Open Studio at EUC

A group of my undergraduate students at European University Cyprus opened their studio to the public on Wednesday, December 21, to show their final projects from the class GRA340: Contemporary Issues in Art. Below are some examples of the students' work:


Victoria Shabanova, Untitled, 2011; prints on paper, black pen.


Vasilis Vasiliou, Breaking Walls, 2011; constructed wall, stencils.




Natalie Georgiou, Photography or Art, 2011; found photograph printed on fabric, wooden box with various threads, needles, light table.


Joanna Gorka, True Woman, 2011; a series of digital photographs

'ART'

Kazimir Malevich, Suprematist Composition: White on White, 1918, at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)

The play 'Art', written originally in French by Yasmina Reza (1994) opened in Cyprus last week. In the play, when Serge - one of the three characters (Marc and Yvan are the other two) - buys a 'white' painting for an astronomical prize, questions about what counts as art and what doesn't, as much as about the meanings and interpretations of artworks, surface parallel issues on the limits and expectations relevant to friendship. The white canvas beyond illustrating the wider challenges on the concept of art, historically situated in the beginnings of the twentieth century, becomes here an empty surface upon which several readings and writings are tried out. Readings regarding the possible meanings of the work, of art and especially of the art market, but also writings about the ways in which friendship can be challenged, maintained and re-shaped based on individual expectations. How much are you defined by your friends and how neutral are one's opinions and tastes? How much can you shape or expect to shape your friends? How much are we do expect to have the same ideas and share the same values with the people who choose to be friends with? 'ART' was such an exciting play, relevant to out times and reflecting broader philosophical issues.

A conversation with actors Alan Alda, Victor Garber and Alfred Molina about the play 'Art' on Broadway, a HERE

Tomas Saraceno's "Cloud Cities"

The first thing that the viewer currently sees upon entering the Hamburger Bahnhof Museum in Berlin, is a space with cell-like transparent balls - some larger than others - filled with strange plants that seem to grow inside their free-floated cocoons. Each one of these biospheres is stretched across the large space of the museum and visitors are welcome to touch, smell or even climb inside them. Saraceno's installations do not simply aim to be a space for visitors' participation and immediate engagement, but they also allow them to travel to a place that is imaginative: an almost mythic and unreal plane where things are different. Through this work, concepts such as space, time and possibility can be re-visited.

The Jewish Museum, Berlin

A fascinating museum designed to initiate a multi-sensory experience. The display, however, of a plethora of objects on the last floor of the museum seems rather disconnected from Libeskind's initial aim to create a museum of multiple interpretations. While Libeskind's designed 'voids' in the museum's architecture, and the interplay between the dark spaces and the openings on the museum's wall, are quite effective in their affect and potential impact, the piles of objects and degree of textual interpretation with which the viewer is bombarded in the end, raise questions about curatorial decisions as much as the role of a Jewish Museum in Berlin.

"Cyprus in Venice" Exhibition at Nicosia Municipal Art Centre

by Carolina Oroudzhalieva
Undergraduate Student of Graphic Design at EUC

The exhibition was organized by the Ministry of Education and Culture, Cultural Services and the Pierides Foundation. It was showing at the Nicosia Municipal Arts Centre (Old Power House) for almost 4 months, between 3 December 2010 and 27 March 2011.The display was set up to commemorated the 50th anniversary of Cypriot Independence, and as a “tribute to the 40 years of participation of Cyprus in the Venice Biennial of Art, from 1968 to 2009.(1)”

The Venice Biennial, also called Venice Biennale, came from the Italian Biennale di Venezia. It is “major contemporary exhibition that takes place once every two years (in odd years) in Venice, Italy.”(2) The first Biennale was held in 1895, where decorative arts were the center. However, with progression into the 20th century it became more international. Cyprus joined the Biennale in 1968. 6 Artists participated in the exhibition [curated by Tony Spiteris, who was a Greek art critic based in Venice, and acted as the general secretary of the IACS (International Association of Art Criticism)] displaying cultural heritage of the New State. Some of the names included were Stelios Votsis, Costas Joachim, George Kyriakou, Christoforos Savva, Giorgos Skotinos and Andreas Chrysochos. However, due to the unfortunate events of the 1974, led to Cyprus to a long break, until 1986 when the national participation resumed again until today.

