(Onyema Offoedu-Okeke from the Athens Games. The research and report is being supported by the Ford Foundation) Onyema Offoedu-Okeke is an artist, writer and curator.
In the night of the Olympiad opening ceremony, all Greece (except those in the stadium) were engrossed with the live coverage of the event on TV. One feels this truly Olympic atmosphere when cheerers from enemy nations sit at the same table, having left behind all animosities to embrace the magical transformation. That is what Olympics can do. At niches and crannies, many nationalities sitting together in crowds, carrying flags and banners, were waiting to start vibrating with boisterous ballads at the mention of the countries’ sports delegates.
Even the surrounding shadowy hills – and all its glorious Olympian forebears – quietly supervised the rerun of the ancient games on the soil of its birth- the second time in modern era. As if connected by national pride or emotional connection with their ancestry, Athenians showed support in squares, malls, convergence places, parks, pubs, restaurants and cheered on the proceedings. Overhead in the night’s sky were reflected neon-light effects blazing from several venues, and light rings running up the hills (electronic meteors). This night was unlike any night in nearest memory, only surpassed by the emotional explosions when Greece scuttled Portugal’s Euro-football ambition to take home the ultimate football trophy. The opening night’s surging passions was generated by admixtures of diverse national interests in spaces packed full of tourists, team-supporters, migrants, and Greeks from the Diaspora.
The opening ceremony of the game was fantastic light display, pushing much Greek pride to swell to the tip of the frothing brew, even when the essence bubbled. Notably, the show was in series of illuminated acts done in superb snippets and incandescent pantomime dance. One was a love-dance (acted on water-surface by two lovers) which depicted foibles and nuptials in spring seasons or showed a soft side of the Greek love-tragedy- the romanticism in a lover’s foolhardiness (Trojan episode of Helen and Paris). Yet, a recognisably choreographed demonstrative sketches of the antiquarian visual icon – Olympian runners’ series, disco bolus sculpture, sea-faring man-o-war, etc., in suspended deliberate slowness like drifting afternoon dream.
Around the stadium, on designated portions, these expensive spectacles followed one another like scripted theatre skits. No doubt enthralled, the spellbound crowd appreciated by their enthusiastic applause – in the manner that showed unreserved emotion, and even more when the parade of athletes attired in national dresses commenced. Heralded by their hoisted flags, Greek athletes and officials led the procession of nations. This time, the applause that greeted processions was so permeating to the heavens that it scattered the pigeons several miles away in Syntagma square- Athens’ equivalent of Trafalgar square in London. All over Greece and typically at several strings of outdoor restaurants with clear views of the Acropolis, occasional joyous outbursts drew many more stragglers to fix attention on the Television sets. No type of glorious moment like this Olympic moment could have made well-behaved guests and polite host to burst into rapturous shindig as their respective flags and national colours appeared on the monitors. Maybe it was simply encouraged by the example set by the Europeans crowd, especially the youthful Germans, the raucous English, also the exultant Australians, the Korean ruckus which employed the call-and-answer chorus(scared the bar owner). Clad in white dress and green turban, the Nigerian delegates got a nicely lifted cheering from a table of five nationals, accompanied with comments like “royalty, royalty”.
Now this preamble is preset in my mind as I wondered why the Cultural reflective was left out of this particular opener, after all the heavy press given to the cultural Olympiad. Having been touted as the twin essence of the sporting events, the art was eventually recognised as the missing elements of a wholesome Olympiad as it was originally intended by the Greek precursors. Viewing the sequence of pantomimed athletic gestures and movements derived from immortalised Olympic drawings – on potteries, high relief on friezes, sculptures in marble, etc., – it has been apparent that creativity was the summation of the sports, excellence of the human spirit as it rose to the Olympian summits, in imitation of the observant gods.
In a post-event discussion with an English artist, she echoed her disappointment at the organiser’s oversight (in not including artists with athletes in opening procession). That not withstanding, it is the vision of ARTIADE organiser that the future cultural events should be intricately woven with the sporting schedule. If nothing else, the opening cavalcade should reflect the artist-pageantries with cultural flavours.
Cultural Olympiad added exquisite stylistic content and unprecedented spiritual dimension in part because of the songs, dance theatres, and literature exhibitions, but mostly for exhibiting the Greek historic art periods and selected diverse cultural icons from the continents –the history of the Athens School of Fine Arts through the works of its teachers; Byzantine and the Christian Museum; Jewish Museum of Greece presented “Hidden Children in Occupied Greece”; Henry Moore retrospective, six leading sculptor and the human figure; the Greek National Archaeological Museum presents “Agon”; the Imperial treasures from China; Our place: Indigenous Australia now; Design for everybody organised by Swedish Embassy, a selection modern painters etc.
The greater numbers of these exhibitions are dedicated to exploring Olympian moments through archaeological remains, photography, and paintings by Modern Greek artists, fashion history (folds and pleats as ancient textile textures to its influence in modern fashion), icons and manuscripts from Byzantine empire-era, potteries, music Operas, folk songs, video installations, etc.
