (Lot was the only inhabitant fearful of God and was therefore saved from Divine wrath), overwhelmed by the seed of doubt and second thoughts, was transformed into a pillar of salt upon looking behind her as she was fleeing, one could understand her to have been struck by a scorching gust of sulphur and ashes, as with the petrified bodies of the ancient Pompeiians. 
So as not to have to face the colossus of Archeology, I have decided to approach the subject by following a precise itinerary, imagining landscapes, portraits, environments and objects, and by following almost the same path that Italo Calvino took thirty years ago in his Le Citta' Invisibili [The Invisible Cities] (1972, Einaudi) where, through Marco Polo's eyes, he visited these seemingly believable cities. He wrote:

All cities were invented; I have given each one a woman's name: Procopia, Zenobia, Chloe, Hypatia, Zora, Phyllis, etc (...). The book was created one piece at a time, at intervals which were sometimes lengthy (...). I keep a file on objects, a file on animals, one on individuals, one on historical figures and another on mythological heroes. I have a file on the four seasons and one on the five senses; in one I collect pages related to the cities and landscapes of my life and in another, imaginary cities, outside of space and time. 

I have the habit of taking photographs of everything wherever I go: human and animal matter, objects, landscapes and architecture. Materials that I have accumulated and catalogued of things photographed in museums and on the street, on trips outside Europe and on brief afternoon outings. 
Materials presented in this imaginary journey, the journey which launched me into the metaphor of these two forbidden and damned cities where people happily live in a total absence of morality, devoted to vice and lust, where every kind of sexual perversion is part of everyday life. 
In Sodom and Gomorrah, sexual perversion is considered a virtuosity. Virtuosity in which genetic crossbreeding from one generation to the next accumulates over time. Yet it did not cause shame; on the contrary, for the New Progeny it was the rule to show off with pride and irony an evermore unique body. 
I have imagined these two cities as a kind of amusement park for visionaries, where my gaze is neither accusing nor benevolent, but simply amused and curious, open to taking in as much as possible. An enormous freak show designed with kitsch and geometrical rationality, like that of crib, where one can get lost, and scrutinize an intimate daily life as hybrid as it is metaphysical, and then find one's path, perhaps to get lost again. 
In short, I have wanted the people of Sodom and Gomorrah to be happy, creative and imaginative up to the very day of the apocalypse in which God omnipotent, vexed by their excessive exuberance, decided to spread forevermore his immense black veil.

"Sodom and Gomorrah" is an open-ended project, to which I will continue to add artworks. It is an always expanding project, like Sodom and Gomorrah would be if they had survived the Divine Wrath: an irrational expansion, chaotic, exuberant and spontaneous. Just like that of all modern cities.

Alessandro Bavari, 2000

CRITICAL ESSAY
by Gianluca Marziani 
Curator and art critic, museum director.

SODOM & GOMORRAH: written like that, with the & which brings to life the dynamic apocalyptic spirit of the two biblical cities. Their narrative begins in the Book of Genesis, in the first inklings, already definitive, of a more advanced intellect. Lot and the two angels, the punishment wrought on the forbidden cities, fire and brimstone brought down to destroy sinfulness, Lot’s wife who looks back and is turned into a pillar of salt, Lot’s daughters who conceive their first born with the seed of their own father…we know much, maybe very little, about those places where excess is transformed into daily virtue, of those strange worlds where races and species have become mixed in a complete mutation of cross breeds. Forbidden cities where lust is the king, a paradise of vices where morality gives way to the rampant freeing of the senses. Two ideal spaces that have become archetypes of tolerant, courageous and liberating thought. Centres of gravity that boast of a radical past while tracing the electrocardiogram of an everyday apocalypse.

SODOM AND GOMORRAH is the title Alessandro Bavari has chosen for his loudly contemporary project. He has however left the words with their classical conjunction, giving us a precision that doesn’t reinterpret the title but, using honest and veiled means, allows for an astounding cerebral re-reading. A dense mass of memory, layered down towards the bowels of the past while at the same time regurgitating the technology of today. The & (mine), on the other hand, underlines the distance between the literary heredity of the biblical chapter and the artwork’s overturning of it. Almost to reiterate the task that the artist carries out, a task that goes well beyond the boundaries of the sacred texts, well outside the rhetoric of everyday discourse, towards mental images that are effective in their liberating qualities. 
A licence (literary) on the & (licentious) which affirms a project of a universal grammar and an international lexicon.

Bavari undertakes a visionary iconographic excursus that, through the centuries, hypothesizes a future following an adventurous ethic. It is the journey of the extreme body through a landscape that reflects the unleashing of perversion, of sexual lechery, of the shining instinct that becomes a crazed law of life. All this in order to extol, by means of an impeccable style, the dignity and the energy of modified bodies, that have become hybrids, abnormal, half way between man and the skeletons of bizarre animals. Their gestures narrate a world of domination and submission, radical satanic ideology, medieval rites, an atmosphere redolent of science fiction. They move about in a Calvino-style city where the urban landscape mixes visionary skyscrapers with a flora mutated in a similar vein, desert-like landscapes with imposing and totemic bodies, cathartic gestures together with consciously degraded spaces. Places in which the figures carry out their rites and recreate the sexual gestures powerful lyricism, exciting the beauty of an “other” world while being conceptually real. Mentally determined. Almost mathematical in the balance of power between the subjects portrayed. 

To help us we have the most conceptual of Italo Calvino’s books, “The Invisible Cities” that has for years contributed to architectural visionariness from archeology to the future. In one chapter he writes: "Finally the journey leads to the city of Tamara. You penetrate it along streets thick with signboards jutting from the walls. The eye does not see things but images of things that mean other things: pincers point out the tooth-drawer's house; a tankard, the tavern; halberds, the barracks; scales, the grocer's...” The distance is situated between that which exists and that which we perceive, between the physical truth and its mental projection. Sodom and Gomorrah remain biblical archetypes that many have interpreted, and often and at times understanding its clear metaphoric nucleus. For Bavari the two cities embody the luxurious impulses from which all moral judgments are banished. A space where appearances hide timeless truths, outside the boundaries of time, plausible yet fantastic.Out of the ordinary yet not too unreal: because if the interpretation of a of a biblical passage opens the limits of the image, then Bavari is showing us something that exists. 
Buried in the ancestral memory, held in chains in the visionary mind. 
A something that reveals its own subliminal presence, in the same way that Calvino-style cities are being built around us, ever more similar (radical architecture, mega polis, suburbs, skyscrapers, geodetic domes…) to the visions that Marco Polo related to Kublai Kan. An example? In the piece entitled City of Sodom there are a number of mounds in the ground within whose warrens live the population of a ghettoized underclass. In the background there are skyscrapers and organic obelisks that emphasize the contrast between the social classes. On one side sprout Paleolithic forms similar to those found in Turkey or the Sassi di Matera; on the other side metropolitan prototypes that includes skyscrapers and urbanized greenery, recalling scenes found in Singapore or certain Indian cities.

The narrative density and its semiotic complexity are the sign of an author who possesses a continual intuition, an inventive eye for composition and for digital manipulation, and a perfectionist in the production of “multicoloured” black and white photography. The artist incessantly photographs subjects and details both indoors and out. He gives preference to the studio set when the depiction of central participants requires it. Otherwise he roams cities, towns and medieval villages, abandoned spaces, suburbs, social events, streets and crevices.
Once he has selected the material for his compositions he digitally reworks his work and prints it on photographic paper, maintaining a chromatic perfection in which black and white is modulated into multiple variations of grey, metallic tones, dense whites and blacks which push the limits of their malleability. 
The work, with maximum formal mimesis, brings out the digital potential of revealing pictorial forms: on the one hand creating a juxtaposition of figurative levels able to give life to the image, while on the other overlaying contrasts, burning, fading, graphic marks and deformations. The final image captures an atmosphere with an extremely powerful impact, coldly perfect but emotionally boiling, as if aging or soiled hands had left their dirty marks on a story of pure directly transmitted life.

