MIRAGES VΙΙΙ

 

Two artists of the generation of 60s, who lived and worked abroad, Vlassis Caniaris in Berlin and Nikos Kessanlis in Paris, co-exhibited in 1964, at the Venice Biennale, they agreed in many issues and disagreed on many others, as is usual and imposed in such great personalities. The fore mentioned seals and subscribes their answer regarding their relationship with their works in time: ”No, no! There are certainly artworks that do not have the same durability over time as others, this does not mean that will start the burning and clearing” says Vlassis Caniaris, while Nikos Kessanlis states, “Before I die? To get all the artworks I do not like, to put them near the pool and the burn them. To sit side by side with Chrissa and keep warm”.

On the occasion of two group exhibitions, one at the ESIEA (Journalists Union of Athens Daily Newspapers), for the celebration of its 100 years, where among other artists there was and an artwork of Vlassis Caniaris and the solo exhibition of Nikos Kessanlis at the a.antonopoulou.art starting at February 10th. In the page “Traces”, that is a tribute to artists, living or dead, who have left their mark in contemporary art. Through documents or interviews, starting with: moments and memories we reveal out from the past-unknown sides of big personalities, who left their indelible traces in time and history… At the end of last month, we published one of the best unpublished interviews of Vlassis Caniaris and following our re-publication of an equally interesting and very important interview by Nikos Kessanlis.

I met Vlassis Caniaris in September 2004, on the occasion his exhibition “Exercises” at the Zina Athanasiadou Gallery and talked about his work. This interview has not been published that time, for insignificant reasons, it often happens, however, I had the great fortune to get into my luggage, a valuable document, closing a cycle of artists of his generation, with strong personalities, different searches and concerns, international career and momentous artwork. Vlassis Caniaris is completely gentle, incredibly sensitive, low profile, very bashful and not at all estet. Really great artist, with concentrated thought and speech, hard thinker and accurate as his initial studies in Medicine. His artworks are a psychogram, in space and time, composing the puzzle of the sociopolitical situation of Europe and Greece from the dictatorship and then. Today (?) More topical than ever (!)

Nikos Kessanlis, I knew him since 1996, when he was Rector in ASFA and me new in the art world, that time I worked in the ”the Art magazine”. We crossed in the magazine’s offices, he had come for some work, but then we meet very often, since I was going and the School of Fine Arts, our interview was on the occasion of the album-biography from ADAM publications and an exhibition that was prepared in the period 2001-2 at the Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art. He looks like a cartoon hero, short, chubby, with large mustaches and even larger glasses, with a strange voice and courage despite his age, you think that he will throw a bomb to change the world, here and now(!). This is Nikos, secular name: Nikos Kessanlis. The sweetest, the decisive and the anarchist Rector of the School of Fine Arts, the man who set up the ”Factory” of art and ideas, in the middle of a night, who fought to the end Marina Lambrakis Plaka (the Director of the National Gallery), not personally, but ideologically and as a great insurrectionist retired, deeply pained when he saw his vision, to stagnate… He played billiards in Paris with Alexander Calder, had co-exhibited with Pablo Picasso, a personal friend of the theoretic Frenchman Pierre Restany, representative of an entire movement, pioneer, imaginative, innovative, and for that α great teacher, adored classical painting, but the love of life was Chrissa (Romanos). Chrissa and Nikos, Nikos & Chrissa, together in life, art and death…

 

A Good Month
Efi Michalarou
1/2/15