Naif painting from Greece and France
Ever since modern art discovered the idea of «primitivism» in the early 20th century, naif art, children’s art or art from the so-called primitive civilizations – images that, in general, were until then outside the canon of Western art – entered the aesthetic vocabulary. As soon as artists like Dubuffet, Picasso and Brancusi were able to expand their visual vocabulary and borrow elements from «cruder» styles and non-Western art, styles that were not accepted until then were considered not just interesting but innovative and «revolutionary.» The works of French artist Robert Combas and the Greek Evgenios Spatharis, the renowned puppeteer of the Karaghiozis theater, both stem from that turn in the history of Western art. This is partly what brings them together in an exhibition curated by Iris Criticou and held at the Fine Arts Kapopoulos gallery. Robert Combas, who will turn 50 next year, paints in a stylistic blend of graffiti art, comics, art brut and abstraction using bold outlines, two-dimensional compositions and strong colors. Known as «figuration libre,» his style is a mix between figurative art and abstraction. Densely painted, his canvases show totemic-like figures drawn from the history of civilizations from all over the world, against a background of tightly woven motifs. Based on a multicultural perspective, Combas playfully mixes motifs and heroes from Eastern and Western history. Don Quixote, an Aztec warrior, the Tower of Babel, Saint Maria of Egypt, and an Indian totem make up a strange world of cultural conflicts and encounters. Combas also uses unusual titles for his works and actually takes innumerable notes on a story before beginning to paint. Robert Combas moved from Lyon to Paris in the early 1980s and worked as an illustrator for Liberation’s weekly supplement. Before that he was co-founder of a rock group that was based on «primitive» music and dadaist texts. Since the 1980s, his work has been shown worldwide and has grown in acclaim. His work is being presented for the first time in Greece, in collaboration with the Guy Peters gallery in Paris. The works of both Combas and Spatharis reinvent fables or historical events of the past and make them a playful part of the present. Unlike Combas, however, Spatharis focuses exclusively on Greek folk tradition and history, particularly the period when the country was under Ottoman rule and the period of the liberation. His heroes are mainly drawn from the Karaghiozis puppet theater but in the exhibition one will also find scenes referencing ancient Greek mythology. Spatharis is principally known as the eminent Karaghiozis puppet theater player, the son of Sotiris Spatharis, one of the pioneers of the genre in Greece. As a young artist, Evgenios painted the posters for his father’s puppet theater performances. He also painted some of the scenes and cutout figures. As his talent grew he started painting independently of the puppet theater plays. Now in his early 80s, Spatharis can be considered not only a puppet theater performer but also an outstanding naif painter. Still, many of his paintings resemble set designs and capture entire stories. Visually, they are in complete contrast to the paintings of Combas. The colors are softer and the compositions have nothing of the dense, interwoven motifs seen in the work of the French artist. In a certain way, they are happier images, pictures with a humorous naivete, not the hard quality sometimes seen in the images by Combas. As in the case of Combas’s art, the paintings of Spatharis remind us of our cultural heritage not in a scholarly, intellectual manner, but in a way that makes history more pertinent to the present, more heartfelt and immediate. At Fine Arts Kapopoulos (62 Poseidonos, Alimos, 210.983.5303) to May 6.
