Exhibition "Man and His Image" in Delphi 2018

Organizer: European Cultural Center of Delphi (ECCD)
Venue: Delphi (Exhibition Hall of the ECCD Conference Center)
Opening: Saturday, October 27, 2018, 19:00
Participants: 68 photographers with 190 photographs
Curator: Plato Rivellis

Note:
The exhibition is the culmination of a seminar with the same title organized by the European Center and conducted by Platon Rivellis for a total of 88 photographers over four days from May 18-21, 2018 in Delphi at the ECCD headquarters.
The exhibition moved to the House of Cyprus (Xenofontos 2A Syntagma, Athens) lasting from February 15 until March 20, 2019.

"Man and His Image"

A group exhibition resulting from twelve hours of discussion
and many hours of photography

In art, the subject is merely the pretext. The artwork incorporates and transcends the subject. The "what" logically submits to the "how". However, without a subject, art cannot exist. The choice of it may be due to very different reasons. Chance, obsessions, opportunity, and so much more. However, the adoption of a subject by the creator (for whatever reason) gives it the significance of a compass. At the threshold of maturity, the artist will realize that the subject can only be himself. Nevertheless, he will love more those subjects that revealed this truth to him and helped him express it.

In the last three years (2016-17-18) that the European Cultural Center of Delphi hosted a four-day photography seminar by the Photographic Circle (under my teaching), some themes were adopted as a simple starting point for the afternoon discussions and morning photo shoots. The allure of the sublime environment influenced the choices of the first two seminars. "Traces and Ruins" and "Sanctity". Delphi (and photography) are both ruins and traces. And sanctity transcends religion and extends to anything that overcomes time, just like art. The continuation could only be man. A man, however, who would not be connected with his usual position in the flow of life and time, as had been the case for many years in popular street photography and even more significant commemorative photography, but a man whose image, like a "sacred trace", transcends time.

It was decided (already from the first year) that the seminars in Delphi would be followed by a photography exhibition with the participation of as many of the photographers who attended as possible. It is natural for the knowledge and skills of the participants to vary significantly. However, the effort is for the—albeit limited—participation of each one (from two to four photographs) to reveal a little cohesion and the beginning of a style, while also showing a trace of the direction of the teaching that preceded. After all, every group exhibition must be a mosaic with a cohesive core.

The viewer of the exhibition (this one and any exhibition) should forget the subject of it. And because the exhibition is a group one, they should treat it in the way it was built. That is, as many and (very) small individual exhibitions, which, after revealing the schematic proposals that each photographer attempts to articulate, provoke a creative reflection, beyond questions and answers, which will lead them to a different approach to the whole exhibition. Then the seminar and the exhibition will be justified.

Plato Rivellis

Participating Photographers

Photographs

Opening (Delphi)

Opening (Athens)