This visionariness belongs to an immediately recognizable universe where things that are held in common outweigh any individual diversity. A cultural space that mixes visual radicalism with extreme formal experimentation. It is a creative zone in which expressions feed a harmony that elsewhere would be difficult to believe. Here music, cinema, visual art, literature and video feast together at a banquet that emphasises a digestive harmony found when there is a basis of common ingredients. Every author has different aims, a different vision and different values; however we are always left with an intense exploration of the moral content, of the liberating instinct, of unleashed perversions, of the overindulgences that become insights into one’s (ab)normality. Fear of nothingness doubts about dogma, the courage of madness: elements of the shared escape from the linear rhythms of everyday life. The love felt for a precarious body, the changing landscape, for a contamination that mixes categories and social classes: other elements of a common energy in the face of a restless world. It is from this that we saw the birth of the industrial sounds of Einstürzende Neubauten, the sonorous sounds of Aphex Twin, the mechanical sounds of Autechre, the heavenly sounds of the Boards of Canada, the enigmatic sounds of Radiohead, the amniotic sounds of Portishead. And thus the magical realism of James G. Ballard, the hyper technological writing of William Gibson, the acid writing of William S. Burroughs, right up to the outsiders; Jim Goad, Peter Sotos, Monte Cazazza, Hakim Bey. Thus the prophetic cinema of David Cronenberg, the chemical cinema of David Lynch, the mutant cinema of Shinya Tsukamoto, the deformed cinema of Ciprì and Maresco. Thus the magmatic videos of Floria Sigismondi. Thus the visual arts of explosive artists like: Mark Ryden with translucent children who burst into subtle intimate horrors; Joel-Peter Witkin and his freakish and pictorially masterful still-life studies; Enrico Corte with his cerebral autobiography that journeys through symbolic languages and references; Andrea Nurcis with his familiar yet foreign subjects; Rinat Baibekov with a vampirism of a bodies belonging to a Nordic fable; Yoshifumi Hayashi and his cerebral eroticism; Filippo Scozzari and his ironic irreverence; Daniel Lee and his portrait of an animal-like humanity; Camille Rose Garcia and her fairly tales of a malign undergrowth; Eric White with his grotesque deformations that, in the final analysis look like us…
Alessandro Bavari spins his thread in a giant web of common sentiments. He weaves his thread in between the thread of others; he touches them or knots them, leaving other to embroider their own threads in his autonomous world. Yet doesn’t change and in the end resembles only himself. But inside the spider’s web he accepts the flows of wandering ideas where the aforementioned artists confer in an invisible yet powerful dialogue.

Bavari is interested in the dilation of the body as though it were a prismatic mirror reflecting the mind. He follows a wave of hard-edged thinking, of the extreme contemplation that comes with delving deep into one’s own habits, until he manages to transfer his own identity onto the image: that does not mean, “to be” that which we see but “to feel it” without any dishonesty. 
If we then consider the talent from whence all this springs, it is hard conceive of any other outcome, so disquieting and cathartic, we are in the presence of an imagination that exceeds the simplified limits of the everyday pragmatic mind. 

She is always there behind the narratives of “Sodom and Gomorra”, that magnetic sexual perversion that clutched at the adventurers in that primordial anarchy. It is obvious to say this in regard to the themes that bind the images, less so when there is nothing pornographic in the images, or at least nothing recognizable. The naturalism of the sexual act is transformed into a serial multi-breasted queen, into coprophilic bodies in giant crinoline petticoats, into nude voyeurs who peek through holes in the floor, into cut up bodies, of feminine figures with wings and the faces of insects, into a bald woman locked into a pillory, into a king suspended in the air, into nymphomaniacs in gaudy dresses and stupendously perverse expressions. They all have faces that disturb, wildly overloaded eyes, sinuous and savage movements. 
Emblematic, in this sense, is the piece entitled “Coprophilia Hall” with busts with life-like muscles supported on the exposed framework of giant crinoline petticoats.
Under these bodies in the covered pouch of the wooden framework, tiny human figures move about, some kind of dominated masochists who await their coprophilic lessons, the material anointment with faeces of their personal liberation. The whole series doesn’t reveal the usual well noted sexual postures; it doesn’t follow the classical standard background or even the fluent notes of the sexuality of the ancient orient. Here the egocentric nature of sexual desire is opened up to unknown gestures, to the unleashed instincts of those who have no moral binds. The actions condense the power of nature with the complete liberty of a social utopia. A wonderful anarchic flow that anticipates ancient Rome - imperial and perverse, Gabriele D’Annunzio’s decadent Fiume, the Sixties with their all too small dreams, Fellini’s “Città delle Donne”, the luxury micro-worlds of Marchesa Luisa Casati, of the Marquise de Sade and of the Barone von Masoch… right up until the prosaic flesh found in present day saunas devoted to sexual congress, in the German fetish clubs, in the hidden microcosms of sexual freedoms. The first limbo in human history was founded in Sodom and Gomorrah, a fluid place for long lasting souls and well prepared bodies. Almost an abstract of living: and like all extreme things, destined (unfortunately) to finish under the black sky of the Apocalypse. The entire human race, in the final analysis, crosses those two cities in the length of a lifetime. Some people are aware of it, others live the crossing only in their dreams, and too many convince themselves that the rot is in another place, distant from their nose and their eyes. But Sodom and Gomorrah are not that far away. On the contrary…

And so lets conclude with a look at the aesthetic qualities of the works. The images are an intricate development of the compositional elements.
At first sight rich beyond expectations, they underline a synthetic harmony where everything has a meaning and a sensual release. To do this, the artist doesn’t improvise anything but has developed a solid knowledge of expressive techniques, from painting to photography, from drawing to advanced digital graphics. He has portrayed, during a life’s work of minute experimentation, human and animal subjects, specific architecture and landscapes, according to an elastic curiosity that we can recognize in the multitude of languages used in this project. “Sodom and Gomorrah” speaks the language of our disquiet, of our interior brothel, of the poison that runs inside us. He recounts the normality of the absurd but also the absurdity of normality.
Creating an impossible space (?), within a cerebral geography that exists and becomes adult. Plausible. Absurdly real. 

Gianluca Marziani

INVITATION TO THE JOURNEY

by Luca Bandirali
Journalist, movie critic.

«In religious symbolism, as in every kind of symbolism,
it is through forms - and with these forms -
that thought constructs its objects»
(Jean-Pierre Vernant)

The first Christians, divine effigies, had a dubious relationship with the image. The mediologist Regis Debray reminds us that the Bible "clearly associates sight with sin" and he highlights the following passage from the Book of Genesis: "he woman saw that the tree's fruit was good to eat, pleasant to look at...". The image is Evil itself. The damned cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, which the Bible elevates to a paradigm of Evil, are related to the image as aesthetical pleasures are consummated there, primarily of the gaze.

For this reason, Alessandro Bavari's voyage is one directed towards the origins of the image. But it is not the journey of an archaeologist as Bavari's art is conjugated in the present tense - the infinite present of great utopias. Sodom and Gomorrah are not consumed by the gaze: they are constructed by the gaze. Places of the mind.

The progeny of Canaan was the first to enter the land of Sodom and Gomorrah, beyond Gaza. They are the damned children: Noah, upon being seen drunk on wine by his son Cam, condemns his son to become "the least of his brothers' servants". The Valley of the Jordan where they live "was all irrigated...like the Lord's Garden, like the land of Egypt". The artist sees joyful cities where Creation has not stopped, where everything is movement and ferment.

