The contemporary art gallery BRAGGART invites you to the opening of the group exhibition “Concrete“, which will take place on Friday 10 November 2023 at 18:00 at the Teloglion Foundation of Art, Thessaloniki. The exhibition will last until November 24 and will take place on the 2nd floor of the Foundation.

In the literary work ” Concrete “, by the Austrian writer Thomas Bernhard, the protagonist, named Rudolf, experiences an imprisonment that is mainly psychological and symbolic. It is an endless and dead-end internal monologue of the protagonist who has been trying for over ten years to write the most important work of his life. His efforts to start his work and find the “first sentence” are constantly interrupted by the constant emergence of internal obstacles to self-actualization and by the “anti-spiritual environment” in which he lives. Every day, he is anxiously seeking to “detect” the “right” conditions under which he will finally begin his work and incorporate into it a wealth of information that he has painstakingly collected for over ten years. He tries in vain, however, since this irresourceful creativity and his spiritually barren environment haunt him every day. “Concrete” is a rigid, inert, unchanging, undifferentiated, impenetrable and entrenched condition, which has formed and constitutes his “anti-spiritual environment”. This is for him indifferent and under inertia, obtuseness, stagnation and hypocrisy, and triggers the protagonist’s deadlocked confinement to himself. He tries ceaselessly and anxiously to stand up to the “Concrete” with which he is constantly confronted and finally to “shatter” it.

On the occasion of the literary work ” Concrete “, the artists, in an attempt to ” put themselves on the shoes ” of Rudolph (the protagonist), as ” Other Rudolph “, elaborate with their personal artistic ” language ” the ” Concrete ” of their own personality. Through installation, photography, sculpture and painting, they materialize and symbolize their inner monologue, triggered by the imprisonments that the work “Concrete” triggers and feeds for each of them.

Aspects and facets of the work that run through and emerge in the artists’ works are the various impasses and confinements that result from the persistent impenetrability of the condition that constitutes the “Concrete”, i.e. the prevalence of the environment that prevents and excludes the emergence of creative forces. Also emerging as a central point is that condition in which the subject remains ultimately imprisoned within itself, as a result of its inability to overcome the ‘Concrete’ that surrounds it. Thus, the confinement to the self is also characterized as impenetrable and solid, characteristics that the “Concrete” bears. These two poles that emerge in the “Concrete” (the internal condition and the environment) coexist and end up forming a Cartesian-type dualism. The subject is enclosed within himself as a “detached self” completely detached from the surrounding context. The latter, as a system, also finds itself enclosed and detached from the “Rudolph-type” subjects it frames, presenting its own selfhood as another “detached self”. In this latter enclosed and self-feeding autistic-type system, there are rational and deterministic laws and rules that guarantee and promise its coherence, continuity and validity. The bark of this “entity” is made of “concrete”.

The former “God” is secularized and embodies this mundane system-circuit of “spirit” and “progress”, which produces endless imprisonments in its attempt to assert itself as a perpetual present. To this end he “enlists” the fields of “spirit”, “science”, “reason” in general, and composes his form from “concrete”. In this form he colonizes as a Sisyphean abomination on the back of “Rudolf”. A possible ‘shattering’ of his solid form might require a tiny hole in the crust of the ‘concrete’. Perhaps ‘Rudolph’ has been searching for this hole for his whole life, perhaps this is the Meaning of his existence, this first ‘found phrase’, the Meaning that is constantly postponed. But he is repeatedly and suddenly confronted with the “Concrete”, that is, with his own annihilation and collapse.

Participating artists: Thodoris Angelopoulos, Stergios Adam, Giorgos Vikelidis, Evita Voudouri, Eleni Gatsiou, Theano Giannezi, Maria Zissopoulou, Ioulitta Karamavrou, Haris Kontosfyris, Dimitris Palantzas, Giorgos Panagiotakis, Giorgos Simeonidis, Irini Sinegalia, Christos Triantafyllou, Konstantinos Tsakiris, Haris Hilitsis, Sisqo Ndombe.

Organized by: BRAGGART gallery (Founded by Androniki Daskalou), www.braggart.gr, Papakiriazi & Skarlatou Soutsou, Center of Larisa

Τ: +30 6908622813 / [email protected]

Text Editor-idea conceived by: Ιoulitta Karamavrou

Opening Nigh: 10 November 18:00

Duration: 10 – 24 Νοεμβρίου 2023

Opening Hours: Tuesday, Thursday, Friday 9:00-14:00, Wedenesday 9:00-14:00 & 17:00-21:00, Saturday and Sunday 10:00-18:00, Monday closed

Where: Teloglion Foundation of Art, 159A Ag. Dimitriou, Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki 546 36 T: 2310247111

Graphic Design Editor: Stergios Adam