Visitors and migrant residents have these well coordinated exhibitions happening all over Greece as faultless, especially the renovated tram-lines, metro and buses circuits intended to convey people to the different venues, remember the transportation fiasco in 1996 Atlanta Games?. As intended, Athens 2004 unifies the multifaceted visual celebrations of the Greek ancient Olympic Games and the remodelled modern equivalent. With more than fifty world-class exhibitions to choose from, visitors are awed by the spate of preparedness as the organisers must have left no stone unturned to give the world a different Olympiad. So it should have been expected that the enormous capacity built for visual celebrations left a stone or two unturned. I felt it.
Where is Africa in the scheme of things? Could this omission had stemmed from lack of interest from interested professional curators or that no one was approached to present theme, or that no where can be found any African connection to the establishment of philosophy or mathematics or geometry? There was nothing to celebrate ancient Egypt’s muses – the cradle of civilisation whose timeless influence enabled development of later empires and civilisation within the Mediterranean locus and extended religious signification in Asia Minor. Any introduction to the ancient Greek architecture acknowledges the transfer of building knowledge from the influential Egyptian civilisation, also in philosophy (if you can recall that the bedrock of the Greek philosophy was the pontifical dictum from Egypt: “Man, know thyself”) in art (earlier forms show similarities of poses, and features) and engineering.
Maybe, it is just meant to be mainly Greek cultural celebration and nothing else to distract attention. Fact supported with over fifty different shows based on Greek achievements in arts, design, literature and poetry
Any mention of contemporary Art from Africa eluded the seemingly well articulated programs of the Cultural Olympiad. Did the ‘Dark Continent’ lack the spiralling cultural light, same type that gave past civilisations their historic recognitions or the spark that lit up the subsequent post-modern design consciousness of the Western hemisphere?
Curiously, it seemed that the eternal art debate in culture-correctness or academic superiority reared its head silently within the organisers’ criteria system as there was no mention of ancient art from Africa. (Well, it’s just my thinking). There was even retrospective tribute to the so-called six leading sculptors of human form – some of whose creative diversion in later lives owed a lot to the African aesthetics – especially Henry Moore, Constantin Brancusi and Giacommeti.)
ARTIADE- Art of the Olympic Nations
It gradually dawned on me that without ARTIADE, the cultural Olympiad would have run an incomplete race of cultural representation, without any mention of African visual arts or multifaceted performance-culture or the percussive music richly veined in chorus and rhythmical tunes, melodies, call-and-answer stylisations. ARTIADE – an abbreviation of “The Olympic of the Visual Arts”- is one of the many cultural programmes on the bill as announced by the Hellenic Ministry of Culture.
It opened on the 12th of August with strong showing of filial connection among the artists, an instant bonding which only the Olympic spirit could have necessitated. Organised with intention of exhibiting artists drawn from the nations participating in the games, ARTIADE opened with few hitches, though not anything to deter the courageous team made up of Curators (Renate Westhoff-Reisch, Maurice Reisch and Tereza de Arruda), the panel of judges including Prof Carol Becker, Prof Ekaterina Degot, Hamad Khalat, Prof Monne Bon, and Prof Huang Sheng Wang.
ARTIADE is a brainchild of Renate Westhoff-Reisch, a German cultural officer who has had more than thirty years of experience in the field. Her quiet manner hides the strong willed individual whose excellent vision it was to integrate sports and art at the Games – this initiative was rewarded at the Atlanta games of 1996, but any hope repeating her successful cameo outing at the subsequent Sydney Games of 2000 was counteracted by the Australian IOC officer responsible for art shows. This memory sometimes overwhelms her, causing an emotion-door to let through facts and circumstances of the Australian no-show.
She claimed that her idea was so revolutionary that officials craved the limelight for themselves and swatted her aside like an insignificant gnat. The eventual prize the Australians paid for usurping the idea and space of this lone woman was the presentation of artworks showing sporting action in contemporary realism styles, a concept as inane as it was unsuitable for any mention.
Yet again it seemed as if the misadventure trailed her to her Athens rendezvous with history. A major setback occurred when the previously agreed sponsors reneged from commitment. Weathering storms of disappointment arising from this last minute change of mind, her appeal to the artists proved victorious through strong show of solidarity from the artists. The artists who came or sent works rallied to her request by seeking individual sponsors to actualise their participation.
It seemed that no failed sponsorship could scuttle this ARTIADE gathering, whose battle to stay alive against the odds complicated by venue, accreditation by the Olympic Culture Committee (and organisation procedures could be likened to an innocent dove battling the ogres). Accreditation was given later while the venue was moved from initial billed central Athens to a nearby town of Tavros (also showing nearby in a modern museum is a most riveting compilation of Aboriginal art, craft, culture, historical narratives and musical videos in a show titled “our place: indigenous Australia now”)
The African artists who eventually turned up had navigated the odds of ticket booking, and sponsorship fiasco to grace a memorable Olympics of a lifetime. (The heart grows and pounds seeing the colourful banners bid an emotional welcome to the Olympic essence after so many years.) While the African countries sent in their works, their representatives later came in person. Nigeria: Onyema Offoedu-Okeke, Zak Attah and Ugochukwu Nzewi.
