Alexandros Simopoulos
CYCLADIC CAFE ART PROJECT
UNTIL SEPTEMBER 16, 2024
Some of these beaches have disappeared due to tourist development, and others are likely to face the same fate. Alexandros Simopoulos depicts these beaches through memory, imagination and photographic references collected over the years. In dialogue with folk art, but also with the history of landscape and seascape painting, he paints places that he has experienced many times, and in different states.
Although the “virgin beach” consists one of the greatest modernist topographical fantasies, the artist insists on seeing it as a temple, a nest and a place of healing. A space outside of external or forced negotiations and boundaries. A possible space of escape from the (productive) temporal and spatial shell (Lefebvre).
The coast is ever-changing, the most fleeting and transitory feature on earth. Beaches are multi-sensory fields, where the haptic, the visual and the acoustic cross and mingle. The “beach effect” (Barthes) involves a slowed-down scattering and reconfiguration of sound, sight and sensation, queerly incarnated. As the link between sensory cause and effect loosens, other connections become imaginable. At the beach, our haptic system seeks to experience an embodied nature. Play becomes a performative experiment through the plasticity and fluidity of the sand, and the environment in general. Bodies extend into things and things extend into bodies. The beach becomes a space of relationship and enchantment, a temporary autonomous zone.
THE ARTWORK
Shinias (Every beach I have ever slept in), 2023
acrylics, oil, and oil-pastels on canvas, 120 x 200 cm (diptych)
THE ARTIST
Alexandros Simopoulos (b. 1990) lives and works in Athens, Greece. He is a graduate of Panteion University, Athens and Camberwell College of Arts, London with a scholarship from the University of the Arts London. He has participated in numerous exhibitions internationally including Boundary Drawing, Santa Fe Art Institute, Santa Fe, USA/ Hors Pistes, Museum of Contemporary Design and Applied Arts, Lausanne/ Hors Pistes, CID Grand Hornu, Belgium/ Fresh AIR, Urban Nation Museum, Berlin/ Plantarium, Esplora Science Center-Valletta18 European Capital of Culture, Malta/ No Respect, Onassis Cultural Center, Athens/ and Still Here Tomorrow, Stavros Niarchos Foundation, Athens amongst others.
He has produced public murals (The spirit of the stairs, supported by the Greek Ministry of Culture 2022/ La Charite sur Loire, supported by ACCR and the French Ministry of Culture 2021/ Vamvakou Revival, supported by Stavros Niarchos Foundation 2020 etc.) and participated in residency programs internationally (Thermia Project 2022/ Odysee, ACCR 2021/ Villa Ruffieux, Fondation du Chateau Mercier 2021/ Urban Nation Museum Berlin 2019/ Santa Fe Art Institute 2019 etc.). He has received fellowships and scholarships from the Fulbright Foundation, Berliner Leben Stiftung, European Cultural Foundation and SNF ARTWORKS Artist Fellowship Program amongst others. His work has been published in the international press in publications such as Le Monde and the International New York Times.
CYCLADIC CAFE ART PROJECT
The Museum of Cycladic Art presents the Cycladic Café Art Project – part of the Modern Art Program – combining places of social gathering with art. With the ultimate aim of embracing the Greek and international scene of modern art, the Museum presents works by internationally acclaimed and emerging artists linked to its current exhibitions and activities at Cycladic Café. The Cycladic Café Art Project motivates the dialogue between art and everyday life.
WITH THE SUPPORT OF
