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Mystery 199 Vangelis Tsakos – Thanos Tsingos


Mystery 199 Vangelis Tsakos – Thanos Tsingos

From 17 April to 19 May, 2023 Eleusis European Capital of Culture presents Mystery 199 Vangelis Tsakos – Thanos Tsingos, an exhibition – tribute to two great artists of Elefsina, the award-winning photographer Vangelis Tsakos and the internationally acclaimed artist Thanos Tsingos at the Old Town Hall of Elefsina. Photographic and painting works, testimonies, publications, exceptional editions and valuable materials, products of extensive research, describe their history and highlight just a small part of the particularly rich but also unique work of the two artists.

Credits

Curation: Olga Hatzidaki
Artistic research and curation cooperator: Morphoula Galopoulou
Production Coordination: T & T PRODUCTIONS
A production of 2023 Eleusis European Capital of Culture

The material of the exhibition is a kind donation from private collectors and scholars of the work of Vangelis Tsakos and Thanos Tsingos.

The photographic material of Vangelis Tsakos comes from the artist’s archive, which has been donated to the Municipality of Elefsina and the  Department of Culture, Sports, Social Policy & Pre-School Education (PAKPPA), the Hellenic Mountaineering Club (HMC) of Elefsina and the Elefsina Labour and Social Centre (EKEDA). 

Information

Exhibition duration: 17 April to 30 May 2024
Opening hours: Wednesday to Sunday, 13:00 – 20:00
Venue: Old Town Hall of Elefsina

Opening & discussion about Vangelis Tsakos

Wednesday 17 April, 18:00

Participants: Dimitris Georgoulis, Georgia Liapi, Asimina Michaloutsou, George Pavlopoulos. Michail Marmarinos will be the moderator.

Discussion about Thanos Tsingos
Sunday 21 April, 18:00

Participants: Bia Papadopoulou, Dimitris Tsingos, Mary Tsingou.
Olga Hatzidaki will be the moderator.

An exhibition – tribute to two great artists of Elefsina

Mystery 199 Vangelis Tsakos – Thanos Tsingos is part of the axis of the exhibitions of 2023 Eleusis dedicated to the city of Elefsina and its people, such as Mystery 29 Elefsina – Raw Museum, Mystery 112 Maria Papadimitriou: Dual Theatre Or on Friendship, Mystery 188 THE LIGHT about the Educational and Cultural Association of Elefsina which was recently completed and Mystery 178 Collecting flowers with her girlfriends which is currently being presented in the foyer of the Cine Eleusis.

A NOTE ON THE EXHIBITION FROM THE GENERAL ARTISTIC DIRECTOR OF 2023 ELEUSIS, MICHAIL MARMARINOS:

TS, TS!… 

(Tsakos – Tsingos)

Two great illustrators of the real:

one capturing and the other exalting 

the ever-elusive reality

Photography, a latter-day mystery.

The mystery of “seizing/abducting” Time at the very moment it occurs! Given the sharp precision of the moment, this “wherever it caught me,” photography constitutes a sublime monument to the ungraspable, the unattainable

or 

to the soul of things.

(It is no accident how the primitive innocents were terrified or enraged to see “their soul being seized” before their very eyes!)

Photography festively corroborates before our eyes – or so Roland Barthes claims – a realisation at once simple and terrifying: “I have existed.”

Vangelis Tsakos is one of those exceptional practitioners of this mystery who, through a rare way of looking at History and a sensibility towards things, accredited the mystery and the pursuit of photography as high Art. This unique photographer, a resident of Elefsina, manages to capture in his photographs not just what we see, but most importantly what is concealed, what is missing.

For almost fifty years his gaze via the Leica fell on daily life, sports, the faces of people, the labour movement, the mountains he tirelessly climbed and crossed, the flowers and the poetry of seasons, as if you are listening to Vivaldi. We are privileged because his vast and invaluable work – for those who turn their gaze towards it – teaches us how to see. Through countless shots, Tsakos reveals the very reality we know as if it were another; he reveals reality before our eyes as if it were never there… 

Why do I speak like that about him? Because he is rare. Wherever his gaze turned, he exalted what he saw.

Thanos Tsingos, again, seems to have been the only mortal – that we know of – who was allowed to roam in those flower-covered fields where Persephone used to run, and paint them.

Have you noticed his flowers?

Have you noticed the colours?

In order to begin to grasp that strange myth about the Daughter’s abduction by the great Thief, the gods, if they exist, bequeathed us a couple of things to keep us busy: a hymn to Demeter; the ruins – in marble or not – of a mystical cult; a place, Eleusis; and one of her children to depict the mythical flowers – that is, Thanos Tsingos. 

Yes, this place, Elefsina, spawned both the myth and Tsingos to depict it in all its delicacy and fragility. This is not a man who paints, but a hierophant of the colours and forms of flowers. He roamed the world and ended up in Paris, and the City of Light gave space to his exquisiteness, displaying even in the Louvre his unique perspective on colour. 

Having spent some time looking at his flowers, their forms and colours, I caught a fleeting glimpse of Persephone…

Why do I speak as such about them? These are not merely “good” or “great” artists; they are among those very few who deepen and enrich perception, deify the Real, and deepen our experience within Language itself.

“So, does Elefsina grow wheat?”

TS, TS, TS, TS!… 

Why, yes, it does – and myths, too!

Tsakos – Tsingos 

 

Warm thanks to: Dimitris Georgoulis, Thanasis Leventis, Georgia Liapi, Vangelis Lingos, Asimina Michaloutsou, Ilias Monacholias, Angeliki Panoliascou, George Pavlopoulos, Nadia Tsolakaki, Alexandra Tsingou, Mary Tsingou, Dimitris Tsingos, Vassilios Tsingos Foundation, Elefsina-Art and Culture Non-Profit Civil Society & Pletsa Kardari Printing Shop

 

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