On Friday, October 7, 2022, at 19.30, at Sianti Gallery, Minister of Justice, Mr. Costas Tsiaras, a well-known art connoisseur, will be announcing the opening of the personal exhibition of Christos Karas under the title “Christos Karas, The Great Dreamlike”, along with the presentation of a book by the same name, published by Nikas Books. Christos Karas, a talented representative of the ‘60s generation will be presenting part of his pioneering artistic carrier during the years 2000 to 2018. At the same time, in Hall B, a retrospective exhibition of his work will stand as proof that an emblematic, legendary artist can probe into an era’s very soul, in order to depict it in a symbolic manner. And in doing so, he opens the door to dreamlike worlds.
This idea of the metaphysical projection of everyday life is curated by art historian Manos Stefanidis. As he characteristically notes: “What we call ‘painting’ is the process of intentionally using light, in order to create an unintentional immortality. And it is then that painting can fulfill its soothing-consoling role, guiding the viewer through its power of illusion to timeless, dreamlike places. Places and times of absolute freedom. In other words, it is then that it can make a stand – even though in sotto voce – on behalf of a different, more attractive world than the one we live in, thus creating a truly revolutionary condition. In the paragraph you just read, I have used the magic words ‘freedom’ and ‘revolution’ in order to describe the art of Christos Karas. Add ‘dream’ in this equation and you shall have the perfect triptych: none of the two has any true meaning without the third one. In contrary, the three of them together complement one another. In simple words, we can maintain that art (should) rejuvenate or abolish older expressive means which have exhausted their content, inventing new ones while dreaming its own future. This is the most necessary and sufficient condition of all.Christos Karas created images which spurred out of the objective reality only to be transformed into delicate memories. As he himself underlines, tragedy can be rendered through innocent things, still lives with flowers or even flying objects. Similarly, when trying to communicate with the viewers, he often uses various tragic figures. A beautiful, lying woman can express the greatest form of tragedy through its effortless meekness. And this is what captivates his viewers when they come across the plentitude of simplicity, of life itself”.
And this is why Stefanidis advocates with such fervor the elegance of Karas’ painting: “When addressing the art of Christos Karas, I would use above all the word ‘elegance’. Because this elegance is not only an intrinsic characteristic of his lyric and melancholic painting, of his cloaked or overt erotism marking the bodies or the objects of his images, but it also characterizes his broader attitude towards life. Aesthetic, politics and social symbiosis…”
