Viewing Room at ARTSY

Solo Exhibition 

Alexandros Maganiotis

In Perfect Stillness 

As history often repeats itself, Maganiotis work that is so often retrospective of the past, unravels like a prophetic pamphlet in front of the eyes of the conscious viewer.

A large drawing that is inspired by the resistance of the students against The Junta in Greece in 1974. 

The scene is set in front of the Polytechnic School of Athens (Polytechnio), recreating the iconic moment when a tank of the military broke the gates of the school killing the protesting students. 

During the last year and under the influence of the “Black lives matter” movement, the artist re-worked on the artwork trying to give a more international approach, adding protest banners in English. 

Fighting against all forms of violence is always relevant and even necessary.

The artwork makes reference to the work of Vladimir Tatlin and his iconic proposal for Monument to the Third International, the design was never built, but influenced many future architects. Departing from the tower with his utopian experiment of a flying machine called: Le Tatlin. The artist says: "My focus point was this amazing blast of creativity combined with an optimism for the future, that generated all these amazing artworks. As if nothing could stop them".

This artwork was inspired from the researching work of Alan Touring in the natural patterns of animals, it is a combination of samples around eyes of fish that generate these almost psychedelic images. They frame a phrase that comments on the state we live, in stillness. 

The work is made with markers on a mulberry Japanese paper that the artist bought from Kyoto.