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TOPOS

Nikos
Markou
TOPOS
June 27 - September 13, 2020
Poros

Photographer Nikos Markou selects spaces which he defines as a personal "Topos" — a private point of reference.

His Topos of urban or other decontextualized landscapes leads towards a clear or unclear horizon which renders them deliberately finite. The human presence is either nonexistent or merely hinted at—but its impact is all too visible: pollution, environmental destruction, deterioration of nature, distortion of the physiognomy of the place. In the images of Athens, degradation has evolved into an everyday experience, but similar elements can be discerned out of town, such as the half-sunken ship that dissects the horizon and the sea in Eleusis. Even the lotus flowers in the Corinthian landscape hint at the loss of memory more than at blossoming and bounty.

Here the photographer aims to generate a semi-objective impression as he invisibly intertwines natural and artificial elements. His “topos” is constructed via the framing of his chosen subject.

Artworks

GREECE AND WRITING CODES

Constantin
Xenakis
GREECE AND WRITING CODES
June 27 - October 4, 2020
Poros

The multifaceted visual idiom of Constantin Xenakis is inspired by signs and symbols that span the spectrum from the ancient worlds of Egypt and Greece to contemporary reality: urban structures, computer systems, the chaotic internet. He charts and codifies, combines elements from past and present, documents and denounces the impasses of communication, the lack of understanding, the contemporary world's failure to connect.

His works unify time and space, since questions like these have always engendered a universal preoccupation. They unfold along an axis of repetition / juxtaposition / layering, a codified image of contemporary culture. In this way the artwork becomes a means of ideological critique to the current sociopolitical system.

The emblematic work in the series at the Museum is a map of Greece, a chart of the sea—"la mer grecque". As always in the mapping works of Xenakis, the objective documentation is chaotically mingled with symbols-references that are personal or cultural in a broader sense. The charted Aegean Sea is presented as a "mosaic of shipwrecks"; a Greek sea that acts as both an intercultural cradle and a hub of Greek tragedy. It must be remembered that the Aegean is the predominant marine point of reference throughout Greek history, political and cultural alike, and hence a timeless element of Greek and Greek-born identity.

Artworks