Bonhams “The Greek Sale” 10 Nov 2009 London | |
---|---|
Provenance: Exhibited: Literature:
"The top work from this time "In the 1980s Akrithakis explores the expressive potential of his materials with an increasingly intense fervour. His assemblages and wooden constructions, painted over with free, gestural brushstrokes, convey the intense atmosphere of a folk fest (multi-coloured light bulbs, plastic flowers, broken mirror shards, etc.). However, the top work from this time is undoubtedly the famous Bar. A life-size bar/artwork whose experienced reality instantly brings to mind the philosophy of Beuys and the Fluxus, the actual room presented by Lucas Samaras in Kassel or the 'little shop' that Ben transferred intact from Nice to the Beaubourg. All these are essentially acts of extreme consistency and sensitivity which abolish the boundaries between 'seeming' and 'being' and turn the idea of Art into experienced truth and energy."1 "Bar, this exceptional installation set up at the Bernier gallery in 1981, is an all-encompassing work, where space and art merge into one experience, in a personal and original conclusion of the conceptual approach the artist adopted throughout his entire oeuvre."2 "Akrithakis' constructions culminate into an entire space in Bar, in essence a bar/artwork. Bar may well be the most tangible expression of the fusion between art and life that Akrithakis so vividly experienced. Since most of his works are records of moments and emotions in his life, it is likely that the bar reflected his own experiences. Significantly, it was such a bar, or rather restaurant which his wife had opened in Berlin, that Akrithakis frequented along with friends and patrons, including Rauschenberg, Hockney, Beuys, Kounellis, Warhol and Maurice Bejart."3 One of the most charismatic postwar Greek artists, Alexis Akrithakis explored an eccentric and witty collision of expressionism and pop art, conveying an insistent search for joy and revealing the inventive mind of a restless child building his own toys. 1. M. Kotzamani, 'Bio-graphy' [in Greek] in Akrithakis, exhibition catalogue Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art and National Gallery - Alexandros Soutzos Museum, Thessaloniki - Athens, 1997, p. 296. | |
E-mail: info@nikias.gr