aMoTeR 2
21 contemporary artists
Centre of
Contemporary Art, Museun of Modern Greek Art
Rhodes 5 October 2002 - 5 September 2003
text also available in Greek a
CURATOR'S
NOTE by Polly Hatzimarkou
The 21 artists of
MoTeR2 share common interests since reality, their speculations and their means of
expression often overlap. This text aims to trace those interests but also pinpoint their
different qualities.
WATER ELEMENT AND TECHNOLOGY
Long-term study leads Alkisti Michailidou to a
never-ending pursuit of the landscape; a landscape (in its wide-ranging term) that becomes
abstract or formalistic, brutal and gestured or realistic. The result of that route, in
combination with the artist’s personal relation with mathematics, is the work presented
in MoTeR2. Aquarelles, video, printed video-stills and installations in quest for an
imaginary water unit, or even better, for a painted enlarged water unit where the material
and the immaterial create dreamy intersections. By visualizing a mathematical model, that
of the oscillation, and by using abstract geometrical arrangements, Michailidou presents a
rich in experience work, at the limits of neo-romanticism. The project “Mind Fluid” by
Magdalene Kourti consists of two videos with sound (Thoughts & Float). The
first one presents a body hovering in water images; it is a game between the sea and the
sky, symbolizing the oscillation of thoughts in the absolute emptiness, in chaos.
Following the same motif of symbolisms, the second video operates in a more minimalistic
manner. The hovering bodies subtly intimate the fragile identity of contemporary man since
he/she is trapped in a web of social roles, expectations and relations. The identity is
fragmented; it becomes more and more unstable. The project is accompanied with prints of
figures in various materials. The sense of mystagogy is always present…Through his
digital art, Apostolos Koumoulis approaches the multiple depictions of the sea. He
distorts simple geometrical objects on his computer and creates his own casts with which
he develops his work. Parallel to that ‘digital sculpture’ technique, Koumoulis
processes his own photos or artworks made by others (an example is the rather interesting
“Fishy Night”; a humorous version of Van Gogh’s “Starry Night”), invents his own
forms (just like Michailidou, here again there is a personal relation with mathematics)
and he even scans objects that he collects from his photo expeditions. The assortment of
technology, maths and art generate digital compositions that often transform into
imaginary scenery.
DREAM AND FAIRY-TALE
Yorgos Kouroupas, as a descendant of surrealistic
influences paints mostly seeking the mental reaction rather than the stimulus of the eye.
Additionally, he transfers to his canvases features from his second profession, that of
the stage-designer. Having done that, his creations act as a cosmic space, a metaphorical
reference to science fiction stills. Looking at the “Stranger”, we go back to the last
scene of the film “Underground” (dir. Kusturica) where a piece of land symbolically
drifts apart from the mainland and floats solely carrying the company of actors.
Similarly, the artist’s piece of land (cut off from his mind?) travels in the boundless
universe carrying its peculiar shoots.The artworks of Maud Guterstam spontaneously
reflect a mysterious combination. Certainly her Swedish origins woven with her long-term
residence in Rhodes, justify the elegant function of the Aegean implications and the misty
atmosphere of Scandinavian tales seen on her canvases. A table and a chair of a
traditional Greek “kafenion” (=coffee-place), a candelabrum, a table with fruits, a
few flowers, are all drawn away from their natural environment and tactfully painted
–almost miniatures- with basic, soft lines and are put unruly on the surface which is
overflowed with dramatic colors. Guterstam’s artworks are colorful games that between
dream and reality. The canvases of Elli Gravalou are visually saturated with a
sweet, metaphysical calmness. They give the impression of an iconography of extravagant
fairy-tales. It is a work of experience, using vibrant colors critically and a
simplification of the forms. The dreamland of Gravalou depicts “all living and inanimate
elements of nature…their existence presents human as a creation, a creator, an
inseparable piece of a world where everything is possible”. However, the dreamland,
therefore the dream has a dark side on the symbolic code of the unconscious. The mature
child-likeness draws material from the past and is concerned with beautifying reality or
seeking interpretations in the chaotic world. Christos Ponis is exhibiting a number
of sculptures and wood-engravings. With a tendency to examine deeply the unconscious
facets of him, he invents a trip backwards to his childhood years. He opens his eyes to
the past, he revives his long lapsed childhood and he brings out the toys which transform
into colorful sculptures and images. During that route, color is used as a fourth
dimension while the artist attempts to comprehend the behaviors of the sculpture mass as
it is subjected to repeated coloring interventions. The multiple peculiarities of the
shaped volume, in combination with the plastic (temporary-disputable) raw material,
formulate a personal pop interpretation of the contradictory “structured” reality;
thus an interpretation of identity.