Onyema’s piece – ‘Kente headscarf’ showcases a boudoir study of head tying craft existing in the West African sub-region. As a well developed fashion accessories, it proved adequate for informal and formal functions for schools, churches, civic activities, and seminars, cocktails parties, etc. most remarkably, the depiction strongly suggests a stylised facial profile generated by articulating subtle facial expressions on idealised mask-form. The result is a formulation which recalls the African tribal sculptural aesthetics.
Onyema’s piece – ‘Kente headscarf’
Ugochukwu Nzewi’s piece called “papyrus of the past, present and the future” is a wooden scroll carved with Nsibidi scripts. It attempts to also look at the problems bedevilling Nigeria, nay Africa. The scroll as carved papyrus represents that insightful connection between our glorious past, the dark ages of the present, and the romantic future that every well meaning person should look forward to.
Ugochukwu Nzewi, “papyrus of the past, present and the future”
Zak Attah’s painting on canvas titled “mining for water” connects subject matter and title in a rather ambiguous way. A water-trickle runs down from a crack on the wall irrespective of the thematic posture of a woman with a clay pot searching for water. The artist intended to mirror hardship of people living on economic fringes who had to locate or acquire life’s essentials such as scarce water, through strenuous means like engaging in subterranean search for this water.
Zak Attah, “mining for water” (right picture)
Kenya’s sole entry was Tabitha W. Mburu’s Complex culture, a group of three acrylic paintings. Her artistic vision touches on breaking domestic-gender stereotypes seen in many depictions of Massai women. Her feminist projections are – what she would have the Massai women do, when they are not seen in their roles as housewives. The answer traces a certain pattern of leisurely indulgence of men’s games (like football) while fetching firewood- as seen in one painting.
Tabitha W. Mburu – “Complex culture”
In another, same group of red-wrapper women bushwhacks with like load on their back, going back home through a trackless route, stepping on springy toes like the wind touches and combs the grasses in mutual oneness. The third piece however seems to lack new ideas of genres for Massai women who are seen wearing the firewood like office badge.
Uganda’s two entries are Paul Ssendagire (has three), and Eria Nsubuga.
Paul Ssendagire’s satirical blend of naïve drawing and superb graphic finish served up common themes in new blankets. For a couple of persons, ‘A cruise on the water’ in a large fish makes a plainer and surer maritime humour. As shown, the punt reflects as one of the boatmen sniggered at the paddler’s comical effort at rowing. ‘The kiss’ rekindles certain similarity with Jew’s painting of same idea whereby the women seems to float around her lover’s neck in heightened frenzy of passion. In combination with stylised (naïve) forms, the poster-like announcement objectifies this advertisement of succubial act as pleasurable.
The third painting is ‘the catch’ done in the manner of Central African naïve-school, showing a man taking his bride home in manner of a hunter hauling away a significant ‘catch’.
Paul Ssendagire – “the catch”
All three works were done in tones of olive
Eria Nsubuga toed same naïve style but with abstractionist spatial appeal. Half of a person’s face covered canvas in peripheries of cryptic features, like broken or fazed figures.
Eria Nsubuga
One of Sudanese artist’s Hamid Sabbar two entries deal with identities. As a cause of his country’s protracted civil war, race relationship between the North and South apparently inspired the etching called The Unity, showing two faces as a typical Janus-fashion (fused heads) in the conflict – the Arab-North and the Black-South. Rather than been seen as a polarised unit, the theme wishes for peaceful unity of diverse ethnicities.
Hamid Sabbar
Another Sudanese artist Abdelaziz Hamad showed three paintings namely, Higwa, Waza, and Village. Using a selective means of scratching on photo-prints – a unique repertoire of coloured background and white hatches – he introduces a mixed method seen as multiple planes of references.
Abdelaziz Hamad – “Waza Dancers”
Waza shows a bustle of flute-blowing figures carefully developed by working on dark parts of a tilted street-photograph, in which case the tires of a yellow cab become one the player’s eye and two flute plugs. Its intricacy recalls the delicate art of calabash carving.
Ghana’s Virginia Ryan’s photo-installation consists of pictures alternating with plain gold coloured paper in kente checkerboard pattern, pasted on the wall approx. 100 square metres. Titled ‘Living Gold’, this assemblage consists of about 30 pieces of square papers. The resulting tapestry is a matrix of portraits (Ghanaian males flexing their muscles and wearing wire-meshes brushed in gold) and gold papers, imitating a kente textile pattern that alternates squares of yellow and dark brown. This visual movement seeks to harmonize Ghana’s resourcefulness: natural deposits- (gold, diamond), material culture and history woven around her gold abundance (Asante hegemony) and the entrepreneul strength of her people – agriculture (cocoa), textile, sports and entertainment, etc.
