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.