The exhibition performs many tasks, and having Cyprus participate in it gives it many advantages. Firstly, the Biennale tries to attack a wide range of audiences both local and international, which gives Cyprus artists a chance to be able to show the arts and crafts to their country and also to see and compare the arts of others. Furthermore, at the Biennale art works are placed within a historical context, which allows Cyprus to show the progression of contemporary arts, as well as the post-independence of the country and the participation in the development of the Biennale itself. Also, the exhibition allows the investigation of “prevailing narratives and discourses, both within works in the national pavilion and in connection with international debates in theory and criticism”(3). This allows solving some misconceptions and prejudicing about countries, and it is educating the public about its culture, beliefs and mentality. Finally, the event itself acts as an archive, where progression in art, course of history of the counties is outlined, and lost source materials are collected and reconstituted. This allows Cyprus to have a documented source of the art history, its development and progression, further adding to the cultural heritage of the country.

Some of the artists that I liked were Panayotis Michael, Theodoulos Gregoriou, Nicos Kouroussis and Christoforos Savva.
Panayotis Michael, active member of the Cyprus art scene, presented a series of drawing installation and murals under title “I promise you will love me forever”. They appeared in 2005 Biennale under title “Gravy Planet” borrowed from the 60’s scientific classical movie “alluding the dystopian reality”.

The work that I liked was a simple black and white representation, portraying what looks to be like a high jump. I liked this work because it is very playful. This can be seen in the way the body is twisted in an unnatural way and the disproportion of the legs, reminding us of graffiti or comics exaggerations to show speed, force and power. The way the body is cut in half and transformed into some sort of plant, giving us an imaginative edge ,letting us think of the speed used to conquer such high, and the extended leg that steps through the “ground “as if there is no floor gives a sense of instability, reminds me of the surrealistic movements of contemporary art. The way the artists organized the work, with many vanishing points makes it complicated and interesting to explore, reminding me of the multilevel positioning of figures during the mannerism period. I also really like the concept of the work which is based on the artists in transformation of space and identity, “expressing his preoccupation in with any form of transaction, assimilation and adaptation, both on an individual and social-political level.”(4) This works gives us the ability to understand that there is an immense effort present when trying to live or coexist with someone or someplace. According to the artists there will always be doubt, tenacity, flirtation, desire and fantasy, which lead to false promises and dreams which are often untrustworthy or impossible to keep. All of the above elements are clearly displayed in the chosen picture.

Christoforos Savva exhibited at the 47th Venice Biennale presenting hand-made life size compositions using everyday objects like clothes, cardboard, pins, photographs and canvases, which he manipulated to produce a series of short-lived sculptures showing shapes of outlines of “trees, animals, object and people, suggestive, through their discrete occupancy of volume and dimension, of the emotional state of absence”(5). Due to the works delicacy most haven’t survived, but the artists recreated a small scale version of the originals for this exhibition.

I like these works as they are based around culture. The hand-made pieces are so laborious and time consuming that it really shows the artist’s intervention with the culture itself, experimenting with the actual materials used for hundreds of years and using them to create something new. This shows the artists devotion, pride and patriotism for his country. Whether the materials are used for an abstract composition or to recreate a landscape the works are amazing to look at even in small scale. His works remind me of Tara Donovan, who is currently exhibiting at the Pace Gallery in NY, with her Drawings made out of pins. I really like the idea of taking something so simple as a pin or thread, and using it differently, transforming it into drawing or a landscape model. This remind me of the avant-garde movements of modernity where everything can be used to make art, not just traditional, established methods.

