“THIASOS” by COSTAS SPYROPOULOS
Thoughts and reflections 200 years after the Greek Revolution of 1821
Exhibition opening: Friday 17th December
We are introduced to a colourful “Troupe” by the international artist, Costas Spyropoulos, in his new solo exhibition, through which he presents a modern view on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the Greek Revolution of 1821 and which will open on Friday 17th December, at 19.00, at the Michael Cacoyannis Foundation.
Using the aesthetics of pop art, the master of the genre, Costas Spyropoulos creates poetic allegories and postmodern compositions, artistic scenes, in which he places his different “Troupe”, to which he chooses to give the leading role to the female form and to objects relating to her. The male figure, whenever he appears, has a companion character. Intense outlines, pantone colours, in a multifaceted universe that highlights the simple heroes of everyday life.
The general director and chairman of the Committee of the Michael Cacoyannis Foundation, Metaxia Tsirtavi (Xenia Kaldara), who is hosting the exhibition, notes in this regard:
“Costas Spyropoulos stands in memory. In the symbols that we will always face, with eyes open and closed, opening the door to a new era that wants colour, light, hope and goals. He speaks of this both in Greek and Globally and this is how his works are already travelling the world, to destinations at once so different yet so vital in signaling a coexistence formed of joy, solidarity and man everywhere “on this tightrope”. With vision, consistency, effort and ethos.”
For his part, Costas Spyropoulos, himself, notes:
“What interests me is to highlight the multicolour, the versatility and the infinite perspectives that the small everyday heroes, the poor anonymous, see and interpret. Those who, in different clothes, the same as themselves yet different, live through the times and the years, weaving the net that we call popular memory… If I have the opportunity, with my work, to transform reality into poetry, I will say that the criterion for any revival of the Greek way will be through persistent nurturing. That is, not to repeat the alienation, as history has known it, in the case of the medieval and modern West. I want my work to be a constant reminder that nothing comes as we expect it. To influence the flow of events requires vision, consistency, continuous effort and ethical management of events, myths and traditions. “Greece is a tightrope, between East and West, the abyss in the middle.”
Dr. Themis Veleni, Art Historian, notes in the text that accompanies the exhibition:
“Costas Spyropoulos’s art is primarily colour and shape, an ongoing experiment with their composition upon the canvas, with a constant, almost obsessive pattern process. He draws his iconographic material from a wide range of cultural symbols and representations by incorporating it with stylization, bold outlines and spot colours in Pop Art, while at the same time conversing with the Colour Field Painting in a postmodern inter-artistic form that creates paintings within a painting. He composes modern allegories by detaching the existing element from its environment and through stylization transforms it into a symbol, reconstructing it into a personal associative universe.”
Concluding:
“Costas Spyropoulos is a poet of colours and shapes. By selectively utilizing certain visual clichés, he proposes new ways of processing the iconographic material and forms a modern personal surreal pop idiom that he creates through colour, shape, scale, its layout and intertextuality an ironic game of reinterpretation, managing to elicit surprise through the cliché.”
Didactic text:
Dr. Themis Veleni, Art Historian.
Postdoctoral Fellow State Scholarships Foundation
(AUTh)
Lecturer at the International University of Greece, the Hellenic Open University and the University of Granada
Exhibition opening: Friday, December 17 at 19.00
Exhibition duration: until January 2, 2022
Free admission for the public
Opening hours: Monday to Sunday 18.00 – 22.00
The Michael Cacoyannis Foundation is characterized as a Covid Fee space and entry requires demonstration of a vaccination or recovery certificate in hard copy or electronic form.
Children up to 12 years old require a 24 hour negative self test.
Adolescents 12 to 18 years of age require either a 48 hour rapid test or a certificate of vaccination or recovery in hard copy or electronic form.
Spectators, including minors from 12 years of age upwards may enter following a mandatory demonstration of the following:
a) certificate of vaccination, in accordance with par. 2 of article 10 of sub-no. 1, or
b) certificate of recovery issued thirty (30) days after the first positive control with validity lasting up to one hundred and eighty (180) days following, according to par. 3 of article 10 of sub-no. 1
c) Police ID or driver’s license or passport or other proof of identity in order to carry out an identity check on the above under (a) and (b).
The above certificates (a) and (b) are displayed either in printed form, electronically or via mobile app, which the owner or legal representative of the company (or authorized person) scans electronically through the special application of article 33 of law 4816/2021 (A’118) Covid Free GR.
Alternatively, for foreigners from a third country (outside the European Union, the persons of the previous paragraph, check the above certificates in hard copy.
Minors aged between four (4) and eleven (11) years of age may submit a self test statement of the last 24 hours, performed by either a parent (custodian or not), or guardian, in accordance with par. 3 of article 10 of sub no. 1. No physical presence is required by parent or guardian.
Alternatively, minors up to the age of seventeen (17) may present upon entry a certicicate of negative diagnostic test for COVID-19 (PCR or rapid-test) in accordance with par.3 and 4 of article 9 of the relevant.1.