MIRAGES VIΙ

 

 

The last Mirages of the ending Year -2014- are dedicated to all the major events in Art, Architecture and Photography, as we approached them, these nine months, through our magazine, with long title: dreamideamachine. Many wondering why we have chosen such a large and difficult title (?) Simply because the translation, is the mirror image of my 20-year course in the arts. For me, everything real & authentic is mindless, and everything false difficult. Is custom today day to flip through the year that leaves and do review and introspection, of what happened during the year, the good and what has gone wrong… Unlike most, I believe that the events and major exhibitions, organized and presented in the major Museums, Institutions and Foundations in art, architecture and photography, internationally as well as in Greece, regardless of personal preferences, added a bit to the culture, broaden our thinking, sharpened our criterion… Similarly, with regard to persons who spoke about their work in our magazine, and more … for me they are all important, because the role of the contemporary artist is more complete and difficult than ever before, since the requirements of viewers are greater in nowadays, since the criteria have changed, through the media pluralism and diversity of images, handled even through the internet. As well of the photographer, but above all of the architect who is called to reconstruct and redefine the concept of old with the new and the traditional with the technology, conducing the development of quality of life, as in the case of Shigeru Ban, the Japanese architect, who won the Nobel of Architecture-Pritzker Prize 2014. These mirages are double, not only the latter, in transition, on the borderline, from one year to another, in the dawn of 2015, they are the first to carry the great prayer: Renaissance-Rebirth- as is entitled the exhibition of Mariko Mori at the Japan Society, N. York last Year. I belong to the few who have talked with her and I feel very fortunate, to avoid any misunderstanding, I am not a big fan of Japanese culture and tradition compared with the European. Simply I admire the way they perceive the world and the positive thinking that pervades them, unlike the self-pity and misery that lies around us without any reason after all.

 

Happy New Year (!)
Efi Michalarou
31/12/14-1/1/15