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Sianti Gallery on Thursday, June 8, 2023 at 20:00 has inaugurated the group exhibition entitled “Shadow battle”, or the Karagiozis artist, which is accompanied by the book of the same title from Nikas publications. It is curated by EKPA professor emeritus, art historian, Manos Stefanidis, who underlines that the Hellenized Shadow Theater magically combines the expressionism of the East with the most dynamic popular expression of Neo- Hellenism. That’s why as soon as the light of day falls around 21:00 the karagiozis player Nikolas Tzivelekis will bring to life in his beret Karagiozis, Hatziavatis, the Kolliterias and the whole company, scalding the current affairs. Karagiozis as an eminently politicized figure has been established in the subconscious.
Its profound aesthetic effect, full of symbolic allusions, can easily be read in the works of contemporary visual artists, of which Stefanidis notes: “…Karagiozis condenses the anthropotype of the average Greek. His ragia survives with his capaciousness and slowly becoming aware of his position and is made by Hatziavatis, Katsantonis and Athanasios Diakos. This is why Karagiozis is so popular and this is why behind his humor or satire there is always a political dimension. In modern Greek art, beginning with Fotis Kontoglou and Giulios Kaimis, the heroes of the shadow theater with their sociological or psychological mutations become protagonists and symbols of the aesthetic pursuits of the generation of the '30s arriving through various transformations, since they have even become comics to this day. And this is because this mixed but legal genre combines theater, image and speech, satire, imagination and a fruitful coexistence of tradition and modernism. As eloquent examples of all this, I would like to mention Hatzikyriakos- Ghikas and his successful collaboration with the Greek Dance Drama of Rallou Manos in the show "Alexander the Great and the Cursed Serpent" and the world-loved music of Manos Hadjidakis, the Tsarouhis and the Spatharides, Tassos, Sikeliotis, Fasianos, Sperantzas etc. But also Nikos Kessanlis with the shadows on the white cloth, i.e. the whole dialectic of black and white which influences the younger ones, from Christos Antonaropoulos to Manolis Zacharioudakis to the graphic artist Sonke etc. Key for all of them the motley artists is clearly the childhood memory because there is no generation where a primitive Karagiozis once played in the yard of their house. And of course the huge figure of Mentis Bostanzoglou, our beloved Bost…”
Shadow theater is perhaps closer to reality since with a hand- made, directly related symbolically to the eternal human condition. In this exhibition, in fact, it is characteristic that the artists do not dwell on an easy folklore theme but deepen its timeless message with the modern sensibility of their art. For this reason, the curator of the exhibition defends them with fervor: “… there are also painters who paint what happens behind or beyond things. The face of the hero or the everyday person as a mask or, as a landscape in which anything can happen. Like the crater of an active volcano. But more affordable. That is, there are painters who can paint without a protective net, with the fear of emptiness but with the blessing of essential creation. The one who wants to take a stand on what is happening in the world today and can honestly address the modern viewer of this world.”
Ultimately, these projects work their magic. Like a waterfall, they invade an almost standardized culture, reminding us that Karagiozi’s figures as cultural elements travel on the train of eternity. They rise and fall and mutate.
They unite the generations with the play of light and shadow, the real and the virtual. So, to what extent the shadow theater transforms into a real miracle of shadows is anyone’s choice!