Nikos Zivas

“The Blood of Memory”

Opening 10 July 2023 at 8.00 pm 

Sculpture Exhibition – Installation at the site of the collection of the Monuments of Modern Architecture of Konstantinos Zivas – Municipality of Halandri

Duration of the exhibition Summer – Autumn 2023

Sponsor.   Public enterprise FLYA

The violently broken or dismembered human work as a subject of the visual arts (and literature) is old and ultimately classic, without ever losing its power, i.e. its ability to move. The broken marble column, one of the most moving finds of Romanticism, despite its repetitions, or perhaps because of them, belongs to the most functional parts of our figurative and visual vocabulary. Similar are the themes of the cut bridge, the ruined ruin, the torn tree, the shattered door…

Nikos Zivas

The causes vary: natural disasters, war, or simply in peacetime easy pursuit of economic gain. Interpretations and symbolisms also vary (the futility of the world, almighty time, inevitable destiny, sin and punishment, the horrors of war, unjust death, etc.), but what always remains the same is the violence imprinted on the material and the image of death or murder. Wounds in marble that do not heal better preserve the memory of great misfortune, tragedy or sometimes unforgivable folly. It is not uncommon that when we see the imprints of this violence we think we hear the reverberation of the earthquake, the gun, the iron heavy or the excavator, and as the wounds fade open before us we think we see blood flowing from these bodies, even though they may be marble.

Νikos Zivas

But that is what happens with the blood of memory… and so “The Blood of Memory” is a fitting title for the sculptural exhibition – installation of the wounded marbles of Nikos Zivas, in the area of the Monuments of Modern Architecture collection of the family of Konstantinos Zivas and the Municipality of Halandri, which co-manages it. In this space, the marbles of this exhibition were born and are housed together with many others, which were preserved as fragments from the avalanche of demolitions due to the antipathy of the post-war years and the “ethos” that prevailed towards our modern culture. The wounds of the exhibits (all from the Ziva family’s collection of modern architectural fragments) also refer to the historical catastrophe, which last year marked its centenary, but also to our more recent national adventures or to some of our gross post-war mistakes.

The exhibition is co-organized by the Municipality of Halandri and Zivasart Gallery. Sponsor.

Opening 10 July 2023 at 8.00 pm

Konstantinos Zivas Collection – Municipality of Halandri (The Zivas Mantra), Halandri.

Opening hours daily 10.00 – 20.00