19 April 2007

LYRAS AT OPUS 39Bring out the pegs, Dada GALLERIES here in Cyprus used to exhibit an artist’s work for about a month. Economically, things appear to have changed. Now it’s about a week and a half before the next show. Enough time for relatives to buy! Soon our artists will be having one night stands. This is not practical because our pavements are cluttered with cars. An alternative is to hang our canvases on the Green, Green Line.-

Great watercolours from Kyriacos
KYRIAKOS Lyros’s exhibition will continue at Opus 39 until April 28.These are excellent paintings of scenes, seen with a fond aesthetic eye.
GOING, GOING….
THE auction season is suddenly here.First off the mark is Psathari’s auction house.Psathari’s Auction house is substantially the extension of the work of Kypriaki Gonia Gallery which, for 14 years, has served and served art and culture in Larnaca.The House will deal with the auctioning of the work of Cypriot and Greek artists.The first auction will take place at the Hilton Hotel, Nicosia, on Wednesday, May 9, at 8pm. Viewing will be at Kypriaki Gonia, 45 Stadium Street, Larnaca, Wednesday, May 2, 7pm to 10pm; Thursday, May 3, and Friday May 4 10am to 9pm;; Saturday, May 5, and Sunday May 7, 10am to 9.00 pm.
Viewing at the Hilton: Tuesday, May 8, 10am to 9pm; Wednesday, May 9, 10am to 4pmCypris Auction’s ‘Greek & Cypriot Painting of the 19th and 20th Century’ takes place the Hilton, Nicosia on May 23. The works will be exhibited in the Akamas Room from May 19.

American International School Exhibition
A WONDERFUL exhibition at The Melina closes today 10am-1pm and 5pm – 8pm. This year’s group of young artists is made up of three Cypriots, three Britons, one Swede, one Serb, a South African, a Dane and a German.This range of nationalities gives an indication of the diversity of cultural experiences to be expected in this exhibition. As the name of the show (Cocktails) suggests, there is a variety of techniques ranging from sculptures to creative installations and paintings.Works will be displayed by Sam Allan, Harriet Beckettt-Butt, Maria Lukic, Kieran Mclean, Stacy Melvin, Nicole Pekhazis, Sophie Pontikis, Maria Toumazou, Ian Hanson, Rea Lazarides, Theresa Pross, and Philip Weaver.
Samuel Beckett at the Leventis THIS exhibition takes place at The Leventis Municipal Museum Temporary Exhibition Hall which is at 17 Hippocratis Street, Laiki Yitonia. Nicosia, until the May 6.-
Berlin in context
THIS exhibition at Omikron g Gallery, Nicosia, will continue until April 28. It is presented by Argo Gallery but Omikron g is at 2 Vasileos Pavlou, Nicosia (tel 22754009).Athina Antoniadou shows paintings while Marina Shacola shows her photographs.This is a very strong exhibition filling the large and often unused gallery (Omikron g) with images which relate. Space is very relevant in Athina’s huge paintings created from her studio in Berlin, while Marina Shacola shows beautifully-composed and executed photographs of Athina at her studio and also extending the painters imagery. In other words the two highly creative women overlap in the final results. This results in an excellent exhibition in which the space of the gallery contributes. Sometimes the two artist’s works are placed near each other giving much visual food for thought. In other parts of this spacious gallery the separate artists enjoy a visual privacy. In other words, an exhibition with more to say than is usual here.Excellently curated - a most positive move indeed in organization and co-operation.

