On Friday, 6 November, Ikastikos Kiklos Sianti gallery began the new season with the dynamic exhibition “Tondo or Circle of Humanness”. In this original visual event, 18 important painters and sculptors celebrate art as part of the human nature. The Sianti Gallery has presented some of our favorite artists with a challenge: to work on a round surface, encouraging them to emphasize in the center of their image. The result has an aura either of self-reliance or separation from the surrounding space, an astonishing proof of the endless possibilities embodied in the circle.
Exhibition Tour Part I – Manos Stefanidis
As Manos Stefanidis, art historian and curator, states: “Tondo or Circle of Humanness” explores the idea that art works in circles, as does life itself. Never-ending circles, overlapping at times, opening euphorically towards the future or disappearing under the weight of their own perfection. The circle, the perfect shape, the disc of the full moon which shines inaccessible on a starless night abounds in symbolisms. It symbolizes the annual circle, the adventure of human life – life, love and its consummation, death – and art, of course, the continuous observation of human existence, since the dawn of civilization. It is only natural that this perfect, even metaphysical shape, should challenge artists to master it, thus enclosing images, ideas, passions and agonies into its ideal form.”
Vasiliki Sianti, Managing Director of the Ikastikos Kiklos Sianti Gallery, underlines this visual innovation: “We always seek to offer art lovers something new. This particular exhibition is innovative not only to the artist, but to the viewer as well. The artists, accepting for their part the challenge of the round form, found themselves working on its limits. Inspiration led them to venture outside the lines, depicting the circle’s connotations in a game with tondo. Using various materials and techniques like led lights, painting, chopped wood, embroidering, glass, iron and braze, each artist explored a new artistic dimension through an unconventional form. The result was exquisite!”
Exhibition Tour Part II – Manos Stefanidis
The circle, rooted in Ancient Greece, finds its perfect expression during the Renaissance, when Michelangelo, Botticelli and Raphael transcended the problem of perspective, thus establishing the term ‘tondo’ by the Italian word ‘rotondo’ (round). During the years, many artists – from Monet and Picasso to Andy Warhol, Pollock and LeWitt – have used the round form in order to improve their rectangular productions. The circle, as a positive symbol of unity, has been a source of inspiration for the depiction of the world itself, bringing attention to its epicenter where everything comes together to a special focusing point. It is a symbol transcending its own outlines. And through this transcendence, it represents infinity. It is what stimulates the artistic mind to render motion, color and technique to every human notion. It is what mesmerizes the viewer when he/she comes in contact with art in its simpler, yet fuller form – reminiscing the simplicity and fullness of life itself.
As Rousseau has so emphatically described it: “Living means using my body, my organs, my senses, my abilities, every part of myself which gives me a sense of my existence. Whoever feels the most, lives life in its fullest”.
METRO Evangelismos