LANDSCAPES AND TEXTURES
Ioanna Hatzidiakou inspired by the Medieval Town of
Rhodes photographs using the light-painting technique –the coloring of specific spots of
the subject with gelatins. Suddenly, the well-known buildings, monuments and squares flow
into another dimension. With a discreet intervention the landscape is altered, redirected
and redesigned from scratch. The environment reaches the limits of the unreal without
disorientating or misleading the viewer. It actually becomes a theatre set, with bright
lights, ready for the grand premiere in which all the organic components (trees, roads)
will be the protagonists. Panagiotis Brademas presents selections from his
photography work for the first time after his student years. The tricks of the light and
the intensive study of the moment that exist in the artist’s oil landscapes are repeated
in his photo work. Time is recorded as it will, later on, immobilize in painting. This
process is already known in the history of western art. At the end of 19th
century, Eugene Atget had chosen to photograph the natural environment on behalf of his
fellow artists professionally. The process from the ephemeral to the monumental goes
through the lens allowing him to photograph what he does not wish to paint and vice versa.
“They are not the quests of a contemporary artist, but instead, they are the quests of
an old master who observes his contemporary world and indulges himself into tradition’s
burden on his shoulders”. The scenery of old shipyards motivates Ourania Volonaki;
those are the painterly settings of her most recent work. On the verge of figurative and
expressionistic style, she studies the composition of space, its structure and the decay
caused by time. The corrosion of materials and the lying of micro-bits onto the surface
(natural patina) expose a plastic-painting effect (line-a rhythmic repetition of natural
patterns). Moreover, the materials that are collected by the artist during her visits to
shipyards are entirely embodied on the canvas, so that the artwork reflects time, memory,
tradition, and history.
HUMAN REFLECTIONS
The work of Angelos Spartalis is purely
anthropocentric. Leaving behind the surrealistic insinuations, he focuses on
expressionism. A distinctive expressionism, brutal, with violent brushstrokes, vibrant
colors, unending experimentations of the “being” and the “being seen”, infusing
excessive sharpness into his images and his studio. When Spartalis paints, he makes noise;
he makes a mess of things and of himself. He is what he paints. He causes an art attack;
an attack to our aesthetics, via the classical paths of oil and canvas. He selects
lineaments from his models and adds all his passion and philosophy for life. “So the
artist can open or rather, unlock the valves of sensation to bring the viewer back to life
more fiercely”. The human figure as an allegory of opposites
is the main subject of Angelos Michailidis’ work: Composition-re-composition-decomposition,
construction-deconstruction, presence-absence, existence-extinction, life-death. The
replicas of the gloomy, faceless figure become the transporters of metaphorical ideas.
Placed inside boxes-constructions or hung from above, they ‘transmute’ our concept of
space and formulate the differences and similarities of the real and the simulated.
Instead of losing their sense due to repetition, they create new mental directives. Made
of different materials –from charcoal to digital process- they submit the viewer to emotional charge and intense
questioning with spiritual extensions. Nikos Papadimitriou has gone through
different stages-landmarks of artistic expression: The expressionistic output, the
minimalistic “sketching” of outlines, the polymorphous video-installations. The human
figure is always present as a subject, witnessing the morphological and conceptual
questionings of the artist. “He succeeds in the […] utilization of the delusive part,
with lyricism and often romanticism; he succeeds in the juxtaposition of virtual and
real”. The new paintings and videos presented in MoTeR2, amalgamate stylistic manners
from his past work. An example is the video project “Part of a dramatic story” based
on a clip from “Lolita” (dir. S. Kubrick). With an artistic approach (no narrative
involved) he processes the image, the frame rate and the sound. The image is modified
leaving behind nothing but basic white lines in a dark background. In a way, Papadimitriou
returns –more mature- to the period of deconstructed outlines and offers a significant
alternative aesthetic proposal. The line of the portrait plays the main role in the work
of Tasos Papadogonas. The artist is in the process of examining possibilities of
the line; the way it defines the planes, the space, the forms, the way it gives tone and
expression, the way it entangles the volumes unnoticed and completes the work. The line
slides to give emphasis to those parts that reveal the characteristics and build the
psycho-portrait of the model. Afterwards, the portrait is digitally processed, the form is
redefined and composed again, only this time the psycho-portrait is the one of the artist.
More abstract than before, are the new artworks of Maria Anezia. Painting on glass
of small dimensions, human figures are always present. This time with fewer lines and
detail, the qualitative improvement is evident on this “disobedient” material. The
figures, replacing symbolically human relations and one’s existence in impassable paths,
are placed in paradoxical environments. The fragile qualities of man, his/her agony and
struggle are portrayed with optimism and a poetic mood, and other times are overwhelmed
with the feeling of suffocation and entrapment.
