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Can Gallery Athens Presents: Lefteris Tapas’ Exhibition ‘Archipelago’

By ADAM IN TOWN | January 24, 2019 0 Comments

Lefteris Tapas // Archipelago

11 January – 23 February

Can Gallery is presenting Lefteris Tapas’ Archipelago solo show. This is an ambiguous and deeply political visual poem that explores the identity of his country Cyprus,** an odd specimen of land, people and cultures, with a rich history and an alluring colonial past, caught between the East and the West, surrounded by sea, brutally divided and separated into two.

Archipelago, 2019, Installation made of individual islands, paper pulp, graphite, natural earth pigments, brass shelf, various sizes

Tapas’ latest work constitutes the most complete sample of his continuous survey on human existence. For this show the artist returns to the three archetypes; earth-water-sky and reconfigures the present’s attention to history and to his own identity, seeking the universal through today’s Cyprus, which is a postcolonial mosaic of distinct and not particularly integrated communities, ethnicities and nationalities.

Island I, 2019, black graphite on paper, metal, 83,5x8cm

With a series of little islands made with papier-mché in such a way that they simulate rocks and soil -an emotional material packed with symbolism- with a hallucinatory paper lace of floating waves and a floating universe of stars, his direct takes on identity and metamorphosis evolve into something dreamy and at the same time quite abstract.

Shooting Stars, 2019, archival pigment prints on paper, 43x31cm each, Unique prints

Through his reflection on the island’s rich history and culture, with all its geographical and political peculiarities, with stories of friendliness, discomfort and hostility, ghosts as well as allies, Tapas moves from the regional to the universal in a way that makes his Archipelagos neither entirely a record, nor a construct of his mind or imagination. After all, what we enjoy in his oeuvre is not the precise and detailed recording of history, nor the tranquility and harmony of the pictures he creates, but the answer he gives to a question of ours or rather the question that he ultimately asks us, forcing us to answer.

Lefteris Tapas, at work

ABOUT GALLERY

CAN gallery is an Athens-based art gallery focused on contemporary art. Established in 2012 by Christina Androulidaki, CAN gallery lies in the heart of Kolonaki, Athens’ prestigious shopping district and focuses on bringing the best of young and emerging local and international art in the city. The gallery presents an intensive program of monthly or bimonthly shows and is one of the most active spaces in Athens. Its director Christina Androulidaki completed a BA in Art History at the Courtauld Institute in London, an MSc in History, Theory and Display at the University of Edinburgh and is the former director of AD gallery. She has completed a research project in constructing and installing large scale works of art in public spaces and has curated a number of exhibitions.