[selfimages]
A collection of the different ways in which modern Greek photographers deal with self-portraiture. The works by 10 Greek artists are presented in five sections: Autobiography, Identity, Fluidity, Familiar and Public, Primordial Memory.
Autobiography. The challenging of stereotypic roles and the imperativeness of a discourse on the mechanism of the subconscious in human behavior triggered a series of artists to explore the compound issue of autobiography, through photography, which takes the role of a penetrating mirror.
I will laugh From the series What shall I do when I die (1996) by Dimitris TsoublekasMOMus - Thessaloniki Museum of Photography
What shall I do when I die - Dimitris Tsoublekas
Death is an irrevocable limit, researched by sciences and arts, physics as well as metaphysics.
I will suffer From the series What shall I do when I die (1996) by Dimitris TsoublekasMOMus - Thessaloniki Museum of Photography
Dimitris Tsoublekas in his series What shall I do when I die (1996) stages imaginative self-portraits that examine aspects of the posthumous life, selecting witty roles and occupations registering the endless void as a continuation of the previous life.
My Identities (2017) by Periclis AlkidisMOMus - Thessaloniki Museum of Photography
My Identities - Periclis Alkidis
Alkidis comprises a number of ID photos collected from childhhood on, reaching up to the most recent one of his unemployment card during the financial crisis. The photos spiral towards the center, where there is the only self-portrait, facing towards the dark unknown.
Self-portrait, Triptych, 2010-2012 (2010-2012) by Aggeliki DouveriMOMus - Thessaloniki Museum of Photography
Self portrait - Aggeliki Douveri
In the triptych works of Douveri, defined as self-portraits, the self is projected as a presence and an absence at the same time, a fragmented version emerging out of shadows, reflections and obstacles, setting narratives enigmatic as well as existential.
Identity. The photographers apprehends their entity as a model immersing in images in order to appreciate or parody them, disguise themselves as a mainstream artist, a puppet, or assume the role of a hybrid persona. The artworks are immediately associated with the critical practices in the agenda of post-modernism.
Four Caryatids (2017) by Lizzie CalligasMOMus - Thessaloniki Museum of Photography
Four Caryatids - Lizzie Calligas
In Four Caryarids Lizzie Calligas looks as if creating with successive idols of her shadow a poetic reference for the different stages of life, using metaphorically mortality as a counterpoint to the eternal youth of the Caryatid, and the timelessness of art.
Art Lover From the series My Life as Barbie (2002) by Nikoletta ZissiMOMus - Thessaloniki Museum of Photography
My life as a Barbie - Nikoletta Zissi
Zissi stages herself as a toy-doll. Using the color of the doll’s packaging and fastening her feet with fishing line, she impersonates a different character in each work, opening a dialogue on the defined social roles that are ascribed for the female gender from a tender age.
Self-portrait #8 From the series Hybrid Portraits (2014) by Lia SmaragdaMOMus - Thessaloniki Museum of Photography
Hybrid Portraits - Lia Smaragda
Smaragda is staging herself with an intention to disconcert the social certainties related with issues of identity and boundaries of gender, finding in a makeshift manner her way towards light, in a space emerging out of a metaphorical darkness, personal or collective.
Fluidity. The self is depicted in variable levels of transformation, assuming a role deprived of distinct associations with individuality, while the body is many a time handled as raw material and is located in a transition area from one status to another or a in state of fusion between Real – Phantasmic, Αnimate – Inanimate, Cohesion – Fragmentariness, Childhood – Adolescence, Static – Floating.
Solinosis III From the series Solinosis (2000) by Christina CalbariMOMus - Thessaloniki Museum of Photography
Christina Calbari - Solinosis
Calbari presents the human body fragmented, part of an impersonal solinosis (piping system) that does not seem to start from somewhere or lead anywhere. Staging and performativity are here taking place in a darkness that poses itself as a meaningful question mark.
Self-portrait #2 From the series Self-portraits 1998-2000 (1998-2000) by Athina ChroniMOMus - Thessaloniki Museum of Photography
Self portrait - Athina Chroni
Chroni questions in an existential mood the notion of self, in a space vaguely interior, and in a time that seems unexpectedly fluid. The figure performs in the half light, using the lens as a particular kind of mirror.
Familiar and Public. Photographers find themselves in a process of identifying the inner space as an environment where from time to time, an uncommon séance with the past is conducted, sanctioned by photography, while public space constitutes a field of exploration and reflection that affects the individual through collective memory and cultural heritage.
Bride From the series Short Stories of Entrapment (2002) by Christina CalbariMOMus - Thessaloniki Museum of Photography
Short Stories of Entrapment - Christina Calbari
Calbari assumes roles that touch upon the trauma inside. Staging herself in claustrophobic spaces, she refers to social institutions such as family or social rites like marriage. By hiding her face, she delivers a body without identity allowing at the same time a generalization.
From the series Family Affair, 2014-2015 (20014-2015) by Katerina TsakiriMOMus - Thessaloniki Museum of Photography
Family Affair - Katerina Tsakiri
Tsakiri examines the family environment as a place in which personal particularity finds potentially itself under the pressure of normalizing values. The closed eyes suggest the need of balancing the fluid zone between the gravity of memory and the longing of desire.
Primordial Memory. The self is urged towards nature through a preexisting notion, that identifies it as both the origin and the terminus of their existence. A series of actions and makeshift rituals, shows that the photographers pursue their identity and mental exaltation in a natural setting
From the series Inner Fauna (2017) by Natassa KantemiriMOMus - Thessaloniki Museum of Photography
Inner Fauna- Natassa Kademiri
Kantemiri photographs herself in the natural environment pointing an unusual zoomorphism, wondering at the same time about the limits of nature in the human. The mask, reducing the direct contact with the outside world, is forcing her to turn on the inside for an answer.
Texts by Natassa Markidou, curator of the exhibition [selfimages]
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