Virginia Ryan – “Living Gold”
South African-born Israelite artist Basil Colin Frank loves the advantages of his dual-nationality, yet presents a refocused view on the Wailing Wall in Israel, using it as a universal metaphor to connect the praying women seen at the wall to subtle surrounding middle-East subtexts. The photo-sculptural installation piece “Wall” points at vulnerable sexuality, life and protection – the fence erected in their defence is a consequence of Arab-Israel relation.
He navigates the sensitive issues on the siege of Palestine with a bit of charm (the turbaned girl-vigilante strikes a relaxed pose above textured ancient blocks. Both the turban and the sub-automatic gun are virtual and real protection), mischief (the crevices in the wall bring forth a living visual metaphor of birth process as the women insert their prayers), and design savvy (the assemblage becomes a quadriptych with the insertion of the floating fourth panel on the left).
Basil Colin Frank
Another `photo-sculptural installation piece “Milah” (Word) reveals a buzz-saw moving into a rock tablet with inscription. Rightly dividing the word of God reflects a faithful desire to break and ingest the true meaning. According to the artist, the script or codex discloses – reveals; codex is a metaphor for the wheel of time and movement; language of the spheres, domes (spirit), dividing. The superimposed Aramaic codex on the tablet prophesied 9/11.
Basil Colin Frank
Moroccan sculptor Sadya Bairu has a series of three called Traces. Like crystal balls mounted on metal tips, they seem to replay traces of ephemeral presence or temporary homesteads on the Sahara desert routes. The three globes have imprints showing regards or tributes to her ancestors – past and present. The worthiness of such academic monuments to the desert dwelling nomads, – a living culture as mobile as the whippy winds over sand dunes- endears her to the natural buffer that had protected lifestyles, cultures, nourished many legends of Bedouins, and countless dynasties of desert kingdoms.
Traces is Sadya’s attempt to visualise trans-Saharan tracking system, recalls the art of traversing the sand-ocean without losing tracks, a science well known by the desert dwellers.
Sadya Bairu – “Traces”
On the hindsight, Africa’s presentation in comparison to Europe, America, Asia and Australia needed broader subscribed participation to bring out their very best. I think that the extent of art sophistication existing in the African sub-regions West Africa are not revealed, and therefore tallies with Renate’s thinking for the next Olympiad. She confesses that owing to the difficulty ARTIADE staff with communicating to the respective cultural agents in Africa, ARTIADE notice for the Artists was belated. A fact that may have influence the nature of entries: paintings, installations, carvings were subsequently scaled down in project size due to cost and time considerations.
Missing were the honorary totem poles, scrap metal figures, spatial evocation with paint on large canvases, etchings, relief paintings, lyrical line drawings, sacred paintings and tie-and-dye mixed media, batik, etc the general prolific emblems that distilled unconsciously as performance, as the unpretentious provocation of sub-current energies and hyper-stylistic formalisms. It is not an imposition of what should be, rather what visual evocations currently exist in Africa at the moment. Not really taking much away from the exhibited works, however, ARTIADE has realised that national selections (instead of chance) will be the best way to achieve the truly Olympian perfection in future shows.
Among many things learned or garnered by artists from each other when they ‘jammed’ together in “unplugged” sessions may not quickly be placed as inspired formulation.
But what can be stronger than inspired dedication or renewed passion for explorative, unpretentious art? Common in cases when income stresses or dependence on reluctant government are far isolated from environment for creativity, (sometimes, a sighting of that utopian occurs). The Installation artists proved that art is continuously rediscovered or redefined through informal scientific means and methods, logic or deductions not commonly ascribed to art. Art is not just only fine but informative and interactive performance with ritualistic pondering or deliberate exercise to free the mind.
What the Commonwealth artists of ARTIADE did was to facilitate a common medium for seeking or giving inspired broader insights.
Of the ARTIADE works, the video installations, the ply-wood installations, the photo-installations and the light installations set standards worthy of note. If criteria for evaluation of worth lie in their relevance of futuristic application, most criteria then lay in material usage, conceptualisation, and adaptation of composites in thematic consideration. Materials could grow out improvising or sight-specific factors. Take for instance how quickly Canadian artist John Dahlsen utilised an accidental round hole in a first floor deck to make a vertical visual connection with an installation of sticks growing out of dense mass of crating fibre, directly below. One can see the mass either on the ground floor where it sits alone with relics of post-industrial construction, or through that spy-hole above – two different views, two worlds. It further leaves room for variable interpretation. His piece called Angel is a helix-shaped stack of white-painted sticks without support.
My favourite is a group of ten abstract constructions in plywood by Norbert Francis Attard from Malta, called ‘Olympic Kiss’ from which two massive sizes were located in separate spaces. One of the big pieces sits in the middle of the hall like a bleached rib-cage of a beached whale. The other is an accordion pleats, with a posterised automobile image sequentially staggered in vertical plane formation so that the letters and sentences on the surfaces could be read from different angles.
