The series of wood carvings by Gabriel Andronikidis entitled “Idiotes” that is now on show at the Myro Gallery renders with a sense of tragedy and irony the heart-breaking fall of the private person, of the man and woman, deified for their “heroic” defence of themselves and of their profits, who are now dissolving into thin air.
Wood, the artist’s favourite material, for it makes room to the spontaneous and the unexpected, blows life into the idiotes that rise in all their splendor and facelessness, in an almost Cycladic bareness, as lonely and disfigured trees, giving shape to a peculiar forest - society where each person lives their drama alone on their pedestal, with no wish to communicate with the others – Demos is not to be found here. The loneliness of the individual is enhanced rather than alleviated by their proximity.
Andronikidis’ forms point to the organic, primary, abstract forms of modernism. His work has references to sculptors such as Rodin, Archipenko, Brancusi and Moore. However, Andronikidis’ idiotis lacks the self-confidence of the wandering dandy or the detached optimism of the rising bourgeois; here we come face to face with their dramatic deposition, a deposition that perhaps might give rise to the return of the “demotes”, the public persons, the people.
Louisa Avgita
Art Historian and Critic
The text above was written by Mrs. Avgita on the occasion of Gabriil Andronikidis first presentation of his newest series of sculptures "Idiotes", which is going to take place in an exhibition in the Greek Marble Initiative Showroom, Myro Gallery, in Thessaloniki, Greece.
~Μπορείτε να διαβάσετετο κείμενο στα Ελληνικά ΕΔΩ.