The art space “Oratos” where experimentation, research and the formation of artistic identity is constantly sought, presents the group exhibition of contemporary art, entitled : The unusual, usual.

A cohabitation Treaty of four artists who choose to exhibit in an independent space that as a choice in itself constitutes a political act. They compose works-in situ installations, with conscious abstinence from the cognitive process of craftsmanship (objet trouvé, readymade), tasked to highlight connections that oppose the traditional conception and the dominant Kuhn paradigm.

Their visual or conceptual experiences are acutely shaped into works touching the realm of the political. Shifts and transformations of natural relations of environmental objects with a mocking mood regarding the opposing pair of the familiar as unfamiliar, the ordinary as unusual, help to develop, construct and formulate a rhetoric that challenges our established visual perception. Their conceptualizations take place with subversive practices outside the urban aesthetic with the intention of changing the sensory experience, proposing ways that challenge the viewer to perceive ruptures, unpredictable connections, revelations of the unseen, possibilities of resistance to the inference of certainties .

Works concerning the collective, in the context of contemporary political art, with apt

gestures that embody and condense reactions comment on deregulation, manipulation, modern financial reality, oppression, class war, discomfort, dissatisfaction with political domination.

Challenging the validity of logical interpretation and invalidating standards,

they break the boundaries between real experience and metaphor or symbolization, and eventually, with this convergence, they make the boundaries between them negligible, leading ultimately to an unexpected encounter.

They use the selected material unorthodox, thus cooperating in the elimination of

of its established morphological entity and transforming its utilitarian value, the

they lead to its rebirth in a different form and substance, diverting it from its original destination.

The unconventional juxtaposition of objects embedded in real space transports the viewer through the unexpected and the surprise, into internal conflicts that concern our experiential perception of the real, objective world.

They each shape their personal vocabulary with seamless

experiments, splices, attachments of elements and concepts, meteoric and with multi-important often imperfect adjacencies, ultimately give inner coherence and immediacy to the works through an ability to feed on causes, the behaviors of the present.

The viewer is asked to read them and decode their conceptual entity against the dominant cultural experience by becoming a participant in their personal narrative. Between subject and object, unconscious structures emerge that permeate individualities and are determined in part by the context in which

exposed. Both the artist and the viewer retreat from the space of metaphor, into the common realm, towards a relatively safe place of the literal and the solid.

Humble objects stripped of their original function mental constructs with subversive subcutaneous humor activate connotations by disassociating them from any predetermined meaning. They reposition and transform, they assert their own independence by challenging the dominance of meaning and its connotations, offering a new starting point. Their intention brings to mind the verses of Samson Rakka: as long as we do not water the unthinkable, we will languish in the foolish.

Artists participate in the exhibition:

Vassilis Alexandrou/Vasilis Alexandrou

Dimitris Palantzas/Dimitris Palantzas

Konstantinos Tsakiris / Konstantinos Tsakiris

Charis Chilitsis / Charis Chilitsis

Exhibition curated by Maria-Vasiliki Kenanidou

FREE ENTRY

Art space “Oratos” :

Sfetsou 2, Thessaloniki

Exhibition duration: 28 February to 14 March 2023

Working Hours:Monday – Sunday 19: 00 – 24: 00