Section: TWENTIETH CENTURY (2013)
In the painting series Twentieth Century, the landscape is emptied of the polysemy found in E.D.E.M. and is refilled with a monologic, yet open to interpretation, atmosphere that embraces twenty-one figures of the twentieth century. These prominent individuals, who left an indelible mark in the fields of art, science, sports, and politics, now take center stage in the artist’s paintings, surrounded by the fragmenta of their lives. Through his visual language, Yayannos brings these figures close to us, while simultaneously investing them with an enigmatic commentary that invites the viewer’s impartial contemplation. These predecessors are reborn here as Yayannos’s spiritual offspring. Each figure is chosen for a different reason: one out of pure admiration, another with a sense of skepticism, one with respect, another with detached observation, yet all are ultimately filtered through his personal means of appropriation. They become his own Twentieth Century.