Noticeably, the other eight-piece ensemble connect rhythmically through the manner of placement (morning light from western window subtend moving intricate shadows that overlap in subtle penumbras), and their individual stylistic contents. Individually, these pieces concede certain influences of architectonic sensuousness in sloping curves, tapering of two tips like in lips meeting in kisses, and nude matt finish. With precision of cutting plywood, folds, shapes, and joints, their delicacy and lyricism evokes sculptural poesy and divine architectural visions.
Norbert Francis Attard
The sculptor from New Zealand, Roger Thompson has a set of three metal vases (supported on tri-trolley wheels) made out of stainless steel and Mild steel. Titled ‘Amphoric triptych’, they represent visual idiomatic ‘when the content assumes the container’ which premises on seeing through an ectoplasmic filigree and realising that what you are really watching are activities within. The activities inside the vases are life under sea – swimming sharks – in one, could they be blind aquaria tucked away in secrecy or Pandora’s boxes? The steel members testify of the restrained dangers or lethal contents inside the beautiful polished enigmas, and with warning labels showing skulls and crossed bones. Are they preserved memories or addictions? Another vase has filigrees traced from what look like legendry evil on the sea – ghost ships, scary visages of pirates, Spanish crosses, etc. the other follows with same ornate filigree derived from nautical features, this with a ghostly figure inside.
Roger Thompson
One curious piece titled ‘’ is a rotating pyramid of Perspex lighted from within. Due to thematic concern, it seems that the materials of construction connect with obvious visual interpretation of images placed on all four sides. At the apex sides are a young woman’s eye radiating widely in a recall of Ra’s rays from Egyptian mythology, ever saw it on the dollar bill?
Her blue-eyed gaze subtends on pictures with Latin texts: floating astronaut in space (costly cutting-edge science and high-tech projects), a swimmer diving in into a pool (leisure), a couple of WWF wrestlers in mid-air (risks in entertainment and sports), and two airborne sky-divers with linked hands (enterpreneul adventurism, limitless altitude). With these venture departments arranged on triangulated geometry, it is clear that the vortex induced by rotation created the multifaceted nation like America, but does the artist see only a white America?
A young Greek sculptor Panayotis Panayis from Cyprus tells a story through a series of four and a separate one mounted inside showcases. His narratives utilised freedom and malleability of clay to set up stages of tragedy drama scenes like in grand operatic theatre using casts of tiny ceramic human figures. In a chronological other, the story goes through War, Separation, Opening, and Reunion. The lone last is Destruction.
A truly remarkable landmark is a mixed-media sculpture by Stassia Stakis, a Cypriot artist based in London. Her outdoor sculpture at this time assumes several titles, but I choose to call it ‘Venus of Tavros’. Standing more than two storeys high, this controversial piece is an elegy to feminism, to Athena-like assertive qualities, her prominent aesthetic and charming attributes. A clutch of neon-lit headings are attached overhead reading: know thyself, balance, peace, faith, love, hope, and harmony. Considering its size, the time expended to erect it (guys worked night and day for about 4 weeks), and the electronic circuitry, gadgetry and leverage machines used by technicians invited from England, it must have cost a ‘pretty penny’ to actualise it.
Cyprus – Stassia Stakis
Sitting silently all these days is a sculpture made from masking tape called ‘waiting four’. A part of four series, it shows a life-size female nude meekly sitting on a stool by Anna Gillespie from Bristol, England. Toby O’Connor Morse describes it – ‘they offer a distillation of emotion which is easily absorbed, as instant and as explosive as a shot of pure vodka….., it becomes that this work is not only powerful artistic conceptions: it is also astonishing examples of craftsmanship ’.
Anna Gilespie – “waiting four”
Other sculptures are ‘Man’-a stone carving- by Silpi Durugadda Hariprasad (India); an Olympic horse By Werner Spiegelwerner (Austria), ‘Art Studio Goddess’ by Meri Anicin Pejoska (Macodenia); ‘stainless steel crosses’ by Monica Gonzalez (Peru), ‘Water pumps’ by Ashish Ghosh (India); ‘Never ending Dance’ by Efi Funck (Greece); ‘wood’ by Matthew Weber (USA), Ika Peraic (Croatia); ‘Binding’ by Christof Seiser (Ausria); ‘Silent Memory’ by Joanne McDonnell Foster (Canada), ‘Mars’ by Slavo Zivanavic (Yugoslavia); Arista Visual by Iris Perez (Dominica Republic); ‘Manipulations’ by Tatianna Ferahian (Cyprus); Ein buntes volk by Yvette Gastauer-Claire (Luxemburg); ‘boat of life and death’ by Bertram Sciller (Germany); ‘Helmet’ by Hamad Khalaf (Kuwait), ‘Human Machine’ by Alexy Sorokin (Belarus); ‘touch (Torsion)’ by Jason Walter Field (Greece); ‘Involuntary Chains’, ‘Objects’ and ‘Family Secrets’ by Reime Aonkasalo (Finland); arrangement of terra-cotta figuration by Yvette Gastauer-Claire (Luxemburg);
The ingenuities expressed in the various still installations indicate variable ideation motivated by sub-regional Politics, dimensionalities of prayer, psychology, etc.
