Texts by Syrago Tsiara, Christina
Petrinou, Aliki Tsirgialou, Claire
MacDonald, John Stathatos,
Christina Vlassopoulou
Edited by Eleni Saroglou
Design by Christos Lialios
Translated by Maria Skamanga
and John Stathatos

273 x 213 mm
colour / 128 pages / hard cover
25 big & 34 small colour photographs
2000 copies / bilingual (greek-english)
co-published by Contemporary Art Center of Thessaloniki
and Benaki Museum
ISBN: 978-960-93-1934-8 (2010)
Price: 25 €

All Books

Lizzie Calligas
Metoikesis

    

When the old Museum of Acropolis was closed down, a large and varied group of experts worked to ensure the safe transfer (metoikesis) of the sculptures. That was the moment Lizzie Calligas chose to be on site, camera in hand, to stand witness to this behind-the-scenes ritual. Through the diligent, everyday practice of exhaustive photographing, and through the subsequent editing, selecting and printing of images, the artist marked her own journey in step with the process of moving the ancient stone from one place to another. Not showing abandoned spaces or sculptural details, she simply presents the wrapped statues, cocooned in wheat-coloured cloth, as if these are pupae in hibernation waiting to emerge, fully fledged and quite new, into another stage of their being. The secret of metoikesis, like the secret of these wrapped figures, is that change will come, that there is always the promise of renewal. Loss looks forward to what will be. Abandonment of one place allows us to find a new home in another.

Lizzie Calligas (1943) is known for her multifarious work which includes photograph series beginning with Space and Glance (1989) and Metamorposes (1991) continuing with the Meeting with Venus of Milos (1991), the Sacred Way (1989), Swimmers (1997-2007), Sea Pastels (2007), Metoikesis (2010) but also drawings on paper and video such as Morning Light (2005), Huangpu Park Shanghai 6-8pm. (2006), Looking Glass (2007), etc. At the same time she has created etchings that complement her work. She has participated in international exhibitions such as Greek Horizons, U.K. (1998), the Biennale of Alexandria (2005) where her work was honored with the first prize, the International Festival of Sarajevo (2006), the Biennale of Armenia (2006), the Biennale of Tashkent (2007), Nees Morfes, 50 years later (2009) at Benaki Museum, Athens and others.

Cube Art Editions have also published Lizzie Calligas’ following books:
Dark Waters, 2013
At the Xenia Hotel in Andros 2001-2012, 2012
Sea Pastels, 2008
Swimmers, 2007
23rd Biennale of Alexandria, 2005 (Lizzie Calligas – Nikos Alexiou)
Mosaics, 2002