ART ISLANDS:Syros-Costas Varotsos
Costas Varotsos is one of the most prominent Greek artists. Following in the wake of the minimalism of the late ‘60s and ’70s, the artist worked a lot with transparent synthetic resin and later stone as a natural material was used. Glass became Varotsos’ material since 1983 whilst realizing “The Poet” of Nicosia in Cyprus. The use of glass allows him to give a specific dimension to the three known elements: space, form and material.
By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Art Gallery of the Cyclades
Costas Varotsos in his solo exhibition “Stratifications” at the Art Gallery of Cyclades in Hermoupolis, Syros Island, presents 12 sculptures, based on archetype shapes of his work, such as the horizon, the labyrinth, the spiral, the column– at the distinct space of the former Transit Warehouses, in a dialogue with the character of this particular site. During his artistic course, the artist’s constant intention is to bring to the foreground the value of the composition at his sculptural work space, time and matter are valued together and function in a parallel way as constituents of a sculptural language, which brings into focus the work as an experience lived in its very reality. As the artist says “I realized the gap between time and space and the expansion of time studying the work of Lucio Fontana. I realized that he had understood the problem when he created his “Concetti Spaziali”. I used as my stepping stone the work and the texts of Lucio Fontana and the work off Alberto Burri. I started to expand the idea of space and transparency and to understand the collapse of the system itself…”. The highlight of the exhibition his new work “Composition-Decomposition” (2017), where the 27 flags of the European Union member states lie broken on the floor and two glass spirals emerge from them. The first version of this work (without the spirals) is on presentation at Fridericianum in Kassel as part of the documenta 14. The work at documenta 14 presents the decomposition of the EU, while the work at the Art Gallery of the Cyclades trough decomposition comes the regeneration of EU. Also at in the harbor of Hermoupolis, is placed “Horizon” (2017). Costas Varotsos studied architecture at the University of Pescara and continued studying at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome, and at the Fulbright Grant University in New York. He currently lives and works in Greece, having been elected, in 1999, professor at the Polytechnic of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, in the Architecture Department, where he teaches Fine Arts.
Info: Curator: Charis Kanellopoulou, Art Gallery of the Cyclades,Hermoupolis, Syros Island, Duration: 10/6-31/7/17, Days & Hours: Tue & Wed-Sun 11:00-13:00, 18:30-22:00
