30th PLOES: P. & M. Kydonieos Foundation 27/07-29/09 2024
The 30th PLOES art festival in Andros this year will be eventful
The annual artistic exhibition PLOES is in its 30th year this year. It is presented every summer at the P. & M. Kydonieos Foundation in Andros, which supports and hosts the exhibitions and their related theoretical proposals in its two-story building in Chora, Andros. These exhibitions and proposals were founded, are entirely shaped, and curated by Art Historian & Cultural Theory Professor Mrs. Athina Schina (University of Athens).
The PLOES institution is considered successful, as evidenced by the continuously increasing and enthusiastic attendance at its summer events. The high quality of the exhibitions has been recognized by experts as well as by discerning collectors, connoisseurs, and art lovers who regularly attend. The institution fulfills the intentions of the Foundation's Benefactors not simply because of the annual repetition of its events, as it would then be no different from a festival. Instead, its success is due to the exceptional quality and the thoughtful curation of its exhibitions.
What characterizes the PLOES exhibition is its consistent orientation and the progressive coherence of its presentations. These aim not only at responsible decentralization and the representative showcasing of the most important post-war creators through their works, but also at highlighting the most notable contemporary artists.
However, what PLOES primarily focuses on, through its annual thematic selections, is the modernized highlighting of the social role that art undertakes to demonstrate today.
In this context, each work exhibited in PLOES, apart from engaging in a dialogue with the other works in the exhibition and with the audience, responds to the aesthetic and ideological demands or the challenges and concerns of our time. At the same time, it brings to the surface the spiritual values of our traditional heritage, which are bridged with contemporary existential and expressive requirements.
From this perspective of systematicity and consistency in its guiding principles, PLOES is the most enduring private and public-spirited visual arts exhibition in our country.
The opening of the exhibition will take place at the building of the P. & M. Kydonieos Foundation in Chora of Andros on Saturday 27 July 2023 at 8 p.m.
'Towards the Land of Hesperides' is the subtitle of the exhibition
In the last period we have been experiencing the WOKE Culture, the aftermath of the newly-introduced notions of boundless 'entitlementism', social 'deconstruction' and massively inclusive or pluralistic 'inclusion'. Art, however, does not take a position on attitudes and collective beliefs, on attitudes and on perceptions of life that concern society, nor, of course, does this exhibition. That is not its role, after all. Art does not politicize and does not propagandize. It is man who judges, takes decisions and assumes his responsibilities. Art helps him to think, to reflect more broadly, behind and beyond the impressions of those who primarily attract his attention.
But because we live in a critical period (economic, environmental, cultural), with radical changes and unknown consequences as to the resilience of this new reality (with its good and bad, as a product of globalisation) and because we look forward to a new humanism centred on freedom, but of course through its moral and spiritual precepts, we turned to the most ancient tradition, tracing whether the bases and models were prescribed there, and whether there were allegorically the bases and models, regarding certain fundamental and timeless humanist values.
And indeed, in mythology (which is a codified philosophy of life) the 11th feat of Hercules, which is essentially threefold and concerns the "Garden of the Hesperides", includes the most important values in case one wants, overcoming the risk of disintegration, to reconstruct (through the symbolism of the three Golden Apples of this "Garden of the Gods"), a healthy society, based on the principles of a new and naturally modernized Humanism. In other words, it is man's greatest effort to lay the foundations of a new life, after he has realized, through the manifold adventures of life, his potentialities of self-transcendence.
The curator of the exhibition, Ms Athena Schina, writes in the accompanying multi-page catalogue: "It is obvious that art does not illustrate reality, because it does not compete with it. Even through any apparent realism, it raises questions, illuminates questions and ambiguities, points out relativities and enigmatic oddities that life contains, as the creators - with their expressive rhythms and modes of their own stylistic "writing" - sense fragmentary elements and visualize ephemeral snapshots. The author herself goes on to say: 'The creators also transform and at the same time form unexpected aspects of everyday life, intertwining them with memories and psychodynamic impressions. These are various visual impressions that relate colours, distances and tones, creating contradictions and symbiotic juxtapositions through a variety of formulations, which mainly point out the ever-changing associations and the constantly renewed bridges between the visible and the unseen. In other words, those components that cultivate the spectator's psyche, enriching his imagination and activating his thinking.
In the 30th PLOES, "Towards the Land of Hesperides", the artists participating with their works of painting, sculpture, engraving, ceramics and composite materials, are listed here alphabetically: Sotiria Alevisou, Dimitris Anastasiou, Anita Argyroiliopoulou, Olga Verykaki, Maria Vladis, Maria Genitsariou, Eleni Glinou, Natasha Grillaki, Dimitris Zouroudis, Alexandra Isakidi, Christina Kalbari, Josephine Kosma, Panagiotis Koulouras, Janet Liodaki, Maria Nayiou, Georgianna Dalara, Florentia Economidou, Elena Papadimitriou, Dépi Pavlidou, Lila Polenaki, Fotini Poulia, Katerina Ribatsiou, Nikos Saperas, Natassa Sarri, Afroditi Sesenia, Dimitris Skurogiannis, Fotini Stefanidi, Konstantina Silikou, Stratis Tavlaridis, George Houliaras.
Exhibition curator: Athena Schina, Art Historian & Theory of Culture (Athens University of Athens).
Duration of the exhibition: Saturday 27 July to Sunday 29 September 2024
Days and hours of operation: 10.30 - 14.30 & 18.30 - 21.30 daily, except Tuesday
P. & M. Kydonieos Foundation: Chora Andros, tel. 22820 24598
