calendario eventi  :: 

X

7/3/2007

The Place is Elsewhere

Medusa Art Gallery, Athens

Group show

Curated by: Emmanuel Mavrommatis

For three years now the Medusa Art Gallery organises a series of exhibitions in collaboration with curators. Under this scheme, each year a curator is invited to present an exhibition in which the participating artists work on a specific subject. In 2007 the Gallery will host the different propositions of two curators.

The second event of this year is the exhibition "The Place is Elsewhere", organised by Emmanuel Mavrommatis with artists Antonis Kellis, Voula Massoura, Eusevia Michailidou and Tassos Triantafyllou.

Curator Emmanuel Mavrommatis notes in the catalogue: [...] The idea of the exhibition [...] is that the work of art is presented as the image of another thing which is usually a natural object, a technological object or a theoretical construction. So irrespective of whether the artwork depicts a human or natural activity, the inorganic world or the urban environment [...] or simply an idea, the problem is the same: the artist seems to bring into the realm of his expression (painting, sculpture, construction, environment or any other) something that lies elsewhere. This act takes away part of the authenticity of the expression because the expression is no longer there, intact – it has borrowed something from somewhere else [...]

[...] The question is whether the artist is able to accept, in part or in all, his expression as a spontaneous communication with the world and shoulder the insecurity of this relationship or, conversely, he seeks some cover: he seeks protection under the prestige of history, which teaches him to clarify and support his roots (to justify his art and have it covered by nature or history) through some ideological father –albeit of his own free choice–whose commands he appears to be fulfilling. [...]

[...] In post-modern thinking the artist builds a fortress and jealously guards his security (historical and social) by constructing and systematically reconstructing some father and his purported commands. [...]

[...] The artists in this exhibition claim the stand in order to articulate this question by making a clear distinction between the origin of the idea and the subsequent place (of the exhibition) where the idea is conveyed. [...]

The analysis of Antonis Kellis is based on the notion of a man who lives in nature, with no concept of human history, who is overwhelmed by information and interprets nature through the teachings he receives about history and the past.

By demonstrating the deterioration of painting as a result of its stay on earth, under conditions of humidity and animal erosion, Voula Massoura points out that the place of origin –and its special conditions– is decisive as regards the ability of the artistic idea to subsequently reveal a process and the functional outcome of this process.

Eusevia Michailidou presents natural objects in their own organic guises, which tend to distance themselves from any artistic coincidence; hence they tend to respond to their own natural layouts which are self-sufficient in terms of art history.

Tassos Triantafyllou conveys the unaltered imprint of a specific other place and marks the presence of this place through its absence, as demonstrated by its juxtaposition to the place of presence, by its almost distant, foreign function in it.

Medusa Art Gallery
7 Xenokratous Str. - Athens

stampa

permanent link