Communion
On Tuesday 20 December, from 19:00 to 23:00, Dépôt Art Gallery (Neofitou Vamva 5, Kolonaki) opens the group exhibition “Communion”, curated by Konstantinos Vafiadis.
The exhibition will be opened by Ms Olga Kefalogianni, MP for Athens A, former Minister of Tourism and New Democracy’s head of culture policy.
Communion means encounter, contact, communication. In philosophy it means communication with the world of the senses and, of course, with the world of ideas. Contemporary artists meet, come into contact and communicate through their work, stirring the senses and ideas, seeking the ideal beyond the reality that surrounds us.
Konstantinos Vafiadis, who holds a doctorate in art history and is a researcher at the University of Athens, notes:
“Every artist, setting out from the real world in which he lives and works, lets his soul, his mind and his feelings ‘travel’ to the land of beautiful ideal forms and states. And he does so with no ticket other than the will to be inspired, and with fragments of images from his inner world as his ‘luggage’. Seeking the elevation of his soul, the artist does nothing other than constantly turn his gaze from the earthly to the heavenly, from the tangible to the ideal, from the likeness to the original, in keeping with Neoplatonic axioms. This process of continually seeking and approaching the absolute ideal creation, which forbids any ‘profane’ and ‘unholy’ intervention and which moves the artist to carry it over into the field of earthly reality, constitutes his communion on his own arduous path towards immortality.
At first, a journey of this kind is lived in absolute solitude and isolation, which can sometimes last for years. Later, however, when the first visual evidence of the union and identification of the tangible and the ideal worlds appears, this journey takes on substance, as it ‘stabilises’ the truth of beings on the threshold between the visible and the invisible. As for the viewers of these works – that is, the viewers of the visible manifestations of reality in its fullness – they make both this process and its results their own, as they seek purification and deliverance from the fears and the guilt of this world. And this is communion.
Through the fragmented and uncertain diagrams of the conscious and the unconscious, then, the artists in the exhibition ‘activate’ the visible truth of things, so that it may approach its ideal model and so ‘partake’ of its essence. In this way they seek their own communion on their path towards redemption and liberation, which is perhaps also their personal wager on approaching their own ideal immortality. At the same time, however, the works in this exhibition are a means and a vehicle through which their viewers share in the liberation and catharsis of their mental and emotional resources. Every work in the exhibition, every glance at it, refines their mind and soul and raises them to the sphere of alternative realities. This is because every work of art is an inexhaustible source of possibilities for emotional, moral, intellectual and social fulfilment.
Communion of the arts, communion of the soul, communion of the real, communion of ideas, communion of needs and emotions, in whatever order they are born and take flesh within us.”
Participating artists:
Evi Akrioti // Magda Apostolou // Maria Apostolou // Antonis Antzoulidis // Kiki Voulgareli // Maria Giannikou // Anastasia Ginaki // Tasos Dimos // Loukia Dragatsi // George Dritsas // Tania Drogossi // Mara Kallinikou // Leonidas Kampanakis // Evita Kanellou // Angela Karalis // Magda Kourkoulou // Sofia Rose Kosmidou // Katerina Koutentaki // Helen Kyrkilis // Evdokia Kyrkou // Peny Konstantinou // Spiros Litras // Marina Maltezou // Penny Manavi // Katerina Bildjuga – Lemodeti // Vassiliki Bloukou // Angeliki Bobori // Alexandra Nakou // Panagiotis Nezis // Fotini Othoneou // Stavroula Papadaki // George Papadimitriou // Sofia Papadopoulou // Maria Pastra // Ada Petranaki // Nantia Rapti // Pandora Sofianessa // Sofia Stavrou // Stathis Sotirchos // Kerassia Touliatou // Maria Fili // Aristidis Chrisanthopoulos
Exhibition information:
Curator: Konstantinos Vafiadis
Organisation and communication: Dimitris Lazarou
English translations: Mara Syrri
Opening: Tuesday 20 December 2016, 19:00 to 23:00
Dates: 20 December 2016 to 18 January 2017
Dépôt Art Gallery
Neofitou Vamva 5
106 74 Kolonaki, Athens
Tel.: 210 3648174
Email: info@depotgallery.gr
Facebook: depotgallery.gr
Opening hours:
Tuesday to Friday 12:00 – 20:30
Saturday 12:00 – 16:00
Sunday & Monday closed
Over the festive season the gallery will be closed on the following dates:
Saturday 24/12/2016, Saturday 31/12/2016, Friday 06/01/2016
FREE ADMISSION for the public