These are ‘prayer wheel’ by Rolland Fuhrmann (Germany); Art al Quadrat by Spanish twins – Gema and Monica Del Rey Jorda; Yuta Nishiura (Japan), ‘Compulsive Hats’ by Noam Braslavisky (Israel), Kamila Lukaszewicz (Sweden); Able to mix?, Land of Milk and Honey by Fawzy Emrany (Palestine); ‘Installation of bells’, and ‘tripping to the light fantastic’ by Mexican Diciembre Aguilar; ‘Bbbeauty’ by Irena Lagator (Montenegro); ‘Still’-photo-installation- by Ernesto Inostroza (Chile); Nederzetting, an installation of plastic domical construction and water-wraps by Wia Stegeman (Netherlands); an installation of plastic pigeons by Kamil A. Lukaszewicz (Sweden); ‘Chile’s 13 Regions’ by Joan Belmar (Chile); ‘At the shade of the Olive tree’- tree and leaves done in copper sheets- by Greek artist Antonis Myrodian; untitled installation (in wood, marble and wax) by Yuta Nishiura (Japan);
With the onset of cinematic art such as video installations, various topics otherwise actualised through graphical means are now rendered as movie-narratives. Such novelle methods are seen in Irena Paskali’s (macedonia) video installation, a Chinese artist Liuxun, ‘Sad Co, the Blind Castle’ by Tomas Ochoa (Ecuador); ‘Discover Latvia’ by Agnese Bule (Latvia);
The largest indoor pieces (a storey building high- 5.49 x 3.05 m) are a trio of paintings ‘Turquoise Floating I, II, III’ by Chinese artist Marlene Tseng Yu. Her abstract composition evokes patterns recognised as rust stains, mosses and lichens, oil spillage, aerial maps of deltas and riversides, ink-blots and multi-coloured salt stains.
Marlene Tseng Yu
The most captivating painting (untitled) is a joint effort by Cuban painters Alejandro Fernandez Borrel and Lester Cadalso. Covering a space of about 35 square feet, it convolutes with dense network of surrealistic dreamscapes of floral, fauna, folktale spiritedly beings- all happening around two infants riding on the back of a muzzled crocodile.
Other paintings are ‘Windings’ by Linda Sgoluggi; a group of sketches in oil paints by Jelena Tomatevie (Montenegro); a series of paintings by Ibrahim Miranda (Cuba); ‘game’ a photograph series by Merike Sule-Trubert (Estonia); drawings by Gabriela Arevalo Barrera (Mexico); painting by David Kelly; watercolours on un-primed canvas by Dieter Mammel (Germany); a diptych ‘Endless trip’ by Sonia Casares (Ecuador).
‘Catch the light’ Manttra.
Despite all being said, the Greeks gave the best show in sound, and sight, taste and flavours, with the onset of the Harmattan-like summer weather. More kudos should be given to the Hellenic ministry of Culture whose foresight enabled a well-prepared Cultural Olympiad as a specialised project – well ahead of time. It boggles the mind the spate of work and precision of duty that went through organising such number of high-profile exhibitions in one city. This art experience, made special for Olympiad, is highlighted with posters saying; ‘Catch the Light’ a street wise inducement of purpose which all the more made it obvious what the former Olympiads lacked.
If there is a desire to fully appreciate the veneration or prestige accorded the ancient Olympic Games, then there are showcases at the Museum of Cycladic Art, organised by Nicholas P. Goulandris Foundation on Vas. Sophia Ave., Kolonaki, Athens. Titled ‘Magna Graecia, athletics and the Olympic Spirit on the periphery of the Hellenic World. South Italy and Sicily’, its arrangement in segmented tiers recalls the development of athletics and sport in antiquity on the western periphery of the Hellenic world (city-states of Lower Italy and Scicily) and the participation of athletes from those cities in the pan-Hellenic games in the mother country, especially the Olympic games. Occurring in preserved black and red-brown ceramic vases, the scenes roll like cinematic sequences – Early Greek miniature-drawings on black bands depicting athletes, coaches, fan-club (pipers), and judges, in training, events such as Penthalon, discus-throwing, races, javelin-throwing, and award of prizes. Objects and accessories like coins of cities in Magna Graecia and Sicily with designs commemorating of Olympic victories, oil containers used at the games evoke the meticulousness and high regard accorded preparation, techniques and conduct.
In a declaration from the first Olympian ode, Pindar states:
“Look no further for any star warmer than the sun, shining by day through the lonely sky, and let us not proclaim any contest greater than Olympia”
Whether it was a statesman’s inspired speech or a prosaic proclamation induced by nationalism ecstasy, this eerie prophetic declaration finally held sway as the Modern Olympiad has never had any competition in hierarchy of global sports-festivals.
