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From the point of view
of the architect |
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And, to be precise, the one who is seeking, through the relationship between theory and practice, to determine a "cultural framework" of creative inspiration and practical application. The last phrase "framework of inspiration" seems contradictory. Yet which creator does not seek or possess - either consciously or not, or with or without admitting it - a sphere of inspiration, a general frame of reference, a set of general rules, on which he can securely base the wealth and variety of his creative choices? Indeed, I would say that this is the case even if these choices are pervaded by the light of mystical divine creation, a light which has been defined in the Aristotelian Poetics. From the historian's point of view, such a consistent frame of reference or set of general principles is often described as a personal style or, when more generally applied, a movement or School. However, from the creator's point of view, it concerns the quest for a world which can function in a creative way, Like a kind of womb or, in modern parlance, a type of model on the basis of which an infinite number of alternative images can be produced, which are articulated on common fixed structures. In our case this frame of reference concerns structures which are both spatial and conceptual, and which, through their fundamentality, can lend consistency and continuity to the creative process. In the context of this experimental quest in which I am engaged, I have believed that Apostolos Kilessopoulos' latest artistic constructions belong to this way of approaching a work of art, and therefore possess the potential to form abstract spatial and conceptual structures, which are capable of being used as an original starting-point (fundamental models) for the creation of modern specialized images in the field of tectonics, that is to say, they possess all the qualities needed to produce a fruitful contact between the arts (in the primary sense of the term). Architecture experienced a fruitful contact of this nature in its encounter with European Constructivism, particularly the Russian variety. This observation led me to take another look at the painter's artistic quests, that is, the elements of continuity in his work, the turning-points, as well as examples of the ways in which the work transcends itself. Moreover, in following his work in the exhibitions that have been held in the last few years, I had noticed that both in his painting of framed pictures (a distinct group of works) and in his creation of artistic constructions (another group of works), while his iconographical themes remained more or less the same -representations of the microcosm (biological, vegetal and human) and the macrocosm (universal)- what was radically different between the two groups of works was the way in which he portrays their internal abstract spatial structures. In this conceptual exploration, perhaps the most important and most fascinating thing, but also, more importantly, the key to our understanding of the existence and artistic function of these constant and abstract spatial structures, on which the whole of this universe takes artistic shape (colours, forms, varying intensities of light), lies in the works of his transitional period (a third group of works). These are the works which record his intermediate phase, that in which the painter passes from two-dimensional pictures to three-dimensional constructions. In creative terms, it is a crucial moment for the painter, one in which he makes the crossing, the transition and also the mental and artistic leap from a two-dimensional (expressionistic) representation of spatial structures to a representation of them in a three-dimensional (non-Euclidean) form, though retaining the same iconographical themes, which give meaning and content to these abstract spatial structures. This transition is effected by a group of works in which three-dimensional space is formed by two elements: the vertical level of the painted picture (frame) and a horizontal artistic gesture (wire cords, coloured pieces of nylon and cloth) which projects out of the picture towards the viewer. In an abstract way, one could say that it resembles a Cartesian artistic representation of space, although on a notional level any construction of this type contains this fascination of a work that emerges from the picture frame towards the public, thereby lending the work of art an invisible ceremonial dimension and therefore the character of a genuine anthropological act. Thus the works of this transitional phase, through the basic feature of this horizontal gesture-creation, appear to depict a faint link, which on both an unconscious and a symbolic level resembles a kind of umbilical cord. (In two dimensions, Nebula, 1991, In between, Nebula, 1995, In three dimensions, Fractals, 2000).
In such a context we could speak of a creative artistic link, which acts as a bridge between the logic of the two-dimensional frame and the logic of the three-dimensional construction, that is, the birth of a new type of artistic proposition (spatial constructions), which is neither a form of painting nor a form of sculpture, but somewhere in between. In this generative artistic process, despite the fact that in both types of artistic proposition (framed picture, spatial construction) the "superficial" yet also universal portrayal of the microcosm and macrocosm remains constant, what is different is the existence of the deeper-lying structures to represent space, on which he bases his subject-matter. Indeed, the painter, in making this brave move from the two-dimensional frame to the three-dimensional construction, is providing an answer to the fundamental problem of the difficulty of representing three-dimensional structures in a painting, either through the illusion of perspective or through the many existing types of expressionism, which he has already made use of in his pictures. Consequently, the problem which this type of creative progress from the frame to the construction solves is a problem of truth which concerns the manner in which space can be represented in art, the solution to which problem also represents a personal existential response from the painter himself. This is so because, in my opinion, the real problem that concerns the painter is the artistic-spatial representation of deeper structures of life and thought as a uniform whole. This contemplative quest leads him to portray these abstract and constant structures with themes from the microcosm and macrocosm. The portrayal of this universe, therefore, is the result of a quest for the more general structures that harmoniously pervade and regulate life and thought, and not an imitative representation. I believe, therefore,
that Apostolos Kilessopoulos is faced with the representation of artistic
truth,
in the ontological sense of
the term,
which concerns
abstract and universal structures, either visible or mystical. Moreover, in the Greek East, the person who first turned such an interpretation into a theory, with the logic of reverse perspective, was Plotinus, while it was the Byzantines who applied it in their mystical beliefs. In twentieth-century Europe the responses have been many and varied (Cubism, Constructivism, Suprematism, installations, etc.). Thus the problem which is posed for the true spatial representation of material objects, through an artistic rendering of the universal and constant spatial structures that exist in the cosmos, is answered by Apostolos Kilessopoulos in his latest constructions, and, indeed, in the simplest and truest way: the three-dimensional abstract spatial constructions. In Kilessopoulos' work we are thus reliving the problem of how to achieve aesthetic truth in the representation of spatial structures by using a non-Euclidean geometry, which can give shape to microcosmic and macrocosmic themes, expressing the consequences of their abstract representation to the fullest possible extent. It is within this unified and all-embracing conception of the cosmos, one based on its abstract and universal spatial structures, that this invisible but fundamental communication between the spatial arts -which include architecture- takes place. It
is, therefore, clear that Apostolos Kilessopoulos' latest works
reveal his personal response to this fundamental and all-important
question,
in which
the visual artist is called upon to provide an answer to the
form (in the Aristotelian sense of the word) of the representational
structure that
lies in each of the
universal questions which arise in his own personal existence
and world.
In this respect, I believe that his last group of works, just
as they represent an innovation in his own personal artistic development,
also
constitute
an
innovation in modern Greek art, if this art is viewed in the
light
of its own historical development and within a wider European
setting.
Philip
Oraiopoulos
architect |