An invitation to the journey

Access to the places from which the deafening clamor of sin reaches God involves the passing of a threshold, of a Gate that is marked by Bavari with the presence of an anti-monument. Beside it he places the elements of the entire oeuvre as clues that the gaze collects to orient itself or out of simple curiosity or mania. The Veil, the Fragment, the Superhuman are the elements of a poetics that is mannerist by vocation: the Veil places things in the uncertain light of an irreductible ambiguity; the Fragment is a quotation, it is the linguistic withdrawal that takes away from order to give to chaos; the Superhuman is the leap in scale that leads individuals and objects to create unheard-of and stimulating proportions (to the artist and to the eye).

The Statue, the Gate's anti-monument, returns in both Simposia,(I - II) ad intogether shattering surface and symbol: the Statue is an effigy, therefore an image (in Hebrew "image" is "selem". It comes from "salmu" in Akkadian, which means statue, effigy), a doubling of the real, a doubling of dreams. Sodom and Gomorrah are the places of style, with landscape and men in blissful symbiosis, as they create a tableaux vivant. Herein lies the mannerist practice of an art that protects (itself) from life, and refuses life's ethics in order to seek refuge in glittering metaphor. It is man that says: I am the Image. I am the Work of Art. Here the New Flesh is engendered. Beyond the human, all too human of Abraham and Lot. In these cities, aesthetical domains of grafting, the gaze quenches its thirst: vain creatures are reflected on mirror picture frames which cast back beauty, calm, voluptuosness. It is an invitation to the journey in the fashion of Baudelaire. It is a journey of the eyes.

The destruction of the cities of the impious is Divine Justice. Only one man is saved, Lot: he has not joined in the unnatural practices of the Sodomites. He remained an outsider, he remained pure. But above all he is the son of those who have not been given the terrible promise of damnation. He is not the "east of servants". Therefore virtue consists in not seeing: for example, beauty. In Lot's Progeny, Man takes the graces of a young woman out of view-but he can in no way deny beauty, which lifts itself above the characteristic misery of all censors with small and graceful wings. The angels know that the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah is looming, and Lot hurries to try to save his family from Divine Punishment. His wife, who hesitates fatally and turns her head while fleeing, is turned into a pillar of salt, becoming the negative model of a doubting individual who does not know Faith's blind and deaf embrace.

Bavari's work can be divided into three categories by theme: Environments, Situations and Portraits.What links each painting to the others is the ambivalence of the images, based in reflecting layers and fooling the eye. As Freud argued, everything subject to taboo has the nature of ambivalence: see the way in which the artist has reinterpreted the genres of painting (portraiture, landscape); upon coming into contact with each fragment you will experience the vertigo of the double meaning. Not to say that it is impossible to reconcile this with a subject ignorant of taboo: the serene contemplation of pleasure that emanates from pictures such as Portrait of a woman watching an initiation rite also shows the anguish in every life. It can be said that Bavari's exploration of form and symbolism leads him into the territory of mannerist poetics: under the shinning surface dark things nest, and the harmony of the visible contains in itself the seed of disharmony. This oscillation, which is precisely an ambivalence, creates a constellation of opposite signs: life and death, joy and sorrow, hope and resignation.
An imaginary, created in such a way, derives from a deep understanding of all historical crisis: we know that the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah are a damned progeny, destined in any case to disappear, as they are the children and great grandchildren of Canaan. Therefore, the menace that threatens them, coloring the sky, ineluctably has those features which make the chosen tone of Bavari's work come close to the modes of the tragic genre.

On the other hand, from a compositional point of view, the space within each piece is extraordinarily open; the subjects represented within it as well as the spectator's gaze can move about freely. But this triumph of infinite perspectives, these urban deserts which follow one another until you can no longer see them, maintain illusion's patina and fragility. And they are forcefully negated by domestic interiors, a list of objects compiled in a sculptural vein, which are forever creating changeable and controversial combinations. What is found in these houses, in these faces, cannot be fully expressed in words: a dynamic tension can be perceived, but the rules of its movement are internal to the pictures themselves. 

We are led to wonder where this language comes from, capable of creating cities and transmitting to our time the message of balance and lightness of an imaginary civilization a civilization that takes shape and narrates itself. There is no place, one would almost want to say, to which these visions can be referred. There is the Artist and the Machine. Bret Easton Ellis wrote: "With this you can set the planets into motion. Forge existences. Photography is just the beginning".

Article on ZOOM magazine n. 184
by Gigliola Foschi
Journalist, art critic.

"A hallucinatory, spatial jumble in which farfetched flowers and strange, Max Ernst-style vegetable beings proliferate. Or ghostly skyscrapers and grandiose architectural structures, highly immaginative desolate expanses and forests of saplings arranged Italian garden-style. A surreal triumph of metamorphic bodies and tiny beings that pop out of dark, evil-looking holes. An encyclopedia of disturbing polymorphic, Hindu-like figures waving their multiple arms.
Images that provoke half-picturesque, half-erotic sensations, both horrible and fantastic, constructed of an unlikely, yet perfect mix of Hieronymous Bosch, Jan Saudek, Alexander Jodorowski, Odilon Redon, Gustav Moreau, Joel-Peter Witkin, Caravaggio, Giotto and Bellmer.
A direct descendent of painters and photographers of the imaginary, Alessandro Bavari (who studied at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Rome and since age fifteen has been creating photomontages), prefers the hints originating in dreams and the unconscious rather than the real world—visionary representations rather than the illusion of the truth. He does not photograph reality, he brings to life a new reality. 
A reality composed of jovial monstrosities and unbridled mythological symbolism transformed like a Baroque allegory and suspended somewhere between a Bosch-like past and Alien-style future (but much less terrifying), amidst visionary dreams cascading tangles of greenery à la Gustave Moreau and lush pleasures of the flesh.

"Sodoma e Gomorra - Un Reportage dalle Città Perdute" (Sodom and Gomorrah - Report from the Lost Cities) is the title of his new work, but it shouldn't conjure up lewd scenes of depravation and lust or even sulfurous gloom.
"I conceived of these two cities as a type of amusement park for visionaries in which my 'photographic eye' is neither reproachful nor benevolent, just amused and curious, ready to capture anything that presents itself. A huge freak show arranged with the geometric rationality of a manger scene, yet both kitschy and sophisticated at the same time. An opportunity to lose oneself and peek in on the intimate scenes of a daily existence that is as much metaphysical as it is a mélange, then finally get back on track only to get lost anew. In essence, I wanted people in Sodom and Gomorrah to be happy, creative and imaginative, right up to the day of the apocalypse in which the Almighty, annoyed by so much exuberance,decided to extend his immense black veil forever," writes the photographer in presentation of the exhibit of his work recently held at the Massenzio Arte e Photogallery in Rome.
Another major source of inspiration for this ingenious work was Italo Calvino's classic novel, Le Città Invisibili (Invisible Cities) in which the author, through the eyes of Marco Polo, describes to a melancholy Kubla Khan extraordinary cities suspended between the real and make-believe. In "Sodom and Gomorrah" we find echoes of Calvino's city of Tamara in which "the eye does not see things, but figures of things that mean other things", or Zirma, the city of redundance where
"things are repeated so that at least something remains fixed in the brain", or, finally, Zobeide "the white city with full exposure to the moon with streets that wind around each other, like a big ball of yarn." Just as Kublai Khan at a certain point stops listening to Marco Polo's tales because he is able to make up imaginary cities himself by mixing-and-matching their attributes, Bavari (following Calvino's lead), has invented two imaginary, dreamlike cities in which desire, unexpected fears, 
misleading perspective and absurd rules all intertwine.

Theoretically all well and good, but how was Bavari able to create these architectural visions of part madness, part mythology, part delirium of the psyche and part amusement park using the "reality" of photography? While Witkin (the photographer his work most closely resembles) succeeds in creating his terrifying and perverse hybrids using traditional techniques working with the negative in the dark room, Bavari, who has also participated in numerous international animation and digital art festivals, makes use of complex digital editing techniques. "I modelled some obiects in Softimage 3D for insertion in the scene," he explains. "The landscape is from a shot I took some years ago in Costa Rica. And crowds of people are actually made up of some friends, who kindly agreed to pose for me."

