Page 7 - Collectanea

Collectanea
Collectanea was born out of a reading of the eponymous book by acclaimed essayist Zissimos Lorenzatos (1915-2004). The time (summer) and place (Skyros and Evia) of reading this philosophical diary have been crucial in conceiving the curatorial concept and selecting the artists. In his attempt to visualize a reading experience, the curator assumes the role of mediator: he assembles artworks that seem to embody the spirit of the book and certain obsessions of its author.
This monumental book by Lorenzatos, considered by many to be Greece’s most significant man of letters of the twentieth century, was published in 2009 by Domos Publications, Athens, under the editorial supervision of Stavros Zoumboulakis. As the author writes about his diary entries, “’Collectanea’ refers to the adventure of sensitivity, the adventure of contemplation or the adventure of language”. Accordingly, the exhibition attempts to spatialize this multiplicity of adventures. The artworks that compose the exhibition refer
to the adventure of the gaze, to the ritual of reading a text or a landscape, to the relation of writing to image (to an image as writing and to writing as an image), to the great importance of small things.
The exhibition features drawings, photographs, sculptural installations and a video. Some works function as notes and three-dimensional visual essays, while others function as diary entries and phychograms. We also encounter text-sculptures as well as drawings that focus on the process of immersing ourselves in a text and the physical relationship we develop with it.
The autobiographical discourse that imbues this curatorial poses questions related to the hidden dynamics of bringing together artists and artworks, the profound communication between curator and artist, and the practice of curating. Collectanea approaches the concept of collecting through the personal and selective view of a curator deeply interested in the reciprocal relationship between text and image.
Christoforos Marinos
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