On October 7, 2016, Friday at 20:00, a group photography exhibition titled "Mini Portfolios" will be inaugurated at the Kennedy Hall of the Hellenic-American Union. The exhibition is curated by Platon Rivellis and will continue until November 5.
Group Photography Exhibition of the Photographic Circle Members
What allows us to characterize something as a work of art, as opposed to a product of technique following the same process, is the presence of a creator reflected in it. The subject, the form, and especially the vision are the means to articulate the creative presence. However, the concurrence of these elements in more photos by the same creator establishes their creative identity. In no art form does a single and unique work suffice to underscore the perspective of a specific artist each time. In photography, the practice of assembling more photographs connected by creative kinship is known as a portfolio.
Photographer: Panagiotis Andriotis
Group exhibitions always present the problem that there must be a bond among the participants, the reason they are housed together, and their distinct personal identities. Here it should be emphasized that we disagree with the current artistic practice that mainly showcases the curator's approach as the identity and cohesive link of the contributions. However, first, the curator is neither a creator nor should be presented as such, and second, in a group exhibition, creators participate (outside the curator's shadow), not works (under the curator's shadow). The common theme is often the easy and usual—not bad—solution to meet both of the above prerequisites of a group exhibition. Ideally, even under a common theme, different artists whose works are organically and internally linked should coexist. Yet again, we must highlight another disagreement with the also widespread practice whereby the unified theme takes the place of vision or content, nullifying the creators, as often happens lately with political or social topical themes. The only reason specialists and the public engage with art is the existence of creators and their vision. Everything and everyone exist to aid in communicating with these creators and should not function as proxies or easy substitutes for a creative personality. Moreover, photography lacks both the narrative luxury of cinema and the range of abstract power of painting. Consequently, themes that transcend mere plain description not only do not help but negate its character.
Photographer: Kleopatra Kourlampa
The connecting link of the many photographers comprising this exhibition is something simpler, even than a common theme. It is the fact that they participate in an artistic photographic group, the Photographic Circle, to which all are members, some since its founding in 1988 and others over the subsequent years. Therefore, their common presentation is because they share certain views on art and photography and admit some common influences. However, this makes recognizing kinship features and a distinct personal identity even more difficult. The specific exhibition space, which also limits personal portfolios to four photographs per exhibitor (hence the exhibition's title "Mini Portfolios"), poses an interesting challenge as it further complicates the above dual objective.
Photographer: Panos Rozakis
Selecting the photographers was more difficult than selecting their individual photographs because at least one hundred fifty of the two hundred thirty members of the Photographic Circle systematically and successfully engage in the art of photography, but it was practically impossible to include them all in the same exhibition. Their selection was based on a set of criteria such as their seniority as members and their photographic productivity during the recent period. In this specific selection, the exclusion of several good photographers either because they had significant recent exposure in exhibitions or online or because they themselves relinquished their spots by withdrawing from participation also contributed.
For the uniformity of the exhibition, the same frame size and the same proportions of dimensions of each photographer's set of four were maintained. No particular importance was given to distinguishing between color and black-and-white photos, which coexist or even blend.
Photographer: Kostas Seretis
The exhibition viewer should avoid evaluative classification of the photographers or comparisons between the photographs. The objective is to see that there is a common language of the photographers, which justifies their participation in an artistic entity with only shared aesthetic artistic positions as the cohesive element, and a language with many "dialects" covering a broad expressive horizon. And that this language takes on the color of each photographer's creative personality since it is but the tool and simultaneously the starting point to lead us to a personal view, to a personal world, and concurrently to realize the power of the photographic medium. The photographers of the "Circle" use reality aiming at visual poetry. They are not interested in events, do not seek visual surprises, nor do they compete with life's originality. But within the framework of poetic realism, they attempt with an abstract and, ideally, transcendent discourse to imprint their perception of reality in their photographs.
Finally, the viewer must not forget that they are not merely seeing images of reality, but images of a photographed reality, which aspire to be works of art, i.e., works of transformation. Therefore, any discourse developed concerning these photographic mini portfolios, these small but concentrated volumes of photographic work, can only be an abstract, metaphorical, and not evidential, i.e., a poetic discourse.
Plato Rivellis
Curator of the Exhibition and
President of the Photographic Circle
Photos
Opening
