TAKIS, SAMARAS, LAPPAS, KOUNELLIS, KESSALIS, NELLY, AKRITHAKIS, GEORGIOU
"Odyssey - Greek Art from the last fifty years an important survey by Christos M. Joachimides"

In its current exhibition Galerie Gmurzynska presents works by eight well known Greek artists. The reputed curator Christos M. Joachimides has put together an impressive overview of over fifty years of Greek art, a panorama of different artistic positions that strongly have influenced the artworld. The ambition of this exhibition is to investigate what, if anything is held in common in the work of these artists who all originally come from the same part of the world – Greece. They have all made a significant contribution to the development of the visual arts, as they are generally understood, to have evolved from the 50s up until today.

After the devastating Civil War of the late 1940s and the suffocating spiritual climate that followed in Greece, many artists, musicians, and intellectuals emerged in various foreign countries, dispersed among the large metropolitan centres of the west. Takis and Kessanlis went to Paris, Kounellis to Rome, and Samaras emigrated with his parents to the United States. In the late 1960s and 70s, Akrithakis went to Berlin, Lappas went to Egypt while Georgiou was in Vienna in the 70s and later went to Florence.

“Untitled“ from 1990, the large-sized work by Jannis Kounellis, that fascinates us for its materiality and aura, shows important aspects of the artist’s work – his fondness for unprocessed materials: wool, stone, earth, tire, steel, light wood and coal. These became his tools of expression and in the last resort, the human being himself. Kounellis’ relationship to Greece is a complicated fact which is discernible in his work. We as the contemplator apprehend a long examination of two cultures that influenced him; the rich mythological beginnings of his spiritual home on one hand, and the influence of modern Western art on the other. The result, as we see, is a dense synthesis of ideas and forms that reflect intransigently a reflection of our time.