marinapetri
Current Gallery: karagiozis ( piece)
MARINA`S PETRI THE NEW – GREEK KARAGIOZIS Marina Petri outlines the personality of the contemporary Greek with humor but also with a critical glance through the familiar to all of us figure of Karaghiozis. The cunning and crafty protagonist of the theater of shadows. She transforms herself into a busy puppeteer and moves the threads of the artistic game. She creates images, often through the assemblage of different materials, and narrates everyday stories. She enriches the traditional thematic scheme of Karaghiozis with new actions and modernizes her sly hero. Gone are the days of slavery, poverty and misery! Karaghiozis, in the role of the contemporary Greek, is a free and satisfied man. A member of the European Community, an official citizen of the Continent. Educated, he knows everything just like his co-actor Morfonios from whom he steals in Petri’s work some additional characteristics. For example, he displays the arrogance of the intellectual, he dresses elegantly, he likes to show off and he is just too fond of himself. Karaghiozis the contemporary Greek, an admirer and victim of fashion, acquires one more European trait, that of the passionate art-lover, an art-collector to be. A regular visitor of the past, he travels with a time machine to the realm of yesterday in order to speak privately –like a successful yuppie- with his favorite artists: the marginal Caravaggio, the lustful Balthus, the exotic Gauguin, the Mediterranean Picasso –a pioneer of cubism along with Braque- the explosive Pollock, to name but a few. He penetrates with boldness into their works and becomes an integral part of them. He constantly transforms himself, reminding the viewer of his hypocritical talent. He adjusts to different environments like a chameleon, he mingles with the protagonists of the paintings, he vanishes to the inhabited spaces of the Rennaissance artists, of the fauves, the nabis, the cubists or the expressionists and provokes the viewer to discover him. He feels equally at ease wherever he goes. A cosmopolitan, well traveled human being, he impresses with the breadth of his acquaintances and knowledge. All of a sudden the memories of poverty raise from oblivion. Karaghiozis is then depicted as a guest at the coal-miners / “Patatoe Eaters” of Van Gogh, at the poor and dark environment of a hut that stirs associations, connecting different lands and periods. He immediately recovers, however, from the shock of the traumatic memory of the Ottoman sovereignty and from the complex of inferiority he once felt. He is “Victorious”, the Greek National Football Team won the World Champion. Hellas! He belongs to the West, to a civilization that ancient Greece bore. He may, as most researchers say, have entered our country from Constantinople at the end of the 19th century, yet Petri’ s Karaghiozis is convinced that his roots can be also found elsewhere: in the obscene protagonists of Aristophanes and in the Byzantine theatrical type of Ptohoprodromos. A fanatic patriot, he is particularly proud of antiquity and the Byzantium. He admires the linearity of the ancient vases, the clear contours that form the shapes and remind him of his morphology. He applauds the painters Tsarouhis, Engonopoulos and Ghikas who first observed and wrote about this similarity, connecting him with the Greek cultural heritage. He absolutely agrees with them in one more important point: that his multi-angled, naively painted scenic elements are related to the Byzantine representation of space which, in turn, presages the globular perception of the fractured image of the cubists. He himself has to make an additional wise remark. He believes that it is the Greek light -first praised by Periklis Giannopoulos, the distinguished intellectual from the city of Patras-, that breaks up and fragments the form, creating a seemingly cubist structure of the exterior world. As a true Greek, Karaghiozis feels he is first! A worthy successor of Herodotus, Thales, Pythagoras
MARINA`S PETRI THE NEW – GREEK KARAGIOZIS Marina Petri outlines the personality of the contemporary Greek with humor but also with a critical glance through the familiar to all of us figure of Karaghiozis. The cunning and crafty protagonist of the theater of shadows. She transforms herself into a busy puppeteer and moves the threads of the artistic game. She creates images, often through the assemblage of different materials, and narrates everyday stories. She enriches the traditional thematic scheme of Karaghiozis with new actions and modernizes her sly hero. Gone are the days of slavery, poverty and misery! Karaghiozis, in the role of the contemporary Greek, is a free and satisfied man. A member of the European Community, an official citizen of the Continent. Educated, he knows everything just like his co-actor Morfonios from whom he steals in Petri’s work some additional characteristics. For example, he displays the arrogance of the intellectual, he dresses elegantly, he likes to show off and he is just too fond of himself. Karaghiozis the contemporary Greek, an admirer and victim of fashion, acquires one more European trait, that of the passionate art-lover, an art-collector to be. A regular visitor of the past, he travels with a time machine to the realm of yesterday in order to speak privately –like a successful yuppie- with his favorite artists: the marginal Caravaggio, the lustful Balthus, the exotic Gauguin, the Mediterranean Picasso –a pioneer of cubism along with Braque- the explosive Pollock, to name but a few. He penetrates with boldness into their works and becomes an integral part of them. He constantly transforms himself, reminding the viewer of his hypocritical talent. He adjusts to different environments like a chameleon, he mingles with the protagonists of the paintings, he vanishes to the inhabited spaces of the Rennaissance artists, of the fauves, the nabis, the cubists or the expressionists and provokes the viewer to discover him. He feels equally at ease wherever he goes. A cosmopolitan, well traveled human being, he impresses with the breadth of his acquaintances and knowledge. All of a sudden the memories of poverty raise from oblivion. Karaghiozis is then depicted as a guest at the coal-miners / “Patatoe Eaters” of Van Gogh, at the poor and dark environment of a hut that stirs associations, connecting different lands and periods. He immediately recovers, however, from the shock of the traumatic memory of the Ottoman sovereignty and from the complex of inferiority he once felt. He is “Victorious”, the Greek National Football Team won the World Champion. Hellas! He belongs to the West, to a civilization that ancient Greece bore. He may, as most researchers say, have entered our country from Constantinople at the end of the 19th century, yet Petri’ s Karaghiozis is convinced that his roots can be also found elsewhere: in the obscene protagonists of Aristophanes and in the Byzantine theatrical type of Ptohoprodromos. A fanatic patriot, he is particularly proud of antiquity and the Byzantium. He admires the linearity of the ancient vases, the clear contours that form the shapes and remind him of his morphology. He applauds the painters Tsarouhis, Engonopoulos and Ghikas who first observed and wrote about this similarity, connecting him with the Greek cultural heritage. He absolutely agrees with them in one more important point: that his multi-angled, naively painted scenic elements are related to the Byzantine representation of space which, in turn, presages the globular perception of the fractured image of the cubists. He himself has to make an additional wise remark. He believes that it is the Greek light -first praised by Periklis Giannopoulos, the distinguished intellectual from the city of Patras-, that breaks up and fragments the form, creating a seemingly cubist structure of the exterior world. As a true Greek, Karaghiozis feels he is first! A worthy successor of Herodotus, Thales, Pythagoras
Gallery-quality prints · Independent artists · Décor to adore
from $ 11
from $ 11
from $ 11
from $ 11