STATEMENT:No Μan Ever Steps Ιn Τhe Same River Twice

The above phrase of Heraclitus was the first thing that came to my mind when a week ago seeing again Chen Zhen’s work “The Round Table” (1995), which is in the Permanent Collection of Centre George Pompidou Center, has inherent affinities with that of Jannis Kounellis.  So as concerns and rethinks arise, through a personal research, I discovered a number of artworks of the international art scene, having inherent affinities, without necessarily the artists to want to convey the same message.

Both Chen Zhen and Jannis Kounellis have presented different versions of the table, with or without chairs, in their work. The Chinese artist Chen Zhen, who lived between China and Paris, through his work “Round Table” (1995), which belongs to Center George Pompidou Collection, is one of the works that I distinguish and often go back, refers to the difficulties of cross-cultural dialogue, which the artist describes as “the metaphor of the eternal misunderstanding”. While Jannis Kounellis in “Untitled” (2015) explores the individual and psychic limits of the human being within society as a result of industrial development and the latter in shaping social systems throughout history. In these times of uncertainty and geopolitical restructuring, the poetic work with which Jannis Kounellis sets forth the complex of existence and its political consequences could illuminate us.-Efi Michalarou