the Hellenic Foundation for Culture
in association with
 Cultural Olympiad |
 Magnum |
29 June – 16 July 2004
The Great Hall, Hellenic Centre
16 – 18 Paddington Street, London W1
For opening hours please contact 020 7487 5060
The Hellenic Foundation for Culture is delighted to cooperate with the Cultural Olympiad and Magnum Photos in the London presentation of the exhibition Periplus: Magnum Photographers in Contemporary Greece. The collection of photographs on show provides a unique opportunity to witness a glimpse in the life of contemporary Greece, as seen through the lens of ten gifted artists. Each in his inimitable way, they have managed to capture a unique moment in time, that of a country preparing to receive home a long-longed for part of its heritage: the Olympic Games.
Catalogue available (English/Greek). To purchase a copy, contact events@GreeceInBritain.org.uk
When the Cultural Olympiad asked Magnum Photos to make a portrait of Greece to mark the 2004 Olympic Games, it addressed a group of authors. The Magnum Photos cooperative, established in 1947, encompasses within it great names and young talents in the field of documentary photography. Its central aim is to encourage its photographers in their method and approach, as keen and sensitive witnesses. In this spirit, Magnum Photos has created Periplus, twelve Magnum Photographers in contemporary Greece. A dotted-line portrait of Greece by twelve Magnum photographers : Carl De Keyzer, Nikos Economopoulos, Bruce Gilden, Jim Goldberg, Richard Kalvar, Josef Koudelka, Costantine Manos, Mark Power, Miguel Rio Branco, Lise Sarfati, Alex Webb, Patrick Zachmann. Twelve interpretations of the universal legacy of the Hellenic culture.
In this exhibition, hosted by the Hellenic Centre, The Hellenic Foundation for Culture is presenting a selection of the work of ten participating photographers, as part of Greece in Britain 2004, a series of events marking the Athens Olympic Games. The complete selection of the works of the 12 photographers will be exhibited at the New Benaki Museum in Athens during the summer 2004, starting on 15 June.
Periplus is a tribute to Pausanias, the 2nd century AD historian and geographer who, in his famous work Periegesis Hellados [Description of Greece], recounted his journey that took him into ten regions of ancient Greece. As a reference to the mythical quest of the ancient hero, Periplus offers the Magnum authors a chance to come to grips with the various territories of Greece, in twelve itineraries which all represent as many one-off experiences. Each and every photographer has defined their own route and singled out their particular sites and spots. The unexpected, chance, coincidences and encounters all have their place in a project of this type. And like an echo of Antiquity, the writings of Greece's great lyric poets, philosophers, and playwrights accompany the authors in this initiatory labyrinth.
Josef Koudelka has for the past 15 years been involved in the study of European landscapes in a panoramic format. His "journey" took him to the great Greek archaeological sites, following on from his recent work on Rome, "theatre of time".
Lise Sarfati has chosen an arid, mountainous region, a poor, rural world, in a private and timeless Greece which does not want to vanish. The houses are abandoned, but a chapel filled with light shows that life is still around.
Patrick Zachmann has plunged into Greece's night. Bar scenes, streets aglow with artificial light, an odd outdoor cinema, and night clubs where it is hard to tell interiors and exteriors apart. A warm, humid, stealthy vision.
Jim Goldberg has encountered immigrants. Albanians, Kurds, Pakistanis... The text/image montage and the range of photographic media illustrate the photographer's creative effervescence when confronted by so many individual destinies on Greek soil.
As in his earlier works in the United States and Japan, Bruce Gilden has captured portraits of Greek women with his head-on curiosity about people's distinctive individual features, all in an expressive and theatrical style.
Richard Kalvar has traveled from west to east by train and bus; his photographic work is marked by a shift between the ordinariness of a real situation and the emergence of the unusual, thus creating a marked state of tension.
Miguel Rio Branco, who is intrigued by the traces left behind by successive civilizations, has composed great frescoes on the theme of memory. Bodies, ruins and imprints loom up from these "tableaux ", like so many echoes of the past.
Alex Webb has followed a sea route, stopping off in the ports and harbours of northern Greece. Tensions and expectations come to the fore in the subtlety of colours and interweave of spaces.
With a great deal of wit, Carl de Keyzer has produced an inventory of Greek snapshots, forming a thoroughly organized jumble and cacophony.
Lastly, Mark Power has produced impressive pictures of the major works undertaken for the Olympic Games. The city in the throes of change, like a witness's walk towards modern times.
A whole host of photographic approaches and eyes, with Greece as the sole territory of visual quest. With successive touches, the Magnum photographers suggest things without demonstrating them, and end up giving us an anti-portrait of Greece - much more evocative than any encyclopaedia of images. Their written accounts, somