The 49th Venice Biennale, the first of this century and this millennium, is setting off in a spirit of renewal and an expansion of the more general context and with an inclination toward the amalgamation and harmonization of the various skills involved in artistic activity. Harald Szeemann, Director for the second successive time, is pursuing this experience further by introducing a new broad theme entitled: Plateau de l’Humanité. He imagines a scene involving all humankind, a scene dealing with the human race, like a web, like a grandstand on which are exhibited the results of human artistic creation, like an elevated platform which offers a view to humankind. This is not a theme that deals with the narrow categorizing of exhibits. As far as our own conception, this specific theme can be used as an ideological basis with a strong emphasis placed on the historical and political element, which in our time could be interpreted along with an endeavor to reveal the nature of individual desires, of personal behavior and experience, for the better comprehension of our era and a greater awareness of the global developmental process, through a purely aesthetic approach.
At the beginning of the new century, a brief retrospective of the long Greek presence at this international institution will no doubt produce some interesting conclusions. Greece was a participant for the first time in 1934, at the 19th Biennale. Since then, outside a few of these exhibitions which because of their theme (Surrealism, Abstract Art), found our representation walking in step with the more general international spirit (1954, at the 27th with Nikos Engonopoulos, the 30th with Alekos Kontopoulos, Jannis Spyropoulos, Lazaros Lameras and Alex Mylona), we have usually found ourselves outside the general course of developments, trends and exhortations of the pictorial process of development on an international level, despite the fact that noteworthy artists often participate. A by now historic exhibition for post-war Greek art was organized in the framework of the Biennale, but independent of and running parallel to the official exhibition, by the French art critic, Pierre Restany. It was entitled “Three Proposals for a New Greek Sculpture” and presented the latest works of Daniel, Vlassis Caniaris and Nikos Kessanlis at the Teatro della Fenice in Venice. History has justified these selections made by the French art critic who in that instant brought Greece up to parity, in terms of international artistic concerns. In the last twenty-five years, with only a few exceptions, the Greek participants have presented interesting and well-composed proposals, which, however, have not been accompanied by a systematic and complete endeavor for the projection and promotion of our pictorial dynamic abroad, under contemporary terms. This fact occurs in inviable combination with the mere handful of awards that the Greek pavilion has been awarded. These were given to Jannis Spyropoulos in 1960 for the work “Swamp Sounds” (UNESCO Prize), Vaso Katraki in 1966 (Engraving Prize) and Alexandors Psychoulis in 1997 for “Black Box” (Premio Benesse della Commissione della Biennale Di Venezia). A further interesting observation is that in all these post-war participations, after a ten year absence (1940-1950) because of the World War II and the Greek Civil War, women have had a shockingly limited role: Alex Mylona in 1960, Vaso Katraki in 1966, Zerva in 1970 and Lyberaki in 1976. For the first time, in 1999 at the 48th Biennale, there was a numerical superiority of women artists with the participation of Danae Stratou and Evanthia Tsantila.
There is no doubt that participation in the Venice Biennale is the most important international event that our country takes part in on the contemporary artistic level. Marching in step with and identifying ourselves with international specifications constitutes a self-evident precondition for participation in international artistic developments on equal terms. As for the artists, the creation of works specifically for this exhibition and finding themselves rubbing shoulders with artists from other countries certainly is a prestigious and highly significant process, which in certain instances, acting as a prime mover, can create certain preconditions for the further development of their work. A basic criterion for our selection was, first and foremost, the samples of the individual styles of artistic creation taken in combination with the artists’ ages. A relative balance between the participation of men and women was also a concern in the drafting of our proposal. On a theoretical level, there was no confirmed example of a recognizable female difference to be found in the work of women. Furthermore, in the history of modern art, there are powerful examples of women artists whose work has been as forward-looking and revolutionary as any man’s, for as Beuys says, “The only revolutionary power is the power of human creativity”. The pluralistic character of contemporary art, indicated by the theme itself, was yet another demand, interwoven of course with the degree to which the work had been completed. Finally, the contemporary character of a work, which is not intimated formalistically only through the means or the materials used, but also through the manner in which it interprets its era and the manner in which it is incorporated into its society, was a basic axis around which our thinking revolved. By means of all these components and others which it was not possible to follow through on for a more proper representation of the Greek artistic dynamic, as well as by means of a multilevel interpretation of the more general theme of the Biennale, we ended up by selecting three artists who come -not in any absolute sense- from different generations but still remain within the framework of new creative work. Ersi Hatziargyrou (1951), Nikos Navridis (1958) and Ilias Papailiakis (1970) present works which set forth personal interpretations of the more general title of this exhibition. Inside the Greek pavilion, Nikos Navridis exhibits his work "Looking for a Place", a video installation where four videos are simultaneously projected on a 16 m. screen. In his projections, nine people are moving instinctually about in an environment, blindfolded. Wearing their “effigies” of latex over their heads, they have acquired a new tormenting epidermis which causes them to experience blindness and difficulty in breathing. The breathing, touching, and movements play the leading role. These Human balloons, are experiencing an unverifiable situation which creates feelings of fear and anxiety in them in an evolving space. These are four projections which propose an equal number of simultaneous situations. An absolutely staged situation, calculated in detail, which however ends up by consenting to the setting down of the unforeseen and fortuitous which spring from human feeling and experience. A theatrical set showing the nature of human existence, the anxiety over the unknown and the endeavor to find a personal place. Navridis, for yet another time, records how the world is perceived through reductive relationships. He is attempting to set forth a profound and private relationship using the most personal parameters of meaning. It is the successful union of an aesthetic and existential proposal by a truly contemporary artist.
The other two artists create new works -carrying on the tradition of decades involving the realization of works in situ- adapted to the specific space of the Greek pavilion and the Giardini, and specifically for the 49th Biennale. The “Benjamin” of the Greek presentation, Ilias Papailiakis, has created an installation based on his involvement these past few years with the probing of the imposition of the dominant image by means of the history of art and its reflection in each social reality. He has created a space made up of two enormous surfaces, rigged out with a theme (pencil drawing, elaborated on the computer and printed) which in its development creates a Greek isosceles cross combined with a swastika, a symbol derived from ancient Greek art. He has illustrated these walls with intensely suggestive fragmentary images containing archetypal meanings, such as religious icons, or iconographic motifs which correspond to tattoo designs -a crucifixion, dragon, black panther- in which he has intervened either by adding heterogeneous elements, or breaking up the image. Through the deconstruction of the images he has undertaken an ideological, conceptual positioning in regard to the question concerning the adulteration or the dissolution of the meaning of the image in the modern cultural developmental state. He renders his computer-generated images in three dimensions, so that they will be visible when wearing special glasses, creating a theatrical game which is based on the particular visual qualities offered by the cinema.
Ersi Hatziargyrou has created a mobile based on her previous inquiries centered around the mysterious and dangerous landscape of the most ancient mine in Europe at Lavrio. The work “Metis” -taken from the Homeric word which connotes human creation, the construction, fabrication- is made of metallic elements and meshwork, employing various geometric shapes such as square, pyramidal triangles, and cubes which move about extending into space. In essence, through the robustness of the conception, the lightness of the structures and the susceptibility of the various elements, and using the earth of Lavrio and a column of mercury, she plays with meanings, such as the four points of the compass, the rendering of a living organism, the interpretation of a sentiment and a human feeling. The four simultaneous movements of the work refer to the function of respiration containing existential and even political implications. A work in the tradition of geometric and constructivist art, it introduces the personal experiential element, where the aesthetic fulfilment is indicated by the concept itself.
These three aesthetic approaches used by these Greek artists employing completely different means and techniques record, by means of a number of concepts, the discovery of personal truth. Through these works, the concept, its reflection in the personal, even in the body itself, is transferred in a profound and sincere manner to its receiver, the viewer. Personal space and time, the personal experiences of freedom and the purely intellectual and conceptual observation of a parameter of contemporary cultural reality, are concepts of the expression of which is dealt with from differing aesthetic starting points. In the end, the common denominator is that the individual converses with the general, the local with the international and the current with the everlasting by means of the personal or experiential emotion. Greece’s artistic representation this year is striding toward the 49th Biennale in a spirit of unity, true solidarity and cooperation with surprises in store on both the organizational and artistic level. This enterprise is for all of us a keen provocation and captivating experience. Lina Tsikouta Commissioner for the Greek Pavilion, 49th Venice Biennale |
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