Vlassis Caniaris
Cocktail
Past
24 May – 31 July 2012
11 Haritos Street, Kolonaki
In 2012, Kalfayan Galleries, 11 Haritos Street, Athens, presented the landmark installation of Vlassis Caniaris (1928-2011) titled “Cocktail”. This exhibition sheds light on another aspect of the multifaceted work of Vlassis Caniaris who was one of the most significant Greek artists of the post-war period. In 2009 Kalfayan Galleries presented for the first time in Greece the historically important installation “Arrivederci-Willkommen-1976” which deals with the subject of immigration.
In the current climate of the “Greek crisis”, and the intense socio-economic upheaval worldwide, the artistic idiom of Vlassis Caniaris is not only tragically timely but also more imperative than ever. The presentation of the 1980 installation “Cocktail” at Kalfayan Galleries brings together important characteristics of Caniaris’ work; its aim is to make us think, to become the basis for intense social dialogue, to raise questions and not to offer easy solutions and answers.
With echoes of the Arte Povera aesthetic, Caniaris, in this work, has used everyday, banal materials such as wire mesh and clothing to fashion figures in order to create a tableau vivant. The figures stand in front of a series of newspaper and magazine clippings that are always relevant to the period in which the work is being exhibited. The viewer is invited to decode not only the ‘dialogue’ among the anonymous ‘guests-visitors’ but also the dialectical relationship with the current situation that furtively makes its appearance through the newspaper clippings. At the same time, the work summons and demands the immediate sensory experience from the viewer who is transformed into a ‘guest-visitor’ himself.
Artists
Vlassis Caniaris
Vlassis Caniaris (Athens, 1928 – 2011) was always a keen observer of his surroundings but also of the world at large. Thus his iconography has always focused on socio-political themes. He is one of the most significant artists of the post-war period in Greece and contributed to the emergence of a new artistic climate. From 1956 to 1960 he lived and studied in Rome and then settled in Paris until 1971. From 1973 to 1975 he lived in Berlin and then returned to Athens where he lived and worked until his death. He studied at the Athens School of Fine Arts (1950-1955),The School of Fine Arts, Rome (1959) and the University of Athens, School of Medicine (1946-1950). In 1976 he was elected to the chair in Architecture at the National Technical University in Athens and remained until 1996.
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