Βenaki Museum - Photographic Circle
Photography Exhibition
May 14 to June 12
Opening Friday, May 13, 2011, 20:00
Koubari 1 - Kolonaki
Photographic Horizons
Four photographers of the "Photographic Circle"
Vasilis Gerontakos - Angelos Michas - Vasilis Ragouzaridis - Andreas Schoinas
A group exhibition of four photographer members of the "Photographic Circle", through which an attempt is made to define the stigma and the boundaries of the genre of photography that is cultivated in the "Circle" and supported by the photographers who are also members of this association. The title of the exhibition is a reference to the points of the artistic horizon within which centrifugal and centripetal forces preserve the uniqueness of each creator while simultaneously emphasizing their artistic kinship. This includes two black and white and two color proposals, each moving in a different thematic and aesthetic area from the others, but all together highlighting the common elements of the artistic identity of the "Photographic Circle". The two "black and white" photographers are Vasilis Ragouzaridis and Andreas Schoinas, and the two "color" ones are Vasilis Gerontakos and Angelos Michas.
Vasilis Gerontakos discovers and reveals the unique property of photography to precisely record those fleeting thoughts and sensations that start from our eyes to be immediately buried in our unconscious. That is why one can see his photos mixed up, without beginning or end, regardless of their representations and their color or shadows, connected only by their strangely disciplined and repetitive form. At the same time, however, these disorderly scattered images of his build a new composition of the world we know, something that prompts us to liberate both our own gaze and our own dreams. This fulfills an extreme demand of art. To stir but also to inspire.
(Excerpt from the prologue by Platon Rivellis
in the catalog of the exhibition
with the photographs of Vasilis Gerontakos)
For Angelos Michas, the world is people. And for him, all people are good and beautiful. It is evident that, if he does not feel sympathy for the unknown in front of his lens, he will not press the button. That is why he felt genuine surprise when the issue of invasion of privacy through the abuse of recording media began to be addressed more broadly. For him, photographing people is a way of getting to know them. He does not feel that he is violating their personality or invading their space, but rather seems to invite them into his own private sphere.
There are no rules that define the approach and photography of people on the street other than those set by the common, and unfortunately now so despised, rules of decency and the precious, and unfortunately now so despised, humanity. Very often a person can cunningly hide the absence of the above in their daily life. However, it is very difficult to do so when photographing. The speed and immediacy of the medium will reveal his intentions and overshadow the photographic result.
For either an experienced or innocent eye, it is apparent that the photographs of Angelos Michas are characterized by decency and humanity. The photographer has no other intentions when photographing than to proclaim that he was there, in front of a humanity that, even when it seems sad, is beautiful, where humor comes to dispel ugliness, where loneliness is dignity and uniqueness is a privilege.
It is characteristic that Michas does not succumb to formalistic acrobatics. Perhaps he feels that even that would be a selfish use of people. And that respect requires discretion. His photographs are direct, essential, and not at all verbose, pretentious, or narcissistic. What he has to say, he says very intensely, but also very simply. Usually, the form is what gives the sense and measure of the approach. Michas is present but does not wish to proclaim it. Nor to hide it. His photographs are not stolen, nor coerced. They have neither laughter nor tears. Maybe a little smile and always a hidden thought.
The example of decency and discretion is also the fact that his photographs do not succumb to stereotypes that oppress individuals. The place where they were taken does not count so much. In Cuba, in Greece, or in India, people are equally kind, equally beautiful, equally lonely, equally funny, equally sad.
The photographs of Angelos Michas, in the dominance of a generalized photographic pretentiousness, tedium, verbosity, emptiness, and audacity, come to remind us that the photographic medium was born and grew through creators who respected the world and art with the same devotion. Michas, through his work, conveys the joy and love he has for photography and for people.
(Excerpt from the prologue by Platon Rivellis
in the catalog of the exhibition
with the photographs of Angelos Michas)
Andreas Schoinas has a great gift that has nothing to do with his photographic prowess but with his personality. He does not scare people with his presence. And so everyone trusts and relaxes in front of his lens. Whether they are children, the elderly, rich or poor, Greek or foreign, beautiful, indifferent, or ugly. He also has the ability and intelligence - and this time I refer to photographic virtues - to always (even in his relatively insignificant photos) create an interesting frame and a robust but - I emphasize - discreet form. A form that never intervenes to disturb the content, but that is always present. The plethora of minor events included in the photos disappear under the dominant photographic event generated by his frame intervention. And the viewer always has the feeling that they are being guided by the photographer to the crucial point that constitutes this photographic event. However, this is a deceptive feeling, because the details that compose the photo were and are constantly present, with the only difference that they never shout. Thus a complex photo is always presented as a very simple recording. What happens in the form, has its counterpart in the content. The laughter that Andreas Schoinas's photos usually cause is just the entrance door of the photo. A more persistent viewing reveals simultaneously - or on a second level - sometimes a sadness, sometimes a compassion, sometimes an irony. The children in Andreas's photos are always alone. Couples are always embraced. The elderly are never repulsive or tragic, but rather tender. The proper are often unrestrained, and the paupers or mad unexpectedly serious.
The world of Andreas is the most ordinary world of today's Greek reality. Priests, festivities and weddings, football, processions, and ceremonies. Nonetheless, we continually have the impression that Andreas sees things that do not exist and presents events that do not happen. His gaze, however, has learned to penetrate the obvious and his frame to highlight the commonplace. His lens is a theatrical spotlight that simply highlights and emphasizes what the gaze of the public viewer can no longer discern.
I do not know if one could characterize the content of these photographs with one word. Are they humanistic? They exude Andreas's love for people and his joy for life; do they express their relationship with the portrayed? Nothing is certain. Because the strength of the photographs lies in their contradictions. This, after all, is one of the reasons that would make them unsuitable for any professional use, which requires unambiguous information. Andreas approaches the photographed with undoubted love. At the same time, however, he reveals their weaknesses, so that the joy of the surface is complemented, without being overshadowed, by the sadness that lurks in the background. The world of Andreas, from wherever it comes, has shades of a peculiar Court of Miracles. The children are more serious than one would expect and always desperately alone. The priests have a more significant role as symbols and faces of a society and less as religious officials. The spiritually and financially poor are brothers of all others, urban or wealthy. But nothing would be so complex and dense if it lacked the peculiar humor of Andreas, a humor not sarcastic like Winogrand's, nor harsh like Arbus's. It is the laughter of Andreas, who ultimately loves, perhaps not so much the individual people as their madness, their idiosyncrasy, even their misery. That is why people show him trust, because in his gaze they recognize the tolerance, understanding, and tenderness that he feels for this world, which for him is everyone, the whole world.
(Excerpts from the prologue by Platon Rivellis
in the catalog of the exhibition
with the photographs of Andreas Schoinas)
Photographs
Opening
