Annita Xanthou
dal 15/3/2006 al 28/4/2006
Segnalato da
15/3/2006
Annita Xanthou
Medusa Art Gallery, Athens
Solo show. Kinetic sculptures and sound-constructions. The artist continues her instinctive poking around these abandoned landscapes of dusty chords and forgotten harmonies.
Repetition-verification
On Thursday, March 16 at 8 p.m. Maria Dimitriadi opens the exhibition of the
latest works of Annita Xanthou at the Medusa Art Gallery.
Why is it that to our ancient forefathers Repetition was the mother of
learning where as to us repetition has become a means of manipulation and
forgetting?
First of all it is a question of quality of the repetition. Be it the golden
section of phi, the principles of Harmony and the Muses or the archaeological
finds, we are convinced that the ancients' aesthetic was infinitely higher
than ours.
Then it is a question of quantity of the repetition. Again, the ancients had
thought it out and decreed that "to speak with brevity is to philosophize".
We, their memory-less descendants, prattle all the time so that the important
and the trivial are lost in an increasingly amorphous mush.
The ancient wise men did not say anything that came to them, because there
were others who listened. Today we don't listen: we obey. We are told in good
time which films are the best, and we queue up to see them. We are instructed
as to who is the most suitable prime minister, and we hasten to vote for him.
They tell us exactly how they want us to be, and we bend over backward to
please them - whom? Journalists? Politicians?
What governs everything has no hands or feet; it has no head, but it has power
and sway.
The ancients meditated about beings, we only think about products. Worse
still, we become products ourselves; products of economic, social, aesthetic
falsification.
And where the ancients had seven wise men we are all wise, yet we can't see
past the end of our nose.
This blindness becomes worse as we are bombarded with endless repetitions of
useless information and mindless recipes for a successful life.
Quality repetitions stand out because they are based on beings rather than
products. It is an arousing kind of repetition.
Keep repeating the Pythagorean theorem, Heracleitus' saying that 'all is flux'
or one of Mozart's melodies, and the harmony in them will be revealed to you
and it will feel as if new, unimaginable doors have opened inside your mind.
By contrast, dwelling on 'it goes well with everything', 'time is money' and
other such contemporary wisdom not only does not help to unlock your mind but
it makes it increasingly narrower.
Annita Xanthou continuous her instinctive poking around these abandoned
landscapes of dusty chords and forgotten harmonies.
After March 16, a sun is to shed light on Annita's kinetic sculptures and
sound-constructions at the Medusa.
Opening Reception: 16 March 2006, 8pm
Medusa Art Gallery
7 Xenokratous Str. - Athens