Even the aged look of the paper, similar to that obtained by Witkin with positive and negative scratches and emulsifying the print with pure beeswax, was created by Bavari entirely with the use of the computer.
"To 'distance' the viewer from the fierce crudity of the photograph, I use a technique of layered 'patinas', the same technique used in oil painting with glazing in which successive, transparent layers of pitch and asphalt lend depth and distance to the image. 
I don't think the use of this technique at the computer undermines its essence, it's just that technology gives us new tools for making art.
In fact, I am firmly convinced that if Leonardo da Vinci had had a computer, he would have used it," the artist states.

Alessandro Bavari is also not afraid of advanced technology because—like the more "established" Witkin—his works are not just empty experimentation. They are supported by a project and a profound knowledge of art history that penetrates into the very pores of his images without ever becoming mere virtuosity.

ZOOM magazine

Article on Hot Irish Art
(Exhibition at The Guinness Storehouse, Dublin)
By Mic Moroney
Art Critic

The ruins of Sodom and Gomorrah, two of five Biblical cities on the Siddim plain destroyed by a huge conflagration around 1900 B.C, are now believed to have been located, south-east of the Dead Sea. The ruins were turned to ash; covered with balls of pure, pressed, powdered sulphur; and covered by three feet of debris. Geologists have speculated that an earthquake may have exploded petroleum-based bitumen deposits out of the earth through a nearby fault line, which then ignited. Meanwhile, Lot's wife, supposedly turned into a pillar of salt, may relate to the outlandish salt floes which crystallise by the Dead Sea. It's as good a collection of theories as you can get. 

However, contrary to Christianised homophobia, out of 39 mentions of Sodom in the Old Testament, none relates explicitly to homosexuality, or indeed debauch on any major scale. Rather, God asserts in Ezekiel 16:49-50 that Sodom "and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before Me. Therefore I did away with them". 

However, Italian artist Alessandro Bavari, follows the Marquis de Sade and many others into an imaginary decadent past with a series of fetishistic images which hint at all manner of polysexual perversity. They're quite luscious, crepuscular, monochrome pictures with a stylish, fantastical pop sensibilty, and a visual vocabulary which owes a great deal to Hieronymous Bosch (c.1450-1516), and Surrealists such as Ernst. 

The depth and allure of the imagery is very evolved, almost reminiscent of the assiduous fantasticality of Ridley Scott's movie, Legend. It conjures up a parallel universe of mythological glamour, revisited as though from the dawn of photography. The images are quite painterly, worked up from pictures of made or found objects like bones, plants and fossils, or posing models. Bavari then etches over the photographic prints, which are then scanned into image-manipulation programmes such as PhotoShop and SoftImage. 

The prints mounted in the Guinness Store are big digital prints, printed on semi-matt photographic paper which is developed in traditional chemical baths, so that you get this smooth unpixellated texture. Paul Murnaghan, the new artistic director of the Guinness Storehouse, has hung the 12 images inside the glass-panelled atrium, dangling high in the 5th floor gallery - not an entirely ideal way of displaying them in the busy space, but a spectacular one, nonetheless. Murnaghan reckons that walking around the 12 images in a circle is "somewhere between voyeurism and doing the Stations of the Cross". 

The Gate 
Like the luscious bottom-end of the Venus de Milo having a sit-down, this sawn-off figure rests amidst classical drapery and stalactites of irrepressible ivy, while in the mists of the screen in front of her, a pair of headless, robust nudes luxuriantly wade, hand in hand, up to their bottoms in water. Scaling the topiarised bonsai tree which rises fantastically from her midriff, a whole little crew of Boschian midgets - naked as Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden - scale to the top of the swooping shrubbery, as though to commune with the heavens. Even more of them huddle under our Venus' seat, looking upwards - what, protesting at her modestly crossed legs? Perhaps another piece among our 12 stations, The Hall of Coprophilia, may suggest other possibilities... 

City of Sodom 
The topiarised landscape of trees shorn like poodles, or into the shapes of lyres, only vaguely resolves in the eye, like some futuristic city dreamt up in the distant past. It almost evades you the more you look into it - the little nesting mounds from which the naked Boschian Sodomites emerge and peek out from their little molehills; the masses of the city seen as underworld creatures who occasionally scale the trees after forbidden fruit. The generalised forest scene recedes into what looks like a giant, ghostly echinoderm on the left, while the architectural gyres and helixes of a city have a idealised science-fiction hue, with some strange little flying pods, resembling sea-shells, hovering in the twilit sky. 

City of Gomorrah 
Here they are again, our little Boschian figurines, naked as the day they were born, and peeking out from their mortal, pathetic holes in the ground. They're little anonymous figures, often seen in groups, one or two pointing upwards, or holding their fists aloft in some bid for divine attention. Again a fantastic garden of weird topiary dominates their landscape, dotted with similarly fantastical architectures to Sodom's, borrowed from botanical tendrils and floral wonders. Again, nesting in a conglomeration of foliage from a number of trees, there are little nests of people, aching upwards toward a heaven beyond their grasp. Indeed, it's a Heaven that will soon shower their skin with brimstone... 

Three Voyeurs 
This rather daft, playful photograph of the Gomorrah cityscape features a trio of fine figures of young urban manhood, gawping down into the mysterious underworld of the naked little imps of the Gomorrans, in a stance somewhere between doing press-ups and gearing up to sprint 100 metres. What mysterious rituals could be Bavari's "voyeurs" be watching? What orgies of Little People? What squeaky little mobs of naked midgets might be shouting back up at them...? 

Lot's Progeny - a Girl on Pillory 
The title is probably a rather awkward translation of Lot's daughter. If you remember in the Biblical account, Lot was the only decent, God-fearing man in Sodom, and his daughter being of similar bent, seems to appear here as a kind of mutant, punk angel; wearing the fashion-fetishistical, penitential, pitted metal cube, perhaps to atone for the sins of her debauched compatriots. But of course, it's a sexy image in its own right, the cuddlesome butt squatting on her chubby ankles, the tasteful distressing of the photographic surface sinking into a kind of late-mediaeval blur. And how sweet she is, with her two little-angel-wings, and the ornamental songbirds which emerge cheeping from her head... 

Bera, King of Sodom 
This bizarre re-imagining of the Biblical Sodomite king rather hops around one's retina, with his repeating, multiple arms between his militant twin sceptres, and an elongated chestful of breasts more populated than a sow's in farrow. It's like the arms of Siva, crossed with that great grape-bunch of breasts from the famous statue of the Roman goddess, Diana (formerly the Greek deity, Artemis) from the Temple of Ephesus, now in the Museum in Naples. But for all his apparent fecundity, Bera is a bristling pallisade of menacing spears under his mediaeval helmet and chain mail; coolly exploding upwards from his barred throne, metamorphosing into hermaphroditic, erogenous power. 

Portrait of Two Lovers in Gomorrah 
This family photo mischievously suggests the amorous pursuits of the Gomorrans. An odd dominatrix towers over her charge, as they pose among a haze of classical ruins. She, with her six fingers on each hand, looks like a big lady, while her mask resembles a bit of DIY SM fashion, like a rubber glove pulled over her head; its fingers transforming into the stinging, beaded fronds of a sea anemone. She bears a tattoo of a (male-eating?) spider on her chest, whilst two little lizards are pinioned by tourniquets on her biceps. Homer Gomorrah, meanwhile, stares almost mournfully, comically out of the eyeholes of his hood, like a KKK man photographed at home with his trousers down; or like those hooded Native American ritual masks, with their unnerving similarity to mediaeval Inquisitional torture methods. Mind you, in the interests of taste, the male genitalia have been scratched out of the picture, as these outlandish creatures ghoul out at you from a peculiarly domestic pose. 

