CIRCUS ORBIS

A work in progress by Beauvais Lyons

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Beauvais Lyons, Chancellor’s Professor of Art and Director of the Hokes Archives at UT Knoxville has begun the process of fabricating and documenting Circus Orbis, an imaginary, early 20th century American circus. Lyons initiated this project in the summer of 2015 through the support of an Affiliated Fellowship at the American Academy in Rome and a Faculty Development Leave in the fall of 2015. The work in progress was presented in December 2015 at Fluorescent Gallery, and included preparatory drawings for a series of color lithographs, recent prints and a set of four large banner paintings.

Conceived as a long-term work of parafiction, Circus Orbis will require as many as ten years to complete, and is intended to include props, costumes, a model of the “Splendarium Show Palace,” photographs, printed ephemera, and even circus music.  The theme of the circus bridges fact and fiction, as it tests our understanding of the impossible and the plausible, fantasy and reality. The circus is a rich topic as it encompasses subjects including zoology (with the menagerie), anthropology (with its representations of “other” cultures), and even the concept of the museum (with the sideshow display).

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