Interview with the painters of Group1848.
Newspaper EPOHI. Sunday 26th of September 1999
You call your team Group1848. Both words are particularly intense. The first one stresses the collectiveness whereas the second has important historical and political meanings. Why did you choose this name?
Natalia Papadopoulou: We chose Group1848 for two reasons; firstly, it is the era we pass from Modernism to Realism. That means, the painters in that particular era begin to occupy with and draw the daily life of people, something they did not dare to do the previous time. It is also the beginning of Modernism, of great and significant artistic movements: Expressionism, Impressionism, Cubism, a little while Surrealism and of course the Russian Vanguard after 1917 until 1950, movements that can be regarded as our basic references.
Kostas Tsironis: Also it is obvious the political reason of the choice. It is not accidental the year 1848 did not emerge through the great revolution, on the contrary, in time of peace and it was the historical moment through which, all philosophers and artists contributed to the reversal of things. All the ideas of the French Revolution found their support there and it is not random that the communist manifest was written at that time.
Lets take a close look at the other word as well, Group. What were the exact reasons, which incited you to create this artistic team? Is it to serve merely practical purposes? We are all able to realize the hardship, faced by a conjectural artist. Are you united by other reasons such as common artistic conceptions and anxieties?
Giorgos Sapounas: We are four painters consisting the group and we are not just good friends, but we have common speculations since the second year of the school when we first met each other. What we faced from the beginning was a strange embarrassment prevailing in the School of Art. At first we were incapable of interpreting it. From the beginning our orientation was based on the Moderns: Expressionists, Impressionists, Surrealists, Russian Pioneers, that was more or less our educational status. In the School of Art we found ourselves stick to a situation which was lacking in specific boundaries. We swapped experiences from our researches on the history of Art and upon experiments we performed ourselves using our canvas. Sooner or later we found out that we all move to the same destination and we made the decision, around 1997 while our school was coming to an end, that we had to make an effort as a team, not according to collective exhibition but as a team the members of which have some certain common views which represent the world of all of us. We should not forget that some painters with different perception about different things are together just by the need to find a place to exhibit. Something similar with the artists during the vanguard between 1910 and 1930. At our time, the exact opposite aspect prevails, the post vanguard witch supports the fact that it is not feasible for a common aspect of things to exist, and thus we cannot find a mutual path, a common destination. It is a conception historically shallow, epidermic and with an intense subjectivity. We found ourselves in the opposite direction of this aspect. Besides, we clearly call ourselves Marxists.
In addition we never considered that the mutuality of our views would oblige us to accomplish the same things. We feel quiet satisfied by the fact that we are able to see at the same horizon and share the common belief that painting basically an effort which expresses a common view, a joint experience. It talks mostly with colors, shapes and meanings, but never by themselves. As it is obvious in our work, countenance and content are always combined and we firmly hope that will be recognized by the spectator, as soon as he lays eyes on it.
Vasilis Karoubis: Let me tell you this as well. It is not worth watching closely what happens in Art only. I mean if you just watch what is going on outside! You have to take a closer look in the society itself, in order to explain what happens in Kasel or why the aesthetics should be like that, why for instance everybody deals with constructions which are empty of feelings, of internal psychological speculation, so as to create a surrounding of meanings? Is Art semantic? This was the point that personally made me think hard. This was the fatal conflict. This is why we made the group.
Since you put it this way, Vasilis, there is an intense feeling at your work. The spectator leaves, having sensed a negative or positive stir. For example, in your work, the strong colors make the eyes hurt, provoke the audience to mock.
V.K.: I was influenced by De Kiriko and later I was infatuated with Sagal. I was particularly attracted by Surrealism. In my viewpoint, a supernatural image is in the position to attribute more efficiently what happens in the human soul. You cross a street, see an airplane, a car, something happens a little farther. If you want to draw all these incidents, you need to know that they do not comply with the laws of physics but they function dreamy. The car that crossed the street a while ago is just a metal mass and all of them are iron, so if you are a dreamer and you want to escape, this iron can get alive, fly, dangle, so for me this realistic place cease to exist. I find no interest in gravity laws, the human proportions, the way light goes down! I am interested in knowing that things are autonomous and arrive in another time. I am painting as you see objects by themselves, because actually all these are memories of things, people, proceedings, fleeting things. On the other hand I do not function with upsolute autonomy, because I believe that we should communicate with people and our symbols should not be extremely personal so as the spectator will be able to understand. I wish my painting would speak to him internally. Since I often ask myself questions I strive to find dialectical elements which will complete one another. If you notice, I always work Grotesque, putting side by side red and green to make the utmost contrast. I fancy this. I want eyes to pass over it, scan it and get tired not happy. I want to strain them as the Omonia Square strains. I do not want to make a decorative art but an Art like an alarm clock which wakes you for work with this irritating sound. If I could make my work more Grotesque I would do it. This is what I am looking for. How I can make my work more repulsive and Grotesque.
What about you Natalia?
N.P.: In my work there is a denunciation for the society we live in and the status of women in it. I am greatly inspired by the political work we do and by the vision of the social modification. On the other hand I move beyond this. I try not to guide the spectator to see only this. I want him to be able to imagine various things. The success of my work has to do with the creation of a bridge between the creator and the spectator. In all my works the female presence is obvious. There is no picture of mine without looming up the female sex, which means that in chaos we live in, there is always hope. The woman is the one who gives birth, who brings life. Through this stifling atmosphere caused by the intense colors and through blacks and the deformed figures, emerges the idea that the woman will bring hope. Of course there is not just that, there is also the human relations, the loneliness a woman can feel or even an alienated couple. All these are my basic subjects, my fundamental references.
In your work Kostas the political element is not quiet obvious.
K.T.: On the contrary, I began this unit having as motive the war in Bosnia. The demolition and the theatre are places experienced by people who actually knew the face of war. The picture that presents the empty theatre of Beograd has the empty stage and the human absence. The blind alley of war, the unintentional participation of men in it. That is why the continuation of this is the painting with the debris. The painting with the flowers is inspired by another experienced place, the Omonia underground. The place where so many people live with a different importance each but isolated because of unknown to us reasons. The flowers are the undisputable right of each of us to bloom and be fragrant as an individual. As you may see my art is political.
Now, lets see the work of Giorgos. Your pictures narrate entire stories.
G.S.: It is true. First off all there is love towards the great narration which describes the common experiences of people. Not individually, but the common life. The world of Art is a bridge between the artist and his public, because both of them consist a distinguished personality made of the same elements that deal with the era, order, history, nation, common elements, common experience, common effort. From this point of view, and through the roads of art, we wish to describe these common experiences and offer the possibility to provoke emotion. The work of art should be able to talk even when the artist is absent, to create excitement to the spectator without the need of any special instructions.
I am striving to demonstrate my experiences, my speculations, so as to move the spectator without having the need of knowing me personally or comprehending what exactly troubles me. We chose this path and serve it with diligence. I am not saying that it is the only one that leads to great Art but it is undoubtedly our own proposition, our own way to see things and our own way to fulfill our love for painting.