This past March, on the weeks surrounding Greek Independence Day, we were called in to install the first solo exhibition in New York of the artist Giorgos Taxidis that I curated. It was an immense honor and a great adventure. Below, I share more information, photos and a video of this show, that we are happy to announce, received positive reviews from media in New York as well as Athens! Scroll down for photos and our press release as well as a link to our online exhibition catalog!
PRESS RELEASE:
ἀπόλλυμαι [apóllūmai]
On view: March 19 – April 4, 2019
Works by Giorgos Taxidis
Curated by Tiffany M. Apostolou
Soil and memory. One is solid, natural, touchable, and the other utterly conceptual. Yet, both elements are intricately linked across many cultures, especially within those who have experienced uprooting of any sort. The first, tied to the idea of land, encompasses memory within its very core. It can simultaneously represent one’s roots, the container of one’s deceased, and the substance from which hope and newness sprout. The latter is something each person carries within them – a construct of the mind that can be experienced as vividly as reality, as vividly as soil. In this exhibition soil and memory come together in a combination of painting, drawing
ἀπόλλυμαι [apóllūmai], used here in its passive form, references loss which, in turn, generates within a person, the need to fill the void of that or who is no longer there. Memory, in such cases, serves as a filler. Yet, the artist’s works presented in this exhibition also serve to connect viewers through discussing the very human experience of losing one’s self in memories, and therefore lead to hope for the new. A trigger as simple as a small portion of soil from one’s past home, or as complicated as the photo and passed-down story of a child’s funeral can render someone utterly lost in
Giorgos Taxidis is an artist whose work
ἀπόλλυμαι [apóllūmai] will culminate with a monumental painting and powerful installation that will serve as centerpieces of this exhibition. The painting is rooted in an old photograph documenting the funeral of a child, an event liked to the artist’s own family in Pontus, one documenting an archaic tradition long gone for Greeks, this work is layered with questions. And with soil as a primary element, the installation will evoke not only one’s own memory of familial pasts, but those of their loved ones, who,