Theodoulos Gregoriou presented his works in the Aperto 1990, separate section of the Venice Biennale main exhibition. Aperto concentrated on more experimental, emerging art form, with high international standards, where Theodoulous was presenting his works next to Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst. His Autophoto-Heretophoto (from Greek ‘self-illuminated’ an illuminated by other source’), demonstrated geometric rendition of Aristotelian Principles, in particular the philosophies of form over logic “mind over matter” (6). His cone shape installation interested me in particular, as it reminded me of a telescope where I can look at and see projections of distant stars. It was designed to give a feeling of a futuristic moonscape where planet units projected or reflected light. The work reflected the artist’s interest in the passage of dark to light, inside and outside, combining media technology with existing philosophies of the ‘natural’ universe. His ‘mathematical’work reminded me of cubism artists like El Lisicki where geometry, order and math were the dominant features. The light created from the objects and inside the cone where very special giving the feeling of something future like, hence reminding me of the futurist movement of modernity where a lot was left to the imagination alone.

The fact that these large scale exhibitions exist and give so many countries, like Cyprus, a chance to participate is fantastic. This allows not only multicultural exchange of ideas and techniques by the artists of today, education of the each, separate different cultures, but also it allows to document the progression of arts in history, create new ways to challenge the canon and generate new styles, movements and history of the art world.

Bibliography:
1. http://www.cyprusevents.net/events/cyprus-venice-1968-2009/
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venice_Biennale
3. Exhibition Guide Booklet, p. 4
4. ibid, p.33
5. ibid, p.25
6. ibid, p.19

Photos by Ani Martyrosian, undergraduate student in Graphic Design at EUC.

Kaleidoscope

we don’t have to go long in the woods to experience the always rather anxious impression of going ‘deeper and deeper’ into a limitless world

[Bachelard, The Poetics of Space, 1964: 185]

Now. When I finally find myself in the silence of my own office, when no one else is around, and I have a few minutes just for myself, I find it best to write of what I meant to write for weeks now: the exhibition of Lefteris Tapas at Omikron Gallery in Nicosia. His work is simplistic in the repetition of shapes and lines and the lack of any color, but the black and white works are more than just that: they are a game with light, emotion, and inner speculation. I avoid the word contemplation on purpose. Although both, ‘speculation’ and ‘contemplation’ reflect a process of deep thought, the latter often connotes a sense of meditation that is secure and almost wise, while the first is simply a gesture of guessing and which involves a high risk of failing to reach a correct answer. But it is this type of guessing that could sometimes yield great profits. For me, the journey to one’s mind and the narration of that landscape, otherwise invisible to the eye exactly because it lies beneath it (the eye), is one that involves a great risk of failing to reach any type of certainty. The mind, like a forest causes a feeling both of anxiety and of curiosity because one never knows what it is there to find – even when it is one’s own. Tapas work is beautiful because with a certain hand he draws an uncertain world.

International Motion Festival Cyprus

The 1st International Motion Festival (IMF) will be organized in March 2012 in Nicosia, Cyprus by the Department of Arts of the European University Cyprus, and it will be the first of its kind both in Cyprus and the broader Mediterranean and Middle East region. It aims to bring together film-makers, video artists, computer animators, graphic designers and their audience and to familiarize the public with what has traditionally remained as the "invisible art": motion graphics.

Even though motion graphics has been around for decades as a discipline, it is only recently that it has taken leaps forward and been acknowledged as another art form. The 1st IMF aims to open a forum for the presentation of the most contemporary and most creative work in the field of motion graphics and thus to be established as a pioneering event for the future, that will promote innovative and cutting-edge work.

Submissions will be accepted until August 31st, 2011 and there are no participation fees.

Arts Lecture Series 2010-2011

"Between You and Me and the Wall"

Kyriaki Costa, Depth of Surface, 2011

In the exhibition "Between You and Me and the Wall" at Omikron Gallery, Nicosia, and which opened on Friday, January 21, Maria Stathi and Polys Peslikas invited ten local artists to intervene onto the gallery's walls to create work anew and one that is going to cease to exist when the exhibition ends in three weeks (22 Jan - 16 Feb). All ten artists engaged in an intimate process of re-inventing the white walls of the gallery, knowing that the final result will be ephemeral. Nonetheless, all invested time with precision in the production of an exhibition that is by definition contemporary.

