Art flees the city for the countryside
Nature, the environment and the Cycladic civilization are the themes that have inspired a string of exhibitions outside this Athens this summer. In Naxos, at the Bazaios Tower, the island’s annual summer festival is holding an exhibition, starting on July 21, of contemporary works by Ingbert Brunk. The German sculptor has drawn his material from the marble sculptures of the Cycladic civilization. At the same time, Ioannis Michaloudis is displaying his «futuristic air sculptures.» Using space technology called silica aerogel (which is 99 percent air and 1 percent glass), he creates forms representing those of Cycladic art, building a bridge between the distant past and the future. An exhibition titled «Transmission/Show,» to be held at the Kardamyli Elementary School in Mani, is set in and inspired by the natural world. Starting on July 28, a group of 26 acclaimed artists of the generation of the 1970s and 80s, as well as younger artists, using a variety of artistic media (painting, sculpture, photography, installation and video) have come together in order to help the «public rediscover the landscape of the city through the process of walking, as an interactive experience,» explains the show’s curator, Marina Lagou. «The idea is to launch a debate on whether nature is not just the subject and recipient of art, but also, to an equal degree, an art space in and of itself – how far it becomes incorporated into and becomes a part of the art displayed within it… The exhibition attempts to transform the entire city into an art gallery and to illustrate how the boundaries between the public and the private sphere are formed when an event spreads out into the environment.» A veteran sculptor and avid nature lover, Giorgos Kypris will be showing his work at the Iliotopos Hotel in the town of Imerovigli on Santorini, starting on July 29. From 1993 to the present, all of Kypris’s work has made reference to fish. In the first series of work he did on this theme, the artist attempted to show the cruel and often inexplicable behavior of man toward different life forms by focusing on fish as victims of man. The observations he made over many hours of scuba diving in the waters of Santorini have led to a new series of works titled «Migration.» Alexandros Psychoulis in Volos On a different theme back on the mainland, in the town of Agria in Volos, the N. &E. Porfirogeni Foundation is hosting an exhibition of works by Alexandros Psychoulis, running until August 31. Installations, interactive works, video, flash animation and paintings, dating from various periods of this acclaimed Greek artist’s activity, come together to offer a new reading into his opus. Psychoulis was born in Volos in 1966. He studied graphic arts at the Athens Technical College and art at the Athens School of Fine Arts. In 1997 he was part of the group of artists to represent Greece at the 47th Venice Biennale, where he was awarded the Benesse Prize for his piece «Black Box.» Psychoulis creates interactive installations that are activated by the viewer and allow them to explore their subconscious, by encoding into sounds and images personal fears, desires and memories. The artist lives and works in Athens. Running in parallel to the exhibition, up until July 17, the town is also playing host to a workshop and an international performance festival, held at the old storage facilities of the State Tobacco Company, a modern building constructed in the heart of Volos in 1960 and then abandoned in 1990. All the performances are based on a Psychoulis’s concepts and the artists participating are Maria Papadimitriou, Evi Manidaki, Maria Hadzinikolaou, Zisis Kotionis, Nikos Platsas and the groups Radar and Poetsinsiesta.