Annita Georgiou at Technis Dromena
VASSOS Lyssarides honorary chairman of the Social Democrats Movement (EDEK) and no mean painter himself, opened the exhibition of Annita Georgiou at Technis Dromena Gallery. It will continue until April 28. -
Ruptures of dialogueDaphne Mavrovouniotis Trimikliniotis has an exhibition at Apocalypse Gallery which will continue until the 25th of the month.Brilliant figuration, meaningful themes, eloquent stories abound and all painted with great sensitivity and vigour.There is also a very informative book/catalogue available Here is a comment on a section of her work”A stroll down town becomes a bombardment of figures and slogans: “Sale” ,”Clearance”, “Reductions.”“The mannequins in shop windows appear identical, symmetrical copies in dummy-like worlds: products en masse, they reduce clones of an unreal and anorexic aesthetic. “They just pose there; next to each other, typical and vacuous, predictable, seemingly incapable, or better, unwilling to conceal the plastic nudity of the unreal.“Motionless, they gaze into the void without feeling; perhaps even without being. “An emptiness all over fills a life devoid of value or meaning.“Such was the stroll that gave birth to this series “Reductions in values and virtues; in friendship and love , life itself: human existence wholly devalued. And we are but spectators, and stooges in a life-long trade of souls.”All powerful stuff. Figuration and thought and concern rules you might say. And yet a very extra strength is given to these paintings by the artist’s actual, brilliant ability with the use of paint and subtle collage. In other words the aesthetics of abstraction gives to every painting yet another dimension. Go and look at ‘Ecological 3 – Burned Forest’ which is downstairs at the gallery. Every section in this masterpiece registers emotionally; even if it’s just a small area of applied canvas holding its own with the whole picture. Great.Daphne Mavrovouniotis Trimiklinitotis was born in Limassol and emigrated to London in 1959, where she studied at Hornsey College of Art, Middlesex University. She spent 35 years in London. She has had 14 solo exhibitions of her work in London, Greece and Cyprus, and took parting numerous group exhibitions. She is now the President of the Cyprus Chamber of Fine Arts. . Here and There Mike Marshall is at the Pharos Centre of Contemporary Art until May 31. Nedi Sakellaropoulou has icons until April 21 at Gallery k.Susan Vargas Stefani is at Kypriaki Gonia, Larnaca, until April 20.Marc-Alain Stamm has photographs at Leo Gallery 18 Amphitritis Street until May 19. Tel 99511546 for personal appointment.Nicos Tornaritis will open an exhibition of paintings by Christos Charalambous and Gabriella & Vaso Papetta tonight the 20th of the month at 7pm at Kykklos Art Galley, Paphos. It will continue until May 20.The Leventis Museum of Nicosia’s exhibition on Samuel Beckett continues until May 6. Why does the image sent by Morphi Gallery, Limassol of a painting by Lefteris Olympios so resemble one from an exhibition due to be held at Dromena next month? Lefteris’ exhibition continues until at Morphi Gallery until May 5. He is a very good painter? But hasn’t April past ?Don’t forget Peter Shaffer’s Black Comedy will be performed at the Hilton Cyprus on Thursday April 26 and Friday April 27. For information and reservations tel 22377777. A Dinner Theatre production by ACT. From 10am to 5pm.
Vera Hadjida at GloriasVERA’S exhibition – which opened on April 17 - continues until May 2. Here is a fine artist, and, I would say, one of the tops of her generation who is often underestimated. Full report next week when I would have seen her new work. But go. Now.- View of CyprusA PHOTOGRAPHIC Itinerary from the 19th to the 20th century at the Evagoras Lanitis Centre, Limassol, opening April 25 and continuing until May 27.The exhibition is based on the book “The island of Cypus, a photographic itinary from the 19th to the 20th Century.”The book is from Entipis publications and is by Lucie Bonito, Haris Yiakoumis and Kadir Kaba.On Saturday, April 28 at 2pm there will be a lecture by the curator of the exhibition, Dr Haris Yiakoumia - in Greek. .
ART AWAREDuring the time of April 1, I was invited to go on a bicycle ride (I was born in a bike shop actually but even as a toddler I kept falling off ) through The Bronx, New York but did not go. What I did miss though and am very, very sorry because the invite must have gone to Manhattan was to NOT KNOW about April’s ART AWARE. In which Angelo Evangelou participatedHere is an abridged version of her illustrated talk.“The earth and the soil attract us. “This gravitational pull, this attraction, is so powerful that we spend our entire life attached to the earth and all its products which nourish us – and when we die we enter deep within it, giving our body to the soil, to become one with its eco system. “Our life-long love affair with the earth culminates in a gift of our body to the earth and in a desire for rebirth and metamorphosis. Through burial and darkness, we make ourselves into a fetus in the womb of the earth, a pregnant seed awaiting rebirth and photosynthesis, opposing the finality of death, in an attempt to bring light again to the surface. “Seeds have been planted in the soil, growing as an intrinsic part of the art-work in a representation of the cycles of life.”Angelo is one of our best artists and dominated last autumn’s Inside The Walls Exhibition Sorry Angelo I would have loved to have been there. Could Nilgun Guney send the Arts Page some information on the other speaker that evening. PLEASE.-
10th European Dance Festival Limassol from tomorrow