Seeking the Common Ground
21 February 2014 - 06 April 2014
"Seeking the Common Ground" is the title of an exhibition with retrospective character of Dimitris Merantzas, which includes a selection of works of his hitherto twenty years long course, from 1993 to 2013. Merantzas is a special artist commenting on the contemporary human condition by unceasingly creating autonomous groups of work. He is resourcefully inspired by contemporary everyday life and fruitfully receives multiple sources of inspiration like a hypersensitive antenna. He freely experiments by constantly updating his expressive instruments and often using heterogeneous materials. He explores with youthful zest the relationship between form and content. Sculpture, painting, installations, constructions, photography and photochemical painting constitute the visual fields of his activity. The exhibition title refers to what lies behind the apparent diversity of his works – the mutual web of his artistic creation that, while remaining in effect the same, gives different looks and shapes to itself. The works of Merantzas seem different from one another. There are, however, conceptual and aesthetic axes effortlessly connecting these works. Some elements and motifs appear as refrains – the broken mirror that shatters the reflection, the wheel that symbolizes movement through time and thought, the thorough hole that acts as a communication channel, and the blind hole that expresses the deepest possible black. He uses freely prefabricated material, such as bolts, nails and wheels, as components of his works. He acts with investigative disposal, which opens his perspectives of expression and reveals to him specific techniques, such as the photochemical painting. From a desire to see behind the façade, he excavates the surface of the material and penetrates into it. His extreme love of mixed materials becomes a field of freedom in the dimension of the adventure that leads him to unprecedented and surprising results. Α retrospective examination of Merantza's works, like the present one, betrays his adoration of the red colour in all its hues. Τhe exhibition "Seeking the Common Ground" has a paradoxical title if one calculates the variety and range of the visual vocabulary of Merantzas' works. It makes sense, though, if one considers that in a deeper reading of the great difference amongst the works, lies an undercurrent that binds them together and reveals their affinity. Having the opportunity to examine the work of Merantzas retrospectively, the viewer is surprised by the breadth and spectrum of the artist's imagination but also the challenges that he set himself. And all this takes place with an unparalleled disposition of staging. At the end remains a feeling that Merantzas denies any complacency, has a disregard for stereotypes, seeks novelty and pursues risk. However, what seems to be such a wonderful coincidence is actually extremely premeditated and carefully organized. Merantzas has won the challenge of artistic creation - to challenge the given principles, to surpass himself and the capacities of his materials, and ideally reach a new dimension.
Curator: Megakles Rogakos
