Five
years on from his last show at Monitor, we are now pleased to
announce the opening of Gra(m)mary of Puppetry, new solo show by the
Greek artist Kostis Velonis in our space. The artistic research
conducted by Velonis takes its cue from a complex and illustrious
artistic heritage spanning Constructivism to Bauhaus, besides drawing
on the radical artistic currents of the late-Sixties and and
different subspecies of Democracy.
With Gra(m)mary of
Puppetry Velonis has charted a philosophical outlook on the world of
theatre. Influences from the Classical world, where theatre was one
of the major forms of expression and communication, have been worked
into an exquisitely contemporary artistic lexicon to develop a kind
of psychological ‘atlas’ that Velonis has constructed directly in
the gallery, and which sheds light on the nature of object
theatre.
Through drawings, photographic prints and sculptures
Velonis offers a new interpretation of theatrical performance in
which the marionette – in its role of object and storyteller –
takes on a wider significance of a strongly political and social
nature.
The structure of the artist’s vision – intended almost
as a writing process – is used to trace the various stages of the
representation together with the almost magical rules that guide it.
The delicately executed drawings emphasise the genesis of the
marionette -or object moved with the aid of strings (from the greek
neurospaston). The collages instead stand as a kind of visual
reference road map (Puppet Cosmogony) conceived as an assemblage of
documents that deal with certain paradoxes and extremes in object
theatre. Within the large spaces of the gallery, the humble, recycled
materials of which they are made underscore the apparent abstract
nature of the small-scale sculptures. As it turns out, the scale of
the objects is a necessary requisite for an unadorned and minimal
stage in which the actor – or marionette – is able to move and
freely express him/itself.
Kostis
Velonis,
Gra(m)mary
of Puppetry
Opening Thursday March
28th
6-9 pm
Monitor
Gallery, Rome
Until
May 4th.
