Galleri Image presents

Kostas Kiritsis, Poland

 “Self-Portraits”

 Opening:  Saturday May 28th, 2005, from 14.00 - 16.00


May 28 – June 26, 2005, Tuesday - Sunday, 13.00 - 1700.

In one photo Kostas Kiritsis looks at us, the audience, while he shakes Stalin's hand. In another, Kostas' empty silhouette drains through the landscape like a stiffened veil. In a third photo we see his eyes depicted in classical antique marble sculptures. Self-Portraits comprises three thematically different series, all containing traces of the artist himself.

The first series is entitled "Witness of the Revolution." It is composed of modified historical photographs from the Russian Revolution; the artist has inserted photographs of himself where there used to be historical figures - people who were first physically liquidated by Stalin, and later removed from public record.

The series "Non-appearance" is physically and philosophically an extension of the first series. Kiritsis takes the "empty" silhouettes from the first series - the shadows of his own pictures that were cut out and used for "Witness of the Revolution" - and transforms them into sweeping landscapes. He thus creates an artistic relationship between the landscapes and himself - although the two are still separated by the philosophical question of authenticity.

Finally, Kiritsis uses pictures of his own eyes in the series "Untitled," where he glues his stony stare onto marble sculptures that for centuries have been frozen in their role as unequivocal symbols for a distant era. History is given new vision, and modern eyes are given new bodies.

The works in Self-Portraits make use of an esthetic of decay that strengthens their historical connection and our concept of authenticity. Self-Portraits presents itself as a whole that with nervous energy and originality touches upon themes in art, history, and philosophy.

Kostas Kiritsis, who is of Greek ancestry, was born in Poland and lives both in New York and Warsaw. He has participated in numerous exhibitions in Europe and the United States. He has previously only shown his works once in Denmark as part of a group exhibition at Galleri Image. It is therefore our great honor to present Kostas Kiritsis' first one-man show in Denmark.

The exhibition will be opened by Elzbieta Wykretowicz, cultural attaché from the Embassy of Poland in Denmark, and by Odd Sinding, Honorary Consul for the Greek Consulate in Aarhus.

The exhibition is supported by Aarhus Municipality's Cultural Development Fund

Opening: . Vestergade 29, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark.

Kostas Kiritsis will participate in the opening

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