‘Catch the light’ mantra is visible on banners and spiritually pervaded the entire atmosphere – though it is not always about light, but of fun, amusement, movement, humanities bonding. As a term of reference, it is built on allure-features that draw attention during the day and at night. The catch-phrase urges one to indulge his wonder-lust, and discover attractive atmospheres, hallowed heights and spaces like the Acropolis, Agora, the temples, ruins, to mingle with host citizens, to experience interactive sculptures with high-tech edge done by artists from Greece.
These sculptures and installations feature innovative applications in video technologies, optic-tube and sonic waves application, the likes seen in Manhattan. Partly coordinated as special effects to modernise Athens (an opportunity created by hosting the Olympiad) and partly mingle post-modern with pre-modern. They occur in every square, line the promenades, they can be seen as projection on walls, and are pasted as black-and –white photographs at bus-stops, metro stations, airports. Everywhere, letters, prosaic scripts, words on banners filled strategic corners, on pamphlets, on glass curtain-walls, on marble, on park fences, on books, just as all has been advised to check out Athenian scripts.
Even the Adidas adverts (with Mohammed Ali’s dramatic bravura on bill-boards, and athletes on tram cars) opine that ‘impossible is nothing’. But Athens sparkled more because of its garlands- its beautiful women and post-classical architecture with its ornate details.
As the night draws close, the city illuminates gradually in myriad tiny heart-beats as if instigated by dusk fall. Streetlamps, traffic lights, lights from shop-fronts, automobiles, motorbikes, floodlights from jamborees sparkle infinitely.
This eternal city with their share of the-devil-may-care speed-mad drivers and the mythical gods has lived up to its billing as spectacular and exceptional in aesthetic context. Their fossilised gods having long departed from mount Olympus now dwells among men, walking the streets in plain view of all. No wonder the preponderance of Athena look-alikes.
‘Catch the light’ leads one to many important exhibitions, such as ‘the six leading sculptors of the human figure’, Henry Moore’s retrospective, photography shows at indoors and outdoors, etc. The Henry Moore retrospective (made possible by the Henry Moore Foundation and the Greek Glyptotheque) reveals why this legendry sculptor (aside Jacob Epstein) remains the greatest sculptor in British modern Art history. Moore’s showcases were a mixture of bronze sizes – small prototypes and huge sizes, sometimes up to twice-human size. Bronze were of course selected for their resilience during conveyance, yet remains a display of triumphantly emotive forms.
Of particular delight is a large mother and child composite titled Draped reclining Mother, 1983. Hatching textures used to emphasize depression and cavernous parts in contrasting with polished voluptuousness. The general effect conveys solidity directly applied from hatched sketches, showing masterfully controlled interplay of voids and fluid contours of mother- while child nestles at the crook of her arm.
Next door is a tribute to a native son Christos Capralos, sculptor born in 1909 in the village of Panaitoliomin Aarinio, Greece. His most significant work is exhibited with the ink sketches, and clays models annotated ‘Parody from the Olympia pediment- free transfer to clay’. It was design as a tribute to fit a virtual pediment of Zeus’s temple on mount Olympia. Made up of a cast of ten wooden trunks, their movements from both ends leaned towards the middle, a melodious rhythm of veneration to the apex deity. His oeuvre show serious breakaway from scale and realistic representation of classical tradition, an influence he probably got from studying sculpture in France of 1940s. His stylisation- especially the adaptation tree trunks to fit expressive figures could only have occurred from exposure to the new primitive art aesthetics gripping European academia in that decade. While some Greek artists have been equally given expositions in different venues, their works show attempts to break from the past formal traditions while some are still entrenched on the ancient formalisms. In photography, poetry, painting, sculpture, installation, these individuals have shown that modern and post-modern art is alive in the ancient capital of realism.
‘Collapsible Entreaties’
Athenians had woken up with expectant smiles one morning to greet the avalanche of Olympic visitors overtaking their city in droves. O yes, Olympiad conveys the congregation of demi-gods, and profitable cash purchase of souvenirs. But when the festival expires one day so soon, will Athenians miss the throngs after the Olympiad is over?
The following verses called collapsible entreaties: lasting memories are a tribute to Athens in the sunlight:
Cavalcades of sport-stars, coaches and fans had dismounted in anticipatory airs
On their way to a lifetime’s Olympiad of poetic endurance, graceful athleticism,
Interlaced with art, Music, dance, historical showcases,
Going into the welcoming profusion of spring blossoms at Marco polo airport.
Oleanders, orchids and o-something’s rollick together in tied fresh bunches,
Competing with colourful sports posters and neon boards for attention,
Withholding nothing but kisses of delightful hostesses with creamy smiles.
Coming to Athena, these young eager lovers are ready to prove, to pay and
To pass all her tests of endurance, the heat, the hill, the hearts of fair damsels.
In great droves of tubular buses, colourful tunics, waving flags, radiating youth,
Many votive gifts of their hearts they have taken to Athena’s city of many dreams.
Through sunny streets lined with pink-blue banners festooned from lampposts,
Through expectant sweltering atmospheres, over pavements textured like biscuits.