While most of the artists 'drew' on the walls or marked the walls using various means, such as printed wallpaper, collage, pencil, charcoal etc, Kyriaki Costa chose to intervene onto the volume of the gallery space by hanging an actual/physical divide in the middle of the gallery (shown above). It is made of net on which she printed a found photograph that she manipulated digitally. The work changes the space by adding another wall, a barrier to an otherwise open plan, and thus a barrier to visitors' movements in the room. Although a solid boarder, its semi-transparency transforms the work into a metaphor for the relationships between gallery visitors. While all in the same room, seeing and often inspecting each other, their interaction is minimal (unless they know each other in which case they restrict movement and gather in groups around wine). Kyriaki Costa, with her “Depth of Surface”, is forcing the viewer to interact with others behind the safety of her 'curtain'. The shadows of people behind the constructed screen not only become part of the piece and the printed image of men ready to dive into the water, but also of the viewing experience.

The fact that Kyriaki used a specific technique so that the printed image on one side is not visible on the other creates a game of positive and negative space (shown below). The ready-to-jumb in the water, half-naked men, on the one side completely disappear on the other side, leaving behind only the artist’s stitches of the figures' black or dark grey hair and of the brunches of the trees above them. This double view of the work could stand also as a metaphor for the relationship between visitors and artworks: visitors look at artworks, but rarely force themselves to engage with what lies underneath the ‘surface’ of the obvious image. In this case, Kyriaki reveals the often ‘hidden’ other side of the work’s surface and the depth of its meaning. This act of complete abstraction from one side to the other, through stitching, creates an interesting opposition and even a paradox within the artwork's own structure that is uniquely inviting.

BODY INTERRUPTED [The relationship between eroticism and death in the work of Nicolas Hasapopoulos]*

In essence the domain of eroticism is the domain of violence, of violation (Bataille, 2006: 16).

Contained in their white frame the figures hover in a dense, dark background from which they seem to emerge, only to stare at their viewer with anguish and anxiety. Their seeming uneasiness, a possible result of that intimate moment when they surrender to the animality of their human nature. This moment of interruption of the human body in erotic ecstasy is what defines the new work of the Cypriot artist Nicolas Hasapopoulos. Inspired by the work of Hans Bellmer and Cindy Sherman, his mixed media drawings are an elaboration of the interconnections between eroticism and death and of the violation or destruction of the unitary character of the human figure as a result.

In a closer inspection death and eroticism seem inseparable in Hasapopoulos’ work, and this relationship could theoretically be manifested in two ways. On the one hand, the dead bodies could be considered erotic, and on the other hand, the erotic act could be similar to death; the latter a sustained concern in the artist’s work. Both of the above cases are instances during which the consistency of human existence is interrupted: the first literal and the second metaphorical. It is no coincidence that in French the word for ‘orgasm’ is la petit mort; a tiny death at the moment of erotic ecstasy, a feeling that often interrupts the coherence of the living body.

This fascination with the relationship between eroticism and death has occupied other artists as well, such as Hans Bellmer. In Hans Bellmer’s drawing Rose open at night (1934) for instance – from the series of man-made dolls entitled Les Jeux de la Poupée (The Doll’s Game) (1936-38, 1949) – a young girl is shown to tear her skin apart, like cloth, to reveal her lungs, skeleton and intestines. There is an obvious contradiction between the young girl’s pretty head with the large bow on the hair, and what seems to be an enormous open wound on the body. In a parallel level the semiological contradiction between the name of the girl, Rose, – denoting a beautiful flower – and the gruesomeness of her interior makes the spectacle an unexpected one. In Bellmer’s work the femininity of the girl that alludes to the erotic desire and the uncanny effect of the body’s open interior suggestive of death by means of interruption are interconnected. This relationship is vital in Hasapopoulos’ work, illustrated through the contrast between the uncanny amorphous body-mass of his women, and their sharp, clear gaze, almost inviting and pleading, that call the viewer to participate in their erotic ecstasy.

