Seeking the objectivity

Historical review-Foundation of GROUP 1848

The conjectural team GROUP 1848 consists of: Yannis Alexakis, Vasilis Karoubis, Natalia Papadopoulou, Giorgos Sapounas and Kostas Tsironis. We met each other in Athens School of Fine Arts at the beginning of 1990.We met in the General Assemblies of the students union that took place in a particular atmospheric area with a corresponding name The "evening nude pose" witch was an underground amphitheatre of technical university of Patision str. A place stuffed with memories from the historical struggles of the students movement. As we were young students at the time, we found ourselves enchanted by the intense debates in a fully smoked environment. At the beginning of 1999 that the ideas of the End of history were diffused everywhere, the period where Globalism made cowardly its first steps and the eastern regimes collapsed sealing with grave stones all hopes and illusions, then, our underground looked little and was a spot in time. Even the sole parties were in favorer of it. The "Mountaineers" and the "Plainsmen" were arguing about the tendencies of the left party. So, instantly we got involved in the game, constructing along with other kids, our own version called: "Socialistic Revolutionary Interference in Art and Life". The base of the companion, beyond the strong friendly bonds, was initially ideological.

We were all very aggrieved, some less some more, to pass the difficult examinations of an undoubtedly elitist school. On the one hand we had managed to accomplish the dream after years of hard preparation in an academic stylistic design of ancient busts. On the other, we where all staffed with the enthusiasm of the great masters of modernism such as Van Gogue, Gogen, the Impressionists, the Expressionists, Magrit, De Kirico, the other Surrealists and certainly the Russian Pioneers.

However, while we were trying to comprehend the boundaries of the aesthetic spectrum of the Academy we began to suspect that there was none. From teacher to teacher, from lab to lab there was an immense dissimilarity of checks up to the limits of chaos and the lack of any criteria. Beside the student who strived to depict the model naturalistically, there was another one shooting Polaroid photos of his own grimes. Beside the teacher who demanded severely observance of the anatomy terms, there was another who encouraged and approved of the viewpoint that everything is Art. Soon, the suspicion turned out to be a certainty. It was not actually the microcosm of the school, but the global reality of Art. At the point, the initial illusion of freedom was vanishing and the most barbaric tyrant emerging through it. The one, who in real life reigns upon any theoretical conception of leveling of criterion, any subjectivness, the Market itself.

The companion was drawing, experimenting and struggling to comprehend. The companion was chatting, reading, staring, listening. The companion was acting politically according to its strong liberating aspects and anti capitalist activism and was trying to realize and see the exit. On the other side, beside the school books of Rid, Komrih, Birtsleys history of aesthetic theories, we started to reveal the manifests of Surrealism, the scripts of Magrid, the views and tendencies of the Russian Vanguard, the social history of Art, M. de Mikelis, Hauzer, Breht, Kalas, the theoreticians who matched our political views. We started to join the picture puzzle, to ascertain that even chaos has got a name, which is Postmodernism and has explanation and cause. It was as much catalytic for us the book of Fredrick Jaimson: The Postmodern as it was in the beginning of our course The Vanguards of 20th century Art by Mario de Mikelis.

Simultaneously the torturing course of action, painting and effort so as a certain style to be found was evolving and still lasts. We moved further mostly by rejecting what we were testing and not with certainties. And thus we move forward. At a certain moment around 1996 a great exhibition of Josef Bois took place at the exhibitional building of the Athens School of Fine Arts. It was time for activism. A big banner suspended in the entrance of the exhibition, made an intense criticism in the view of the "Postmodern Pope". We signed as "Spiral Unreeling Group". It was the next year that we took the decision for a common course. We founded the conjectural team GROUP 1848.

Our first common appearance was in September 1999. We arranged a big exhibition over 40 large arts of painting in the "Melina Merkouri" cultural community center of Athens. Since then we have participated in a several shows and collective exhibitions, we have illustrated magazines. We try to be in constant contact and conduce in the great conversation concerning Art, its bands with society and also the movement. We stress the importance of value for theoretical approach, but above all we are painters and our own work is the most ambitious and sincere product.