Space
exists outside the door and inside the mind.
Antony
Gormley
I
Contrary
to popular belief, my opinion is that painting is not the suffering
art; this title is rather reserved for sculpture, an art going
through an existential crisis, directly linked with the constant
turmoil public life has been in for many a decade now, shrinking
dramatically under the invasion of the private, of the widespread
herd mentality and also of policing, which exists side by side with
violent delinquency, in an interactive relationship. In other words,
the sculpture, separated from its natural space and its open, public
function as an incarnate collective memory and as a tangible
declaration of freedom, is almost wholly banished to museums, private
collections and closed-off, closely guarded private spaces, luxury
buildings or their gardens, fenced and protected as if they were a
forbidden Eden. This is why modern scholars (Rosalind Krauss1)
refer to sculpture as being homeless,
desperately seeking its proper grounds.
Modern
sculpture, especially its more experimental version, is by necessity
housed in galleries, international foires or museums, modern
buildings that accommodate banks or corporations, and less frequently
in squares, parks, avenues or crossroads, which is where the monument
tradition meets the opinion of the state, in the broad sense of the
word, regarding what is aesthetically good. I would say that public
art is proportional to the education or the aesthetics of the power
that chooses it (for however long it chooses it) and promotes it (for
however long it promotes it). The public sculptures that surround us,
so long as they withstand the attacks of the vandals (who strive to
be commended for their good taste), are products of committees,
institutions, and specific political interventions. In this way, the
"monuments" serve official propaganda, rather than
collective memory or aesthetic needs. This is why I contended that
sculpture is facing a crisis; because it is the art being stifled in
search of space, while painting still enjoys the role of providing
fetish images for the ‒still‒
ruling upper middle class.
ΙΙ
Beyond
the boundaries of sorrow,
there
is nothing left but the convention of time and space.
Friedrich
Hölderlin
Art is
a machine of the imagination, tracing the confines of space and time
and overturning the boundaries of History. The small but explosive
tradition of modernism, on the other hand, was proclaiming its
independence from all systems of History, and the post-modern was
presented as the affirmation of historical continuity, so that the
past is dynamically activated within the art of the present. I
believe, however, that the distinction between modern and post-modern
is rather schematic, since it culminates in incomplete, as well as
radical forms. A work of art by definition contains the challenge of
subversion and the seed of the new, since it propagandizes a
"different" reality, a different social institution. On the
other hand, because of the very fact that it represents a cultural
value and a perceptible ideology, it is unavoidably presented as
being connected to the dialectics of culture—following,
in other words, a course parallel to the mechanics of History. So,
today, making the most of the experience offered by the past, away
from naive stereotypes and precast notions, one can delve into the
core of the work of art and study it for what it is, and not for what
some cultural authority systems force it to be. An art work cannot be
perceived outside the dialectics of History, regardless of whether
its ideological load functions as an affirmation of historical
tradition or as its negation. It is one thing, however, to
consciously study the evolution of the forms in space and time, and a
totally different matter to attribute a superficial image to History,
by outwardly imitating some styles in the way of an intercultural
collage, as was so often the case in the previous decade – at least
–, and with the aid of many theorists in the field of the
post-modern.2
Taking
all that into consideration, we endeavored to organize the present
sculpture exhibition by Kostis Georgiou, as an experiment and a
reflection into the dynamics of the "open" and the "closed"
space; in other words, the public and the private (if we consider
where and how we come to classify a museum in those terms). Thus we
created an enclosed "garden," a hortus
clausus
in the museum's atrium, where the peculiar sculpted creatures of
Kostis Georgiou will reside for one month, safe and free. Liberated
from need or fear, hostility or vandalism, enigmatic and ambiguous,
here they enjoy their selfish freedom revelling in the eyes of the
spectators.
What do these sculptures represent?
Are
they daemons from a time before the fall, mechanical super-flowers
and trees, or zoomorphic puppets of the future? Do they tread on a
safety tradition or are they being tried on quicksand? Are they fire
walking in a self-destructing mode or are they preparing to take off?
Do they operate as teams or are they eager to sever the bonds of
dependence? Do they
dream of
public recognition or are they rushing to become part of the
fruitless (for their nature as sculptures) domain of the private?
Have they or have they not decided on their fate between the
humanoid, the herbal and the animalistic, the authentic and the
mediated, the plastic and the painted, the mass or the colour, the
monumental or the minimalistic, the narration or the subjugation, the
metaphor or the metonymy?
ΙΙΙ
Walter
Pater3
argues that romanticism is the point where paradox and beauty
converge. Deviance, peculiarity, and distortion are all quality
characteristics of Georgiou's sculptures, in addition to form
moulding, minimalism, presenting part instead of the whole (eg. a
disembodied head), and also the grotesque. In other words, everything
that would very easily be attributed to the field of expressionism,
with all its otherworldly (surrealistic?) elements. At any rate,
romanticism is considered to be the precursor of both expressionism
and surrealism in the 20th century.
To
be more precise, we are dealing with sculpture that derives from
painting, since its topics (zoomorphic or humanoid) have already
appeared in older (painting) exhibitions of the artist. (In 1990 in
his individual presentation at the Titanium gallery and his
participation in the group exhibition "A reference to
Bouzianis," Municipal Gallery of Athens, and in 1989 with the
tribute to the French Revolution titled "6+6," Athens and
Nîmes. All three of the exhibitions had an introductory note by the
undersigned.)
Bulls,
bull-leaping, rhinos, ferocious animals, figures surrendered to the
colours of fire or the abyss, distorted beings begging or showing off
their strength have always taken centre stage in Georgiou's art.
Consequently, the transition to the three-dimensional comes as the
natural evolution of a continuous study of forms and expressions.
There is, after all, the example set by eminent artists (eg. Matisse,
Picasso, Max
Ernst, Magritte,
and Dali, to name
but a few representatives of the early avant-garde and surrealism),
who combine painting and sculpture in a complementary way, also seen
in other modern artists, such as Horst
Antes or Thomas
Schütte.
Georgiou the sculptor, however, continues to make references to his
immovable hero-artists, Willem
de Kooning
and Francis
Bacon.
Mythologizing monsters, monstrasizing beauty. And regardless of how
his sculptures differ from his painting obsessions (graphic
conveniences, visual conventions etc.), one can discern in them,
however, a constant tendency to merge drama with the farcical, the
rhetoric of the form with its self-negation, intensity with
playfulness, the "pessimism" of the form with the
"optimism" of the radiant colour. In other words,
antithesis giving way to thesis.
IV
This
small retrospective exhibition presents in a concise way the
experimentations and accomplishments of the sculptor-painter in the
past twenty years. They comprise compositions initially moulded in
clay, to be transferred later to a longer-lasting, more grandiose
material: copper, bronze, polyester, aluminum. What is his concern?
To study the boundaries between the human and the animalistic, the
logical and the illogical, the frightening and the grotesque, the
irony as content and the polished moulding as form. At the same time,
to immerse his artistic fantasies, those creatures that exist between
the obscurity of darkness and the serenity of light, in the realism
of the sculpted forms. Now the outlines of a painting become
intertwined levels, sometimes smooth, other times coarse, rough.
Always prevalent, though, is the need for diligence of form for a
final unity, no matter how its supplementary elements might sometimes
diverge. For that reason, I believe that his sculpture has a tendency
towards the classic, despite its experimental elements; its truth, in
other words, is evident, as is its enigma. Designed to become part of
an urban environment, in the depths of a city, not necessarily
imaginary or idealized, it experiments with its sizes, increasing or
reducing, in order for them to withstand the human presence. Very
small, and they seem helpless; very big, and they seem invincible.
You see, sculpture must always be surrounded by people. And people
are not necessarily innocent, despite their good intentions. So the
sculptor selects those sizes that impose themselves in the space
without dominating it, thus aspiring towards an honest compromise
with those who resent them or are unable to tolerate them. Maybe
because their existence feels inferior to or uneasy with their own
existence, despite the fact that, after all, people are much more
fragile than sculptures and sculptures are much tougher than people.
V
Wake
those who are sleeping,
leave
those who are dreaming.
(Written
on a wall in Athens)
Post-modernism's
main attribute is that the image ‒
produced at breakneck speed by the electronic, now digital technology
‒
is detached from the locus, just like its representation is
disconnected from the reference-concept that once contained it. The
images now refer to other images and the signifiers, gaining their
independence, echo other signifiers, while the inner coherence that
once held them together has now been corroded. All those elements
comprise a hyperreality, Baudrillard or Umberto Eco's hyper-réalité,
which, with the illusionistic quality of its images shows that the
boundaries between what is real and what is imaginary have been
irrevocably eroded. "Reality," thus, is our personal
relationship with this avalanche of hyperreal, deceptive images
offered to us by the image-producing mechanisms of modern technology.
Let's for example consider the televised image; while it pretends to
be depicting the most real "reality," a reality ad
extremum, the now wary consumer is aware that this is a wholly
constructed impression, a "hypnotic behaviour" in the words
of Guy Debord. A direct result of this phenomenon is Baudrillard's
ominous conclusion that art today has become a parody of itself,
since there is no reference to any content to distinguish it
(simulations).
Monotheism's
Jehovah considers the creation of simulacra, more precisely effigies
depicting gods in human form, to be something dangerous, even
blasphemous. This, however, is what "sculpture" means.4
Vasari clumsily claims that what the God of the Jewish, the
Christians and the Muslims forbids is not the creation of sculptures,
but their worship. Either way, sculpture enters the modern era
bearing the stigma of sin. On the one hand in human form ‒ even
when it claims to be "abstract" ‒ on the other hand in
dispute with God, since it tries to usurp His right to creation.
In
our time, Gormley, Schütte, Cragg, and Georgiou, professing a more
general "post" mentality (postindustrial,
postmodern,
posthuman,
etc.), suggest some human-like beings (humanoids) that hover between
the golem's prediluvian clay and the robot's advanced technology.
What
does sculpture want to convey, nowadays?
Why,
an ontology of the form that is freed from moral preachings or
self-righteous teachings, and the duty or the realization of that
spirituality that slowly seeps through matter, in order to create
what Bachelard called "the poetics of space." Sculpture,
finally, ascribes its ontological characteristics to existence; that
is why it incurs divine wrath.
VI
To the
degree that the world (and the language) of images is universal, it
goes to say that the construction of images and their infusion with
meaning have both a place and a time. Especially in Greece, whenever
artistic production wants to break free from jabbering subjectivity
or from vulgar fashions, it has no choice but to be influenced by the
consciously ripening process of becoming acquainted with one's own
country. Do linguistic archetypes affect the image-making process, or
is it the other way round? Either way, if the indigenous school of
thought has an identity, it owes itself to the shared linguistic
consciousness and to all it represents on a social, historical,
expressional, and psychoanalytical level.
In
1993 Kostis Georgiou chiseled and welded a 2.20 x 2.20 m Swastika,
which oozed rust and filth. It was an ominously prophetic work; while
it seemed to be settling scores with the European past, today it is
disturbingly apropos (cf. "Eleftherotypia" newspaper,
21.10.1994). In 1998 the sculptor moves permanently towards
coppersmithery, creating his first humanoids, the bull heads, the
animals, and later the enormous porcupine, the flowers, the trees, as
well as the clusters of acrobats, reminiscent of Picasso's rose
period, among other things. When Spagnoletto was in love with the
Cirque Medrano artists.
Gradually,
gaining in sufficiency, Georgiou's sculptures travel the world,
conveying their ironic ambiguity from New York to the newly-emerging
metropolises in China, with their impressive museums, which, in turn,
discover the Hortus Clausus and the symbols of an artist from the
West. The Japanese Kan Yasuda, born in 1945, who creates his
monumental forms in an intense decorative way, is likewise received
both in Rome and in Venice (Museo Dei Fori Imperiali, 2007). Osmosis
between East and West, interculturality, a breaking of the frontiers
through art, transnational communication? There are times when
individual artists do what ought to have been done by nations or
international institutions with great resources and a long-term
cultural plan.
The
new Benaki Museum's atrium hosts an exhibition of some works that
have already travelled halfway across the world: the Couple of 1997,
the Guardian Angel of 2001, the threefold version of 1994's Equus,
the Acrobats' pyramid, which began in the '90s and was completed this
year. Conclusion: The journey continues and this is one of its very
prolific stopovers. Where will the next stop be? Wherever the
conditions are ripe for sculptures to be erected. After all, there is
no ideal place for them; there never was. There always had to be a
sort of prior compromise: From the Holy Rock of the Acropolis to the
vast tomb of the Chinese Emperor. Because, unlike painting, sculpture
doesn't suggest an ideal locus, opening ideal windows on blind walls;
rather it exists in space, at the same time creating it, it
surrenders to it, at the same time rearranging it, claiming a
different kind of beauty that goes beyond the natural. Let us not
forget, after all: "The art forms transcend the convention of
space and time, comprising a suggestion of eternity..."5
Manos
Stefanidis
December
2013
1
Passages in Modern Sculpture.
Cambridge Mass: The MIT Press, 1977.
2
Manos Stefanidis, Small Gallery,
Personas, crises and values of modern Greek art (Μικρή
Πινακοθήκη,
Πρόσωπα, κρίσεις
και αξίες
της νεοελληνικής
τέχνης), Kastaniotis
Editions, 2011, 4th edition, supplemented.
3
The Renaissance – Studies in Art and
Poetry, Oxford University Press, 1998.
4
N.J.T. Mitchell, What
do pictures want? The lives and loves of images,
University of Chicago Press, p. 246: "Image-making is a
dangerously godlike activity…"
5
Manos Stefanidis, A
History of Painting (Μια
ιστορία
της
ζωγραφικής),
Kastaniotis Editions (1st edition), 1994, p. 15.
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