Kalfayan Galleries present the solo show of Tassos Pavlopoulos titled “Phantasmagoria”. The opening of the exhibition will take place on Thursday, 14 May 2015, 20.00 – 22.00.
The artist Tassos Pavlopoulos is presenting new work at Kalfayan Galleries in an exhibition titled «Phantasmagoria» which he describes as a "paranoid" installation that aims to transform the gallery space into a phantasmagoric show. For the first time, the artist presents thousands of drawings that span many decades in a particularly eccentric way. The installation is complemented by newly created cast bronze sculptures and the presentation of an "incredibly boring" film. As the artist states, he embraces the subversive views of Breton, who claimed that the investigation of the unconscious must remain open to artists, so that they can look for the "miraculous." The visitor will find alternatives to common sense, helping in its reconstruction.
The artist claims in his catalogue essay that “We live in a society where passion and soul have been replaced by gilded ‘special effects’. Where whatever is incompatible is considered unorthodox. Humanity is now organized and arranged on a global scale by certain submissive bureaucrats who measure life with tea spoons. This is how the “maladjusted” Antoine de Saint-Exupéry referred to sour technocrats and boring rationalists. How can one restore the adventure of travel and the mystery of creation? The escape from pedestrian reality? How can those images appear which, by chance, intermingle with the individual’s imagination? How can an artist, working as a contemporary alchemist, combine the mix of fantasy and reality with the demands of the incompatible? How can we enhance our daily lives with magic, emotion, laughter and the unexpected? The true artist, even in his studio-refuge, must throw himself into the infinite and travel there, copying the skill of the magician and the saltimbanque. With all his poetic humor. Without fearing mistakes and craziness. Or, even, to seek doing so. Then, anything can happen before our very eyes.
“However, the artist continues, “for many years I had hidden diligently many of the drawings that I am presenting in this show. Because they resemble mole holes that are burrowed deep in me. Nevertheless, they are the seeds of my art. I never spat them out because they are the Soul of my creation! Don’t make the tragic mistake of believing that the exhibition is about nostalgia or is a retrospective. Not even a parody. There are, of course, references to Dada and the collages of Kurt Schwitters or Raoul Hausmann. It is an entirely fresh, surrealistic and anti-philosophical glance at the future. It is like an endless comic book. It is an attempt to explain images to dead rabbits…”