ARTEMIS IN ITALIA

Artemis”, the timeless art of Costas Tsoclis

On the occasion of the Hellenic presidency of the European Council, the local Organizing Committee of the “Hellenic Semester 2014” at the JRC Ispra (Varese), organizes a tribute to the artist Costas Tsoclis, one of the representatives of the glorious generation of '60. He lived from 1957 to 1985 in Italy, France and Germany, and he retains close relationships with many societies of fine art in Italy and elsewhere. He represented Greece at the Venice Biennale in 1986 where he proposed the "Living Painting" that was to mark the global contemporary art.

The installation "Artemis" that will be exposed in the “Sala Veratti “ from 15 February until the end of March 2014, is a new version of the work named so and published in 1997, but it has been adapted specifically for this exhibition. The installation will be in harmony with the existing frescoes, but it will also promote the participation of Greece in the development of global art and culture.

The work, in its original form, was created for the event “Thessaloniki, Cultural Capital of Europe " and belongs to the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Athens. Many articles have been written about this work in various languages. In 1997, the Russian poet Andrei Vosnisenski wrote in his article on Moskovskij Komsomolets (Московский Комсомолец, a Moscow-based daily newspaper): “… I think the most important fact of European cultural life has been the exhibition of the Greek artist Tsoclis. It is impossible to describe this in words. It is an unprecedented painting work worldwide…”.

In this work, Costas Tsoclis matches the antiquity and nostalgia with contemporary art. The artist, commenting on his own work, he made the following statement: “…I tried to put in it as much antiquity as that ruling my fate, as much nostalgia as my merciless daily routine allows me and as much art as needed to justify my presence in the area of contemporary creation”.

The artist will be in Varese from February, 10th to February, 16th, 2014.

Curator: Chryssanthi Koutsouraki, CostasTsoclis’ Museum, Tinos, Greece, tsoclismuseum@gmail.com

Hellenic Semester Contact: Evangelos Kotsakis, evangelos.kotsakis@jrc.ec.europa.eu

Opening: Saturday 15 February 2014 at 17:00

Duration of the exhibition: 15 Feb – 30 Mar 2014

Opening hours:  Tuesday–Sunday: 10:00–12:30 and 15:00–18:30

Sala Veratti- Musei Civici Varese, Via Veratti 12, Varese, Tel.: +39 0332 820409