WORDS
SPENCERTOWN ACADEMY ARTS CENTER
For Immediate Release
EKTORAS BINIKOS “AXIS MUNDI”
July 30, 2011 – August 27, 2011
Opening Reception: Saturday, July 30th, 6-8 pm
The
Spencertown Academy Arts Center is pleased to announce "AXIS MUNDI", an
exhibition by Ektoras Binikos, which will open on Saturday July 30th
and be on view through Saturday August 27th, 2011. The exhibition will
feature new works on paper in the main East Gallery, as well as a
sculpture piece and a mural conceived specifically for the space. The
West Gallery Room will host his 1998 video "where is alice?” together
with 5 new graphite drawings from the same series.
Known
for the diversity of his artistic activities, having experimented with
various media - drawing, installation, video and photography - Binikos
has described his art as "a voyage through the circuitous route but
nevertheless limited paths of time." "My creative life is a performance
and a practice of becoming through the insertion of contemporary
gestures. It is a temporal affair — a process in time."
Axis
Mundi (Navel of the World), the connection between heaven and earth,
also represents the place where the four points of the compass come
together. This is an ambitious installation, starting at the West Wall
of the Main Gallery with "Nehushtan", the serpent of salvation (Book of
Numbers 21:6-9) that also symbolizes cosmic energy. "Nehushtan" is
conceived as a pattern for a stained-glass window to symbolize the
penetration of the divine light of the sun, which illuminates with its
ethereal and transient rays the bridge between heaven and earth.
The
installation continues on the North wall with the diptych "Bonjour" and
"Bonne Nuit": these two grinning skulls printed on black paper as
though lit by the moon (the feminine counterpart of the Sun), with the
words Bonjour and Bonne Nuit written on them, refer to an extensively
used memento mori symbolizing man’s limited time on earth and inevitable
return to dust. They become visible only when your face comes close
enough to fill almost the entire periphery of the skull, so that the
living face and the skull mirror each other, fitting and interacting in
perfect synchronicity as the words also come into a full focus.
On
the same line there is a third drawing depicting a dignified Victorian
lady holding a parasol - a precursor to the last works of the
exhibition. Perhaps she is the Queen of the Night from Mozart’s Magic
Flute, protecting herself from the effects of the sun’s rays or
obstructing the sun to create the night. The parasol’s mystical
significance is also a link between heaven and earth and is further
compounded by its shape: its canopy is reminiscent of the sun and of the
vault of the heavens, while its shaft acts as an Axis Mundi.
Next
on the same wall is on view his drawing “Petite Liturgy” from his
series Celestis. There inside a hexagon shape form, a visual pattern
covers the entire surface. (Reproduced from D.Marr 1982.) When looking
at the images, we notice a change in pattern at approximately
three-second intervals: in its search for order, the mind structures
what it perceives and interprets the image in various ways. Binikos
employs a sensory experience involving our central nervous system to
allow the work to be in constant interaction with the viewer. Within the
hexagon there a Necker’s cube, an image that can be visually
interpreted in two ways- and bears testimony to the actively searching
nature of our perception.
On
the East Wall from left to right are two drawings from his series
"Celectis": a cube and an obelisk, the obelisk (Alexander-Helios)
divided in two with the upper part resembling a Bishop’s Miter. The
choice of the cube to hold the everlasting changing pattern evokes the
anchor maintaining the order of the universe, while the obelisk acts as a
direct connection between earth and sky. The Miter symbolizes the
ultimate authority of the Sun over life (the base of the obelisk). On
the same line there is a third drawing (Cleopatra- Selene) depicting an
Egyptian female profile (?) She is the female counterpart of the
(Alexander- Helios) his sister, perhaps the moon.
The
last piece on the east wall is a diptych of the two fantastical portals
that lead (according to the artist) from the otherworld. The numbers
shown are the artist’s month and day of birth; the circles, having
neither beginning nor end, represent the never–ending cycle of life and
death.
In
the middle of the gallery at the exact center point of the room is the
sculpture "Psycho-pomp" (soul-guide), echoing the stone herms of ancient
Greece. (Stone herms were placed at crossroads, symbolizing the role of
Hermes as mediator between the two worlds.)
Lastly,
on the south wall of the main gallery Binikos presents a mural
conceived specifically for the space: "Another Heavenly Day" (the
opening line of Samuel Becket’s play "Happy Days", in which Winnie, the
main character, dreams that she will "simply float up into the blue …
And that perhaps some day the earth will yield and let me go, the pull
is so great, yes, crack all round me and let me out"). | 