In effect, Hasapopoulos’ women represent a taboo on the basis that often, social taboos are formed and defined in events that threaten the consistency and coherence of human existence. Such events can be the loss of control in drunkenness or eroticism (Hegarty, 2000), or death. Furthermore, faithful to Bataille’s conviction in his Eroticism (1957) that to maintain eroticism, it is necessary to sustain it as a sin, Hasapopoulos integrates this element in a playful manner in his work. He juxtaposes small images that allude to the Greek Orthodox Church and the amorphous but sexually active female body. This is an ironic statement to the fact that by maintaining the sexual act as a sin and a taboo, thus as something threatening, the Church not only prevents people from actually engaging in such acts, but instead accentuates the density of the erotic desire. As Bataille writes: ‘I can tell myself that repugnance and horror are the mainsprings of my desire […] and that this desire originates in its opposite, horror’ (2006: 59).

Beyond this, Nicolas Hasapopoulos’ work also stands as a mockery toward the fashion industry and the representation of bodies as perfect, quite distinct from the ordinary female body or the reality of the average woman. This is inspired by Cindy Sherman’s Untitled photographic series from the late 1980s and early 1990s, a re-interpretation of Hans Bellmer’s Les Jeux de la Poupée. The dichotomy of the inside/outside of the now amorphous body shifts the beautiful female body of the fashion magazine into one that is uncanny; one that is strange, unfamiliar, peculiar and almost frightening to the spectator. In Freud’s essay with the same title, The Uncanny (1919), Freud relates an aspect of the ‘uncanny’ with the German etymology of the word unheimlich. The latter literally means that which is un-homely and strange. The eyes of his figures are so capturing and inviting exactly because they reflect the anxiety of their own transformation as they give in to their instinctual desire to engage in a sexual act.

The amorphous bodies remind nothing of that which was initially ‘beautiful’ and similar to Sherman’s later photographic series, where the female body completely disappears to give its place to an amorphous mass of waste and detritus, Hasapopoulos’ mixed media drawings replace the female shape with bloated dark flesh mixed with body parts difficult to recognize. Meanwhile the artist’s aggressive marks on paper look like blood and veins spreading from the inside of his bodies towards the exterior surface. This possibly suggests what Rosalind Krauss also recognized in the work of Sherman: that behind the woman as beautiful hides the ‘monstrous otherness, the wounded interior’ (Krauss, 1996a: 398). On the one hand, the wound produced as semantic, ‘it thematizes the marginalized, the traumatized, the wounded, as an essence that is feminine by nature, and deliquescent by substance’ (Krauss, 1996b: 98). On the other hand, the uncanny amorphous body-excrement can signal decay, infection, disease, referring to corpses and all that stands as social taboos. In the end, these figures are the visualization of the artist’s theoretical experimentations with the idea that eroticism and death are inexorably linked.

* Nicolas Hasapopoulos presented his work at Is not Gallery, Nicosia Cyprus in November, 2010. A revised version of this text in Greek was included in the catalogue of the exhibition.

Bataille, G. (2006) Eroticism, (M. Dalwood, Trans.). London and New York: Marion Boyars [First published in 1957 in French by Les Editions de Minuit]
Freud, D. (2003) The Uncanny. London, UK: Penguin Books.
Hegarty, P. (2000) George Bataille: Core Cultural Theorist. London, UK: Sage Publications.
Krauss, R. (1996a) ‘Informe without Conclusion,’ in Z. Kocur & L. Simon (eds) (2006) Theory in Contemporary Art, pp.395-407. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Krauss, R. (Autumn, 1996b) ‘Informe without Conclusion’, October, 78: 89-105.

Happy 2011

After two years of complete absence from this blog, and a presence admittedly quite weak and inconsistent, I have decided to return. This time faithful to my writing and to this blog. This is my resolution for the new year.

I will mostly be writing about the art scene in Cyprus - my new home. A place that I have forgotten for a long time, but it has now attracted much of my interest as an increasingly evolving hub of young artists and of new type of experimentations. The urge to write about this derives mainly from an honest desire to engage with new things, to play around with ideas, to explore my new home, knowing of the challenge that I will be accountable for all I will be putting up on screen. Nonetheless, I do hope that this blog will be the medium for a series of discussions about the art scene both in Cyprus and elsewhere.

Happy New Year!
Elena