MATERIALS AND CRITICISM
How is it possible for different materials to create
artworks that reflect speculations or raise criticism? The artists Papakiriaku, Kyourh,
Tasso and Captain-Fly deal with those issues, each one establishing his own parameters. Damon
Papakiriaku uses materials, such as wood, glass, plaster, metals, crystals and
feathers, halogen lamps. His constructions reveal the idea of escape, the release from
social roles with the wings (favorite subject) of imagination and sweet child-likeness.
The materials overcome their stereotypical qualities and grow to be the transmitters of
the human need for tenderness, spirituality, harmony and personal freedom. In MoTeR1, Kyourh
presented his small-sized work, having transformed everyday objects of his environment
into tools of criticism –reinforced by their titles-. In MoTeR2, the artist presents
artworks of larger dimensions as well as installations. For the first time, Kyourh’s
microcosm is enlarged while he continues to deal with issues taken from the international
scene, mapping his stance onto the hybrid social web that we live in: genetic engineering
and cloning, war through children’s eyes and the end of innocence, the alienation of
human affairs…Ôasso creates an unusual ‘sculpt-painting’. The
imprints of the objects he chooses to represent, rest on the canvas as traces of images
from the past, with generous amounts of cement. A post-industrial fresco painting,
personalized thus trickier to comprehend. Observing the artworks closely, one can discover
elements from art brut, primitivism, and surrealism. “…it is a kind of inner lyricism
through which, a secret admiration for life and things is expressed. That is why, the
artist seems to be memorably carried away by his painting…”. Captain-Fly (Dimitris
Mistriotis) creates art deriving from the spirit of things. He digs into the earth of
his soul and discovers emotions and native memories. He goes deeper (introspection) to
tradition, history, religion, Greek culture, the inner dimension of global art, his
environment and by seeking spiritual relief and the Whole of things, he paints a
“wishful painting” as he calls it. Unconventional, almost psychoanalytical, it
attempts to bridge mind and senses. His art technique, finally, connects with his
mentality. The two-dimensional representations of objects accompanied by their painterly
titles refer to a variety of Western art trends: popular art, art brut, abstract
(American) expressionism, Byzantine techniques; a special art fusion.
CONSUMPTION AND IDENTITY
The art group E 2.13 belongs to the generation of
the fast moving image at the beginning of the new millennium. Using the name of a food
preservative, the group turns to the electronic world in which they grew up (Internet,
digital technology, MTV-type video clips, advertisement, reality shows). Manipulating all
the above, they create sarcastic, raw versions. The main project “Money Temple”, that
we present in MoTeR2, has the triptych religion-politics-sex as a principal axis. E 2.13
examine how that triptych has been interrelated with the spectacle –an inseparable
component of popular culture; how it has become a patron of the current globalised,
economistic morality which, as a result, unifies society towards its alienation. The
commodified human (man-object), a fetishist of the circulation of trade, will be shocked
(can people still be shocked?) to face the criticism of E 2.13. Martha Dimitropoulou
restructures and highlights the deceptive reality. Shapes borrowed from the natural
environment are artistically formed, after their hidden, internal sub-forms have been
examined. For example, the apples used as building bricks which define a new spatial
structure; or the altered shape of the square, piled up watermelons -with a pop aesthetic-
standing for the genetically modified food products and the “post-human” era of
super-markets and consumption; or the plastic bottles of different use and size
(ephemeral) painted in such a way as to create a faux marble texture (permanence). The
work of Dimitropoulou is defined as an “architecture of the remains” –the debris of
our ‘post-postmodern’ times.
Bibliography-References
- Featherstone, Mike (ed.), Cultural
Theory and Cultural Change, Sage Publications, London, 1992
- Fioravantes
Vasilis, Social Theory and Aesthetics, publications Armos, Áthens, 1999 (in
Greek)
- Fukuyama, Francis, Our
Posthuman Future – Consequences of the biotechnology revolution, Farrar, Straus
& Giroux, New York, 2002
-
Kambouridis
Haris & Levounis Yorgos, Modern Greek Art, The 20th century: The superb
collections of the Rhodes Municipality Art Museum, Ministry of the Aegean, Athens,
1999
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Kellner,
Douglas, Media Culture, Routledge, London, 1995
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Rose A.
Margaret, The post-modern & the post-industrial – a critical analysis,
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1992
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Stangos,
Nikos (ed.), Concepts of Modern Art – From Fauvism to Postmodernism, Thames and
Hudson, London, 1995
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Sylvester,
David, The brutality of fact-interviews with Francis Bacon, publications Agra, Áthens 1988 (in
Greek)
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Ôsikouta, Lina, introductory
note, catalogue, exhibition “Figure-Space –Image” Nikos Papadimitriou,
art space Alekton, Athens, 2002 (in Greek)
-
Æenakos,
Avgoustinos, The struggle with ultimate commitments and the painting of
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