Portrait of a Girl Who Looks at Herself in a Mirror 
Alice in Wonderland has nothing on this grotesquely quaint peek into the self-conscious world of a Gomorran girl and her self-image. It's an over-the-shoulder view of her, fanning her little arms which have mutated into leaves, or gauzy insect-wings. Her eyes and lips are accentuatedly coloured and vividly distorted as she dreams into herself, admiring her frog-necklace as it sets off her milky-white neck and rounded breasts, beaded with impossible little nipples. The voyeurism factor is ramped up, as a similarly distorted boy-face stares from the background at this tender moment of self-exposure; while yet another naked figure in a mediaeval battle-mask seems to move in with a pair of fire-tongs. A strange imagining this, from somewhere on the cusp of sexual exploration, as another little face appears behind her in another mirror, suggesting an infinite regression of reflected images. 

The Hall of Coprophilia
There is the air of a haunted ballroom here in this composite image of ruined villas and derelict factory buildings, in which a series of giant anatomical models of the male torso are frozen in balletic poses throughout this imaginary space. Each is poised atop what seems like a conicular wooden frame - stylised dresses in which are trapped, it seems, little gangs of our naked Little People of Sodom and Gomorrah, as though inside some sacrifical wicker man, destined to be fed to the flame. Bavari had his own ideas of what's going on, if you return to the title of the work... 

A Woman Observing an Initiation Rite 
This is a difficult image to read, with its view of a window - whether from inside or out, it is difficult to discern. The central character is a young woman, her forearms sheathed in ornamental finery, her face like a Polynesian mask of stylised horror as she gazes in at - what? We are given little clue, other than the gaggle of sacred swans and flamingos to the right, and the decapitated, stuffed dog to the left - who could hardly be the author of the turd below the window? A thin bread knife lies on the ground beside it, while to add to this irresolvable drama, the shadow of a male figure approaches her - whether in menace or concern, it is impossible to say... 

Nymphomaniacs in the Depths of Gomorrah 
It should not at all spoil the fun of this picture to know that the centrepiece is three queens snapped at a gay pride event, here altered to suggest a trio of heavy-set, leopard-skin bunny-girls, flirting away in great campery. The party sure looks like fun, a froth of sensuality and desire emanating not only from the foreground, but also the face-masked form behind them, and the cast of characters in the background: Hermes-headed naked men, others with outlandish faces like bloated tropical fish, one billowing around like some alien Chinese dragon. A disgruntled or envious-looking baboon head, meanwhile, stares from a porthole window, as though peeking in on someone else's party... 

Birsa, King of Gomorrah, Sees his Destiny 
Birsa, here scantily robed as a fairy tale king, with a belly big enough to suggest pregnancy, tiptoes gently onto the stage where his destiny has appeared to him in a great flare of ribbons which seem almost to scribble in the air, and little fizzing planets. This three-armed goddess hovers over a typically, Gomorran black hole in the ground. More impossible topiary springs up from other little holes, as the monarch sensually circles this vision of upbeat apocalypse. 

© HotIrishArt / Mic Moroney

CRITICAL ESSAY
by Agnieszka Anna
Art critic

The postmodern aesthetic is what describes Allesandro Bavari’s series of photograph-paintings titled Sodom and Gomorrah. The deeply dark and abyssal images of a lost world of the legendary cities of Sodom and Gomorrah are staged in front of us, as if returned to life from ashes. Philosophically and technically the photographs are emblems of postmodern art and I would like to point to these two aspects respectively.

The idea of postmodernism is seen in a few faucets. First of all, the imagery is very subjective.
But unlike the modern ‘stream of consciousness’, subjectivity gives freedom to various, infinite interpretations. This very aspect is closely connected to the technical creation of postmodern art. The break up of structures and their chaotic, almost arbitrary placement within the structure or the picture plane as in the case of the photograph Birsha’s Symposium is what generates infinite analyses. The photograph is a random-seeming collage of various materials, erratically dispersed and bearing no meaning overall. In this case, the haphazard mix up of table utensils, greenery, fruit and vegetable, birds and cut body limbs invites cultural and historical readings as well as startling connotations brought out from the unconscious realms of the mind. Historically, what we know about the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah is the hedonistic lifestyle of its inhabitants and the antiquity as the time setting. The leftovers from a possible one of many feasts may symbolize gluttony of which Gomorrah’s citizens were famous for in biblical terms. The limbs are connotative of antique marble statues produced by artists in the classical period and so the sculptures indicate time itself. Second association are the fallen statues or/and killed, dismembered people during the great catastrophe which destroyed the cities. Throughout the imagery, there are similes connotative of antiquity like pyramidal- like structures in The Hall of Coprophilia. At the same time, unsettling is the juxtaposition with modern structures of skyscrapers in The City of Gomorrah and The City of Sodoma. It is also a postmodern characteristic to mix not only time indicatives, which results in the loss of private temporality in the imaginative world where time is lost. Further, the space in the photographs is filled with darkness which reinforces the ambiguity of time and space. In Portrait of Birsa, King of Gomorrah, while looking at his own destiny, elements seem to be hovering in vacuum and trees growing from underground and in The City of Gomorrah and The City of Sodom people seem to be living in underground holes. The darkness and no sense of space, the pastiche of antiquity elements clashing with symbols of modernity decenter the ideas of time and space.

Fragmentation is another aspect visible in Bavari’s series of photographs. There are ideas existing in binary oppositions which clash with each other and thus bar any continuity of narrative. Time is infinite, embracing Antiquity, Modernity as well as the age of dinosaurs (the plants in The City of Gomorrah are reminiscent of Jurassic flora) or frozen in the moment of the volcanic eruption which consummated the depicted cultures. The visual quality of the photographs like the scratches on the surface are indicative of webs engulfing the dead land or the splashes of paint (in Lot’s wife becomes a pillar of salt) are connotative of the outburst of the volcano and the moment of destruction.

The fragmentation of ideas, setting them opposite each other produces a non-narrative effect. The narrative throughout the imagery is discontinuous only hinting at plots and possible events. Each of the photographs is a small curious glimpse of the cultures’ lives. Portrait of nymphomaniacs in the depths of Gomorrah gives the viewer a chance to look closer at the social life of Sodom and Gomorrah citizens. Three peepers, along with its title, psychologically make the viewer interested and puzzled what hides underneath the ground. Only a random close up in The new progenies: portrait of a girl in front of a mirror may be the answer to the enigma. Despite the inquisitive close-up, the images of action are intertwined with static, frozen as if scapes where no activity takes place, that is not extended to other images. No linkage is provided to tell a story or to make a point.

The above perceptions are arguments for the constructedness of the images. The technical side of the artworks also points to postmodern art. The fusion of mediums, in this case of photography and painting reinforces the structural quality of the artwork. The constructed reality, seeming provisional, fragmented, discontinued, incoherent, does not try to make a point that is to extract a meaning out of the world. Postmodern art does not authorize reality by giving statements and so Bavari does not judge or criticize the world by creating a doomed, disaster-prone reality. The gaze of the artist is involved and inquisitive, celebrating the non-sense. Bavari creates an artificial, virtual simulacrum where there is no original for the world of legendary Sodom and Gomorrah that might have not existed at all. The photograph-paintings are not an attempt to recreate the iconographic history of the cities and realistically depict biblical stories. The particular insights into the ancient legendary world simulate the idea of Sodom and Gomorrah that exists in cultural common subconsciousness. The simulation operates not only on the visual level but providing us with fragmentation of imagery, interprets the reality on almost linguistic level, leaving it to us to make sense out of the linguistic-visual puzzle.

RESOURCES

BOOK OF GENESIS - Chapter 13

1- And Abram went up out of Egypt, he, and his wife, and all that he had, and Lot with him, into the south.

