Quiet here: relics
Of the saints sleep;
Quite quiet: do not disturb
The sacred rest
of the dead.
(Andreas Kalvos)
Christos Bokoros - The Feast, at the Benaki Museum
This year marks 200 years after the Greek uprising of 1821 against the Turkish occupation which lasted for 400 years, and which resulted in the emergence of the new Greek State. Feast is a celebration of this anniversary.
Feast is organised in four parts:
- The Blue and White: its aftermath
- History: its light and its darkness
- The Heroes, illustrious and unknown: their shadow, their blood
- Glory Alone: the top of a long desert table, bearing laurels; below, a lamb standing staring at us.
The works were specially made on the occasion of the commemoration of the 200 years from the Greek revolution. They are painted on fabrics and wood. They constitute an 'overflowing of the soul' of the painter, his private tribute to the 'common and substantial'. To those 'shadows of substance' which define him.
Do these shadows also define us? What does the Hero and his/her Virtue mean today? What is our measure for measuring our lives? Against what shadows are we measuring ourselves? Painting thrives in silence. It speaks, reflected on the unprejudiced gaze of the viewer.
Born in 1956, Bokoros studied law. Following his graduation and a brief period of indecision, he entered the School of Fine Arts in Athens and held his first exhibition in the 1980s. During the 1990s, he sought to portray shared memory and the Temptations of the Invisible, Light and Dark.
In 2004, with The Impenetrable Forest he addressed the disputed legacy of the WWII Greek Resistance and the Civil War that ensued. In 2013 at the Benaki Museum he presented The Bare Essentials, a call for a modest prosperity and the rediscovery of measure in our everyday life, followed in 2016 by Glimpses of the Obscure which you can see here and here
Feast was a complex exhibition to navigate and follow, I hope I have done it justice in this post, as, like all of Bokoros' work it was complex, thought-provoking and (I can't think of another word) mind-blowing.
The Blue and the White Flag: its aftermath
History: its light and its darkness
An anteroom, completely dark, the four paintings illuminated:
Talisman of the Unseen: the Light, 2020-2021, (gold polished on carved wood)
Another small room, totally dark, the paintings illuminated:
an angelic portrait of Solomos,
a demonic, dark one of Karaiskakis
and a sorrowful Glory, dressed in black
an invisible gathering of unsung heroes
at a long table, set, stained,
where, instead of treats, drinks and food,
memorial offerings lie,
marks of time, desolation
and at its head a lamb
to stare us in the eye
(Christos Bokoros)
Solomos 1, 2020-2021, (pigments with glue and oil paints on old wood)
(note: Dionysios Solomos, 1798-1857, was a Greek poet, best known for writing the Hymn to Liberty, which was set to music and became the Greek and Cypriot national anthem in 1865 and 1966 respectively. He was the central figure of the Heptanese School of poetry and is considered the national poet of Greece - not only because he wrote the national anthem, but also because he contributed to the preservation of earlier poetic tradition and highlighted its usefulness to modern literature).
Solomos 2, 2020-2021, (pigments with glue, oil paints, fabric, old wood and gold embroidery on plywood)
Solomos 4, 2020-2021, (pigments with glue, oil paints, fabric, old wood and gold embroidery on plywood)
(note: Georgios Karaiskakis was a Greek military commander and leader of the Greek War of Independence. He helped lift the second siege of Missolonghi in 1823. His most famous victory was at the battle of Arachova. He was killed in action in 1827).
Karaiskakis 5, 2020-2021, (pigments with glue, charcoal, fabric and old wood on plywood)
Glory Alone: The top of a long table, bearing laurels; below, a lamb standing, staring at us.
The main exhibition room, dark, paintings illuminated.
Note: Eleutheria i Thanatos, (Freedom or Death) was the rallying cry of the Greek Revolution.
Table 2, (laurel leaves, linen and cotton fabric, stained with tea on blockboard)
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