Supervisors info:
Ευαγγελία Διαμαντοπούλου, Λέκτορας, Τμήμα ΕΜΜΕ, ΕΚΠΑ
Summary:
The study object of this thesis is the visual artistic production in Greece (early Performance art, Environments, Happenings), from the imposition until the end of the dictatorship, since the censorship acted in two ways. The question that runs through the entire work is how one can speak about the dictatorship within the dictatorship. We are particularly interested in artwork of Dimitris Alithinos and Maria Karavela, as examples of innovative artists through an art that would look if it is radical to its content and innovative (avant-garde) in terms of form.
Based on the work of Foucault's History of Sexuality 1 - The will to knowledge, we will stand at the fact that censorship is not only a barrier to the transmission of a message, however it can work in a positive way, producing allusive discourse encoded, proficient , just like became with a lot of artists, in visual production, music and cinema.
Both artists introduced the Greek public in the early Environments, Performances and Happenings within the junta regime, creating a historical change in the position of the public and bringing to Greece international artistic avant-garde. The two main axes of the project analysis is the space and time. Since we refer to the first space projects in Greece, the first Environments important site analysis tool was the research of Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space. What is important in the analysis of Bachelard is the priority given to the experienced space rather than the reduction of the images in our imagination, in psychological terms.
Alongside the area considered and the time, as a second focal point. These exhibitions of Maria Karavela in Astor gallery in 1970, and Dimitris Alithinos in Artistic Cultural Center “Time” in 1973, reflect this time and an artistic testimony of an era. Given the ephemeral and non-commercial character, the famous text of Walter Benjamin, “The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction”, stood guide to the analysis of historical time, the Here and Now. The Here and Now, moreover, characterizes the two reports, on the one hand it ensures authenticity and secondly because it directly connects the project with the social and political conditions that gave birth.
The connection of Spirit and Life, Art and Reality, is a fundamental axis of the project analysis. The historical evidence of Periklis Korovesis and Kitty Arseni, through the books; their testimonies “Anthropofylakes” and “Bouboulinas 18”, respectively, are a key analytical tool of artists in an attempt to explore the reflection of reality for thousands tortured by the junta regime in both projects that grapple. At the same time, our goal is to see if we can finally talk about projects, radical in content and innovative in form within these political conditions in an effort to bridge the historic rift between Spirit and Life.
Keywords:
art and dictatorship, Dimitris Alithinos, Maria Karavela, censorship