Into Avenues dotted with olive trees for shade and lighted photographs for reflection.
‘Catch the light’ led the wandering souls seeking entertainment of sights and sounds,
As menageries of light bugs humour several reasons of elusive banters,
And gesticulations in English resurface as imageries in Greek interpretation.
At the parade of lights, constellations of global stars carry nation’s flags and pride
With joyous rapture and swashbuckler-gaits following the rounds and circular tracks.
As the earth released confetti, the heavens received praises and prayers for favours,
Purple-yellow Shooting stars hurtled across Athenian skies from blazing guns
Opening in resplendent glory like opening sunflower or a little child’s gladness.
The games have started in Athens; the games have started in Athens, is it true?
Like the Olympiad of old, like drawings on red-brown vases, on offering bowls,
Of naked black bodies with long slender limbs, beating rhythms of bent knees,
Running on backgrounds of black bands wrapped around ceramic bowls.
Their wavy manes held back with ribbons and aquiline noses cutting the air
Like a classical writer’s pen scrawling loping cursive scripts on coarse parchment,
In positions of discus-javelin throwing, wrestling-boxing matches.
The stadiums stand like vast galactic theatres; the seating bowls are spectators’ perch.
The sands are combed in waves and waves of rakish sweeps.
The mats are weaved, in linoleum-foams and placed on concrete floors.
The waters are clear blue, striped with rows of floating inflated beads.
The grass fields are immaculately verdant, spreading out and white-lined.
The red tarmacs lay in the sun, waiting for spikes shoes, thuds of running boots.
All the grounds are ready, and where are the heroes?
With resolve of iron will, archers tested their oak bows in training,
Without distraction of little winks, arrow tips find hearts without failing.
Training runners flexed elastic limbs like dancers before their cues are called,
Gaily trotters carried chignons held with ribbons like rare Arabian stallions.
Soon the games will begin; soon the games will begin,
To the Athena’s delight and to the countless eyes in global constellations,
To the hands that clutch at nervous sighs to calm palpitating hearts,
And to the fans waving national flag in manias of adulations.
Vanity hopes much, dares little as bronzed bodies battle in supremacy,
One is on a knee counting loss of points, removing sand from his flanks,
The other raises his hands to thank the gods, seated on velvet at covered stands.
One hears his name being called to be lifted with extra gust of Olympian breeze,
The other hears his name sound like a chorus of minors venerating a figure-head.
Waves of hands flagellate the Mexican wave in cue with a voice,
As the crowd’s Aria rises and swell through the seating bowl.
Rows of heads bob in rhythm as jubilant fans answer to gusto,
As the praise leader pushes his voice to lead the melody of chants.
But O Athena,
Soon the passionate explosions of fans will cease because the seats are empty.
Even the fawning sea-gulls at Faliro will wonder where all noise has gone,
But O beautiful goddess, will tears run down your cheeks
When they are gone or because cheerful summer is past?
Will you miss the two-wheel chariot races careening through the streets?
Their speed delighted you as new spokes flashed in the sunlight,
As their riding bodies cut the view like razor running on guided tracks.
I heard your laughter ring out in melody of gladness
When observing kids contesting for possession of an inflated round leather,
When Archers with seamless skills flashed lightning-bolts like mars,
As wrestlers contested in physical battles with clever wits to make
Heracles jealous, and envious of those ascendancy matches.
In your eyes were fires of admiration as several Adonis tested the water
Before commencing to hurtle through the competition pool like dolphins.
Your breath froze when the Athletes sped like wild cheetahs of Savannah,
While chasing something as if wearing Mercury’s shoes of the wind.
When wily messengers trotted endless miles to marathon like phidipedes,
O Athena your memories should serve you, to remind you that men
From distant nations had always berthed their speed crafts at shores
To seek the remnants of your ancient glory, beauty and dangerous romance.
Alas, your loft at Olympus is silent, lonely and distant white peak,
Visited only by drifting mute clouds and wandering hawks seeking nestling.
You have chosen to vacate your temple at Acropolis,
From the height where eagles spun in spirals of gayish weather
To come down the valleys on gridlocks of sloping streets,
Lined with dead dusty automobiles and usurious merchants’ shops,
Where pigeons fed fat from leftovers, but owls are your favourite pets.
Now you mingle with mortals who ride chariot-bikes in mindless abandon
Without helmets or the wish to stay alive,
Like little Alexander would ride the wild Pegasus, with secure reins of manes.
My heart flames when I know that my name forms on your lips,
Yet, how can you share brown lathed drinks with men without iron nerves,
Fancy Jellies whose knees trembled at the brush of your fingers.
Your caress ignites adventurous youth’s hearts like the fireworks at sunrise,
Your murmuring breath of gardenia at cool of evening fills-thrills the head,
Your dark olive eyes twinkling in mischievous knowledge of thousand secrets,
Knowingly captivate with desire, with sweet promises under olive tree shade.
Hello Athena, there are thousands of your look-alikes everywhere,
Which one are you?
Copyright by Onyema Offoedu-Okeke
