SP Exhibition

Inside the Cube (…and the Dream Lives on) exhibition catalogue

Introduction to the exhibition catalogue April 1996 by Art Historian and Critic Irene Savani.

Freedom and expression in art, in the 80’s and 90’s has enabled more and more artists to use media in their work which go beyond the traditional. Often, these quests result in the conquest of space by the very work of art and in the redefinition of the code of communication with the spectator. The use of technology in art, as it appears in the U.S. In the 60’s with video artists like Nam June Paik, Dan Graham and Bill Viola enriches the world of modern art providing the artists with a new expanding ground which offers multiple possibilities of expression.

Archetypal geometric structures, the perpetual flow and the unalterable laws that govern the microcosm of nature have appeared in Spiros Pierris’ art before, in the series of paintings “Mnemonic Fields” 91991-1994). With the installation “Inside the Cube…” he expands and broadens his speculation, enriching them with new elements such as the relation between the spectator and the work of art.

The works, in the first exhibition room, are self sufficient but they also operate as a reminder of geometric harmony governed by nature subjecting the visitor/spectator to a mystagogic atmosphere and preparing him for his entrance into the lead chamber. The activation of the work in the second exhibition room depends exclusively upon the human presence which abolishes the theoretical and objective distances from the work of art, it becomes an integral and vital element of the work and establishes a two-way relation between the transmitter and the receiver. The media (video, camera, monitor) used in Spiros Pierris’ work do not aim to impress but to establish communication and they operate with a disposition to approach. The viewer faces his very self within the co-ordinates defined by the artist. The work of the art operates as provocation and incitement with view to the activation of an inward dialogue, the beginning and duration of which depend on the spectator’s free will.

Irene Savvani

Art Historian and Critic

(Translated from Greek by Maria Consta)