2- And Abram was very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold. 

3- And he went on his journeys from the south even to Bethel, unto the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Hai; 

4- Unto the place of the altar, which he had make there at the first: and there Abram called on the name of the LORD. 

5- And Lot also, which went with Abram, had flocks, and herds, and tents. 

6- And the land was not able to bear them, that they might dwell together: for their substance was great, so that they could not dwell together. 

7- And there was a strife between the herdmen of Abram's cattle and the herdmen of Lot's cattle: and the Canaanite and the Perizzite dwelled then in the land. 

8- And Abram said unto Lot, Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee, and between my herdmen and thy herdmen; for we be brethren. 

9- Is not the whole land before thee? separate thyself, I pray thee, from me: if thou wilt take the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if thou depart to the right hand, then I will go to the left. 

10- And Lot lifted up his eyes, and beheld all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered every where, before the LORD destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, even as the garden of the LORD, like the land of Egypt, as thou comest unto Zoar. 

11- Then Lot chose him all the plain of Jordan; and Lot journeyed east: and they separated themselves the one from the other. 

12- Abram dwelled in the land of Canaan, and Lot dwelled in the cities of the plain, and pitched his tent toward Sodom. 

13- But the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners before the LORD exceedingly. 

14- And the LORD said unto Abram, after that Lot was separated from him, Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward: 

15- For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever. 

16- And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth: so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered. 

17- Arise, walk through the land in the length of it and in the breadth of it; for I will give it unto thee. 

18- Then Abram removed his tent, and came and dwelt in the plain of Mamre, which is in Hebron, and built there an altar unto the LORD.

BOOK OF GENESIS - Chapter 14

1- And it came to pass in the days of Amraphel king of Shinar, Arioch king of Ellasar, Chedorlaomer king of Elam, and Tidal king of nations;

2- That these made war with Bera king of Sodom, and with Birsha king of Gomorrah, Shinab king of Admah, and Shemeber king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela, which is Zoar. 

3- All these were joined together in the vale of Siddim, which is the salt sea.

4- Twelve years they served Chedorlaomer, and in the thirteenth year they rebelled. 

5- And in the fourteenth year came Chedorlaomer, and the kings that were with him, and smote the Rephaims in Ashteroth Karnaim, and the Zuzims in Ham, and the Emins in Shaveh Kiriathaim, 

6- And the Horites in their mount Seir, unto Elparan, which is by the wilderness. 

7- And they returned, and came to Enmishpat, which is Kadesh, and smote all the country of the Amalekites, and also the Amorites, that dwelt in Hazezontamar. 

8- And there went out the king of Sodom, and the king of Gomorrah, and the king of Admah, and the king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela (the same is Zoar;) and they joined battle with them in the vale of Siddim; 

9- With Chedorlaomer the king of Elam, and with Tidal king of nations, and Amraphel king of Shinar, and Arioch king of Ellasar; four kings with five. 

10- And the vale of Siddim was full of slimepits; and the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, and fell there; and they that remained fled to the mountain. 

11- And they took all the goods of Sodom and Gomorrah, and all their victuals, and went their way. 

12- And they took Lot, Abram's brother's son, who dwelt in Sodom, and his goods, and departed. 

13- And there came one that had escaped, and told Abram the Hebrew; for he dwelt in the plain of Mamre the Amorite, brother of Eshcol, and brother of Aner: and these were confederate with Abram.

14- And when Abram heard that his brother was taken captive, he armed his trained servants, born in his own house, three hundred and eighteen, and pursued them unto Dan. 

15- And he divided himself against them, he and his servants, by night, and smote them, and pursued them unto Hobah, which is on the left hand of Damascus.

16- And he brought back all the goods, and also brought again his brother Lot, and his goods, and the women also, and the people. 

17- And the king of Sodom went out to meet him after his return from the slaughter of Chedorlaomer, and of the kings that were with him, at the valley of Shaveh, which is the king's dale. 

18- And Melchizedek king of Salem brought forth bread and wine: and he was the priest of the most high God. 

19- And he blessed him, and said, Blessed be Abram of the most high God, possessor of heaven and earth: 

20- And blessed be the most high God, which hath delivered thine enemies into thy hand. And he gave him tithes of all. 

21- And the king of Sodom said unto Abram, Give me the persons, and take the goods to thyself. 

22- And Abram said to the king of Sodom, I have lift up mine hand unto the LORD, the most high God, the possessor of heaven and earth, 

23- That I will not take from a thread even to a shoelatchet, and that I will not take any thing that is thine, lest thou shouldest say, I have made Abram rich: 

24- Save only that which the young men have eaten, and the portion of the men which went with me, Aner, Eshcol, and Mamre; let them take their portion.

BOOK OF GENESIS - Chapter 18

1- And the LORD appeared unto him in the plains of Mamre: and he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day;

2- And he lift up his eyes and looked, and, lo, three men stood by him: and when he saw them, he ran to meet them from the tent door, and bowed himself toward the ground, 

3- And said, My LORD, if now I have found favour in thy sight, pass not away, I pray thee, from thy servant: 

4- Let a little water, I pray you, be fetched, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree: 

5- And I will fetch a morsel of bread, and comfort ye your hearts; after that ye shall pass on: for therefore are ye come to your servant. And they said, So do, as thou hast said. 

6- And Abraham hastened into the tent unto Sarah, and said, Make ready quickly three measures of fine meal, knead it, and make cakes upon the hearth. 

7- And Abraham ran unto the herd, and fetcht a calf tender and good, and gave it unto a young man; and he hasted to dress it. 

8- And he took butter, and milk, and the calf which he had dressed, and set it before them; and he stood by them under the tree, and they did eat. 

9- And they said unto him, Where is Sarah thy wife? And he said, Behold, in the tent. 

10- And he said, I will certainly return unto thee according to the time of life; and, lo, Sarah thy wife shall have a son. And Sarah heard it in the tent door, which was behind him. 

11- Now Abraham and Sarah were old and well stricken in age; and it ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women. 

12- Therefore Sarah laughed within herself, saying, After I am waxed old shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also? 

13- And the LORD said unto Abraham, Wherefore did Sarah laugh, saying, Shall I of a surety bear a child, which am old? 

14- Is any thing too hard for the LORD? At the time appointed I will return unto thee, according to the time of life, and Sarah shall have a son. 

15- Then Sarah denied, saying, I laughed not; for she was afraid. And he said, Nay; but thou didst laugh. 

16- And the men rose up from thence, and looked toward Sodom: and Abraham went with them to bring them on the way. 

17- And the LORD said, Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do; 

18- Seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? 

19- For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the LORD, to do justice and judgment; that the LORD may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him. 

20- And the LORD said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous; 

21- I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me; and if not, I will know. 

22- And the men turned their faces from thence, and went toward Sodom: but Abraham stood yet before the LORD. 

23- And Abraham drew near, and said, Wilt thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked? 

24- Peradventure there be fifty righteous within the city: wilt thou also destroy and not spare the place for the fifty righteous that are therein? 

25- That be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked: and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee: Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? 

26- And the LORD said, If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sakes. 

27- And Abraham answered and said, Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the LORD, which am but dust and ashes: 

28- Peradventure there shall lack five of the fifty righteous: wilt thou destroy all the city for lack of five? And he said, If I find there forty and five, I will not destroy it. 

29- And he spake unto him yet again, and said, Peradventure there shall be forty found there. And he said, I will not do it for forty's sake. 

30- And he said unto him, Oh let not the LORD be angry, and I will speak: Peradventure there shall thirty be found there. And he said, I will not do it, if I find thirty there. 

31- And he said, Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the LORD: Peradventure there shall be twenty found there. And he said, I will not destroy it for twenty's sake. 

32- And he said, Oh let not the LORD be angry, and I will speak yet but this once: Peradventure ten shall be found there. And he said, I will not destroy it for ten's sake. 

33- And the LORD went his way, as soon as he had left communing with Abraham: and Abraham returned unto his place.

BOOK OF GENESIS - Chapter 19

1- The two angels arrived at Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gateway of the city. When he saw them, he got up to meet them and bowed down with his face to the ground. 

2- "My lords," he said, "please turn aside to your servant's house. You can wash your feet and spend the night and then go on your way early in the morning." "No," they answered, "we will spend the night in the square." 

3- But he insisted so strongly that they did go with him and entered his house. He prepared a meal for them, baking bread without yeast, and they ate. 

4- Before they had gone to bed, all the men from every part of the city of Sodom-both young and old-surrounded the house. 

5- They called to Lot, "Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them." 

6- Lot went outside to meet them and shut the door behind him 

7- and said, "No, my friends. Don't do this wicked thing. 

8- Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them. But don't do anything to these men, for they have come under the protection of my roof." 

9- "Get out of our way," they replied. And they said, "This fellow came here as an alien, and now he wants to play the judge! We'll treat you worse than them." They kept bringing pressure on Lot and moved forward to break down the door. 

10- But the men inside reached out and pulled Lot back into the house and shut the door. 

11- Then they struck the men who were at the door of the house, young and old, with blindness so that they could not find the door. 

12- The two men said to Lot, "Do you have anyone else here, sons-in-law, sons or daughters, or anyone else in the city who belongs to you? Get them out of here," 

13- because we are going to destroy this place. The outcry to the Lord against its people is so great that he has sent us to destroy it." 

14- So Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who were pledged to marry his daughters. He said, "Hurry and get out of this place, because the Lord is about to destroy the city!" But his sons-in-law thought he was joking. 

15- With the coming of dawn, the angels urged Lot, saying, "Hurry! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away when the city is punished." 

16- When he hesitated, the men grasped his hand and the hands of his wife and of his two daughters and led them safely out of the city, for the Lord was merciful to them. 

17- As soon as they had brought them out, one of them said, "Flee for your lives! Don't look back, and don't stop anywhere in the plain! Flee to the mountains or you will be swept away!" 

18- But Lot said to them, "No, my lords, please! 

19- Your servant has found favor in your eyes, and you have shown great kindness to me in sparing my life. But I can't flee to the mountains; this disaster will overtake me, and I'll die. 

20- Look, here is a town near enough to run to, and it is small. Let me flee to it-it is very small, isn't it? Then my life will be spared." 

21- He said to him, "Very well, I will grant this request too; I will not overthrow the town you speak of. 

22- But flee there quickly, because I cannot do anything until you reach it." (That is why the town was called Zoar.) 

23- By the time Lot reached Zoar, the sun had risen over the land. 

24- Then the Lord rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah-from the Lord out of the heavens. 

25- Thus he overthrew those cities and the entire plain, including all those living in the cities--and also the vegetation in the land. 

26- But Lot's wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt. 

27- Early the next morning Abraham got up and returned to the place where he had stood before the Lord. 

28- He looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah, toward all the land of the plain, and he saw dense smoke rising from the land, like smoke from a furnace. 

29- So when God destroyed the cities of the plain, he remembered Abraham, and he brought Lot out of the catastrophe that overthrew the cities where Lot had lived. 

30- Lot and his two daughters left Zoar and settled in the mountains, for he was afraid to stay in Zoar. He and his two daughters lived in a cave. 

31- One day the older daughter said to the younger, "Our father is old, and there is no man around here to lie with us, as is the custom all over the earth. 

32- Let's get our father to drink wine and then lie with him and preserve our family line through our father." 

33- That night they got their father to drink wine, and the older daughter went in and lay with him. He was not aware of it when she lay down or when she got up. 

34- The next day the older daughter said to the younger, "Last night I lay with my father. Let's get him to drink wine again tonight, and you go in and lie with him so we can preserve our family line through our father." 

35- So they got their father to drink wine that night also, and the younger daughter went and lay with him. Again he was not aware of it when she lay down or when she got up. 

36- So both of Lot's daughters became pregnant by their father. 

37- The older daughter had a son, and she named him Moab; he is the father of the Moabites of today. 

38- The younger daughter also had a son, and she named him Ben-Ammi; he is the father of the Ammonites of today.

STUDIES AND RESEARCHES ABOUT ARCHEOLOGY AND GEOLOGY

SODOM & GOMORRAH FOUND? 
source: www.biblemysteries.com

This week we are doing something completely different because of an unusual set of circumstances.
One of our subscribers is D. Laing who is a geologist with a background in seismic, gravimetric, geomorphic, evaporite, structural, and depositional studies.
He was intrigued by my theory about the "Mirror" sites of the five Cities of the Plain and believed he could use his expertise in geomorphics and structural geology to check the theory. I encouraged him on this and we began to chat about Djaharya and his use in the past of satellite imagery. He promised to see if he could obtain usable photographs of the site at which we believe the treasures of Solomon's Temple were handed over to the Egyptian King Shishak. The site in the Judean hills is a ruin which we believe is an Egyptian Temple built by Ramesses III as described in the Harris Papyrus.
To cut a very long story short, D. Laing obtained a set of images of our area and the Dead Sea, for the other theory regarding the Cities of the Plain. On closer viewing we found at least three anomalies under the sea, two of which look extremely interesting and might possibly be man made. We therefore make a request to our subscribers and visitors regarding these photographs. If they have been discussed before or identified, please let us know.
Dan is fascinated by the Eastern one, I think the South Western one to be more startling. In any case, they may be natural structures or recent artificial ones, but remember the Biblical account states that there were five cities destroyed in this area and so far nothing has been found.
Some of you might be interested to note that the Talmud states:- "As for the cities themselves, however, they will be restored in Messianic time" (Ginzberg: The Legends of the Jews, Vol.. 1 p. 256. Mishnah Senhedrin 10.3 )" Nor is it too farfetched in that Josephus in " Wars 4.8.4," states:- "... it was consumed by thunderbolts; and in fact vestiges of the divine fire AND FAINT TRACES OF FIVE CITIES ARE STILL VISIBLE."
I am attaching D. Laing's piece on my theory for your interest. "...The Paradox of Sodom and Gomorrah The Bible relates that Sodom and Gomorrah were located along with three other cities in the Vale (valley) of Siddom, or the area of the Dead Sea.
Genesis 14:1-3:

"And it came to pass in the days of Amraphel king of Shinar, Arioch king of Ellasar, Chedorlaomer king of Elam, and Tidal king of nations; That these made war with Bera king of Sodom, and with Birsha king of Gomorrah, Shinab king of Admah, and Shemeber king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela, which is Zoar. All these were joined together in the vale of Siddim, which is the salt sea."

In an article in the September/October, 1979 edition of the Biblical Archaeology Review titled "Have Sodom and Gomorrah Been Found?", the author describes a site located on the edge of the Lisan peninsula which extends out into the Dead Sea. This site, Bab edh Dhra, consists of a town and a cemetery which contains the remains of some 500,000 people as estimated by P. W. Lapp, archaeologist, who excavated the site between 1965 and 1967. 
In the period of 1973 through 1979, four more sites were found by archaeologists Walter Rast and Thomas Schaub which they believe are the remaining four cities mentioned in Genesis 14:2. The five sites start with Bab edh Dhra at the north, and include in order to the south, Numeira, Safi, Feifa, and Khanazir. All five sites are located at the heads of small wadis and have been dated to the early bronze age. One of the sites, Safi, is identified in the Madaba Mosaic Map (a map found on the floor of a 6th century AD Byzantium Church approximately 50 miles away) as Zoar. 
Two other cemeteries of equal size to the one at Bab edh Dhra have been uncovered at Feifa and Safi bringing the possible total to some 1.5 million human remains. (Biblical Archaeological Review Volume 6 No. 5). 
What is unusual about these sites is that the cemeteries were in existence (3200 BC and earlier) before the towns, and the extremely high number of human remains buried there. The area is extremely arid, and at present does not have the capability, even given present agricultural technology, of supporting more than a small fraction of the population that the numbers in the cemeteries indicate that it once did. 
The Bible indicates that prior to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah the climate may have been dramatically different, and depending on the interpretation the Dead Sea either did not exist or was of a different configuration: 

Genesis 13:10 "And Lot lifted up his eyes, and beheld all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered every where, before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, even as the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt, as thou comest unto Zoar." 

The site of Numeira was burned some time near the end of the Early Bronze Age, and at this point it is assumed that the other four sites were likewise destroyed at about this time as a result of conflicts with an invading people as noted in numerous references. 
This would establish a period of habitation for the five cities of approximately 3200 BC to 2350-2200 BC depending on which chart one is using. 
Uniquely, the majority of burials are associated with the early portion of this period and seem unrelated to the later destructions. Since it is to be expected that the longer a settlement exists, the greater its population may become, what possible explanation could there be for what has been observed? One theory that may explain these observations has been posited by Mike Sanders, a Biblical scholar. He believes that the five settlements represent relocation sites of the remnantal populations of five prior cities originally located closer to or within the confines of the Dead Sea. These, he believes, were destroyed due to some catastrophic disaster based on the fact that the cemeteries were in use prior to the establishment of the sites. He has therefore named these sites "the mirror cities of the plain" Quoting Mr. Sanders: "The archaeologists Rast and Schaub suggest that these five cities could be the cities of the plain, but this theory evokes more questions and answers. 
It must be noted for example that the majority of the dead found at the site are dated 1,800 years before the sites were finally destroyed according to the conventional chronology. 
Who then were the dead and are there any other sites world-wide with such vast charnel houses containing so many remains?" 
"...dates the Exodus to the end of the early Bronze Age and the final destruction of these sites coincides with the area-wide catastrophe which occurred at that time with the mass migrations and disruptions that followed." 
"The vast cemeteries were therefore begun some 1,800 years earlier using conventional dating figures (much less using the conventional chronology) and were created as a result of the mass slaughter that took place at the time of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah as recounted in the Bible." 
"The scenario probably involved the survivors of that holocaust; those from the cities and the majority living outside the cities dragging their dead and wounded to a safe haven, preferably near a fresh water source (hence by a wadi). 
Those that died were buried in mass graves BEFORE a settlement was established at Bab edh Dhra and Safi. Gradually as the danger subsided and a semblance of normality returned, the survivors broke up into settlement groups mirroring the original towns of origin. 
Thus, those Sodomite survivors gathered together and formed a new settlement as did the survivors of Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboim and Bela. 
Fortunately there was a wadi complex somewhat nearby and each settlement group managed to have their own access to fresh water at the head of individual wadis." 
"Thus the sites found by our modern archaeologists are in fact the "mirror" cities of the plain." While Mr. Sanders goes on to elaborate on a revisionist chronology, he has in fact established the foundation for a credible theory of what may have happened when one considers the fact that the cities were located along an active rift system and given the Biblical descriptions that the environment was altogether different (Genesis 13:10) and that all five cities were perhaps located in a valley (Genesis 14:3). 
One theory that may seem far fetched but possible is a sudden fault movement could have resulted in a shift in elevation and an explosive expulsion of pitch which could have been ignited giving rise to the story in Genesis 19: 24, 25: 

"Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven; And he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground." 

While the description more resembles the results of a volcanic eruption, since there is little evidence in the area for such an event at the time, the scenario involving burning pitch may be just as valid. If Mr. Sanders is right in his mirror city theory, the destruction of the original cities of Sodom and Gomorrah may have occurred sometime between 3200 to 2800 BC (Conventional Chronology) dependent on the accuracy of the investigators and their charts. An examination of a segment of a radar image created by special imaging techniques coupled with a microwave emitter aboard one of the Space Shuttle flights provides some interesting features for consideration. A unique property of such images is the ability to penetrate some distance through water to capture otherwise indiscernible features. 
While the image only covers a portion of the Dead Sea, it clearly indicates an underwater channel for the Jordan at its northern most end as well as the rift zone along the Jordanian coast to the East. In addition, there is an obvious resistive feature to the East off the coast of Jordan. By no other process than resampling, we are able to enlarge this small image to reveal a structure of surprising symmetry. 
Could this be one of Mr. Sanders submerged cities? If it is a natural formation then it is unusual in its obvious right angles and rectangular symmetry. 
Rotating our original image and then overlaying the Madaba Mosaic Map, it is evident that this anomaly is directly off shore to the location identified in Greek as Safi. 
Other satellite photos clearly indicate that at one time the Dead Sea seems to have extended to the south. It is just possible, lacking evidence to the contrary, that the Dead Sea was located further to the South prior to 3200 BC, and that movement along the rift in the vicinity of the Dead Sea resulted in the cataclysmic destruction of the original cities as described by Mr. Sanders due to a dramatic subsidence. 
The survivors could have then moved to the positions at the wadis as postulated by Mr. Sanders and where they would have reestablished their trade with Ebla as recorded in the Ebla tablets that have been dated to 2500 BC. 
A possible proof of this theory may be found in the cores that have been taken in the northern end of the Dead Sea by petroleum and mineral exploration companies. 
Due to seasonal variations in the sediment load coupled with a similar process in the deposition of evaporitic minerals, recognizable banding should be evident. 
If detailed examinations of these cores were to reveal continual annual deposition to about 3200 BC and terriginous (dry land) deposits thereafter, then Mr. Sanders theory could then be considered to have been proven empirically." 

Michael S. Sanders

This compelling, one-hour special features Biblical scholar Mike Sanders' unprecedented exploration to the depths of the salty Dead Sea in the same Delta mini-submarine used to explore the wreck of the liner Lusitania, and his search for evidence of the destruction of the ancient Biblical cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. To many people, the Biblical tale of the two "sin cities" is metaphorical, but Sanders' belief - validated by NASA satellite photographs showing anomalies in the Dead Sea - is that the cities may have actually existed. It took years of negotiations for Sanders to obtain clearance from the Israel army, the Jordanians and the Palestinians to search for the ruins at one of the most hostile places on earth - the border between Israel and Jordan. Ed Fields, Geoff Deehan and Mike Sanders are the producers, and Joel Westbrook and Steve Ruggi are the directors. The special is produced by Union Pictures for Channel Four, UK, and by Alexandria Productions, Inc. for NBC.

ICONOGRAPHY SECTION

 FILMOGRAPHY

Sodom and Gomorrah, (1963), Robert Aldrich 
Sodom and Gomorrah, (1922), Mihail Kertesz 
Sodom and Gomorrah, (1978). James L. Conway

BIBLIOGRAPHY

The 120 Days of Sodom, Marquis Sade 
The Judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah, Joanne Rutis 
Sodom and Gomorrah, Marcel Proust 
Return to Sodom and Gomorrah, Charles R. Pellegrino 
The book ok Sodom, Paul Hallam 
Gomorrah and Comedy: A Tragedy in One Act (Two Plays), Nikos Kazantzakis

VISUAL ART

John Martin: Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, (1852)
Albrecht Dürer: Lot and His Daughters, (c. 1496/1499)
Paolo Veronese: The Flight of Lot and His Family from Sodom
Marc Chagall: Abraham Approaching Sodom with Three Angels
Gustave Doré: Lot flees Sodom
Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot: sketch for "Destruction of Sodom"
Giusto de Menabuoi: Sodoma e Gomorra
Julius Schnoor von Carolsfeld: Lot flees Sodom
Jan van Vliet: Lot and His Daughters
Cornelis Cort: Lot and His Daughters
Vladimir Yankilevsky: Mutants (Sodom and Gomorrah) Every Day