In 7 Greek Artists: A New Journey, each participating artist travelled to Nicosia, Cyprus to create a new, site-specific work at the historical Famagusta Gate. For the past two years, the gate, lying a mere 300 meters away from the Turkish guard line, houses the Municipal Cultural Center of Nicosia, in an effort to both develop the country’s cultural life and to reanimate one of its border areas – a place strongly suffered from the war devastations.
The encounter with Cyprus that each artist interpreted in their own, individual way remained traced upon the works produced. Working with environmental and large-scale installations, the artists address the country’s history and its current, tense political situation while demonstrating innovative use of materials and research methods.
It is through their latest works that the participating artists gather as a coherent group to express the will to establish a new relationship with art in general, and with contemporary art in particular. In the show, the artists attempt to recompose diverse expressive and visual elements in their work, ranging from universal concepts of life and history to personal experiences and individual mythologies. They interfere with the works manually or technically while at the same time using elements borrowed both from the history of art and the modern and technological era.
Organized by the DESTE Foundation in collaboration with the Nicosia Municipal Arts Center and the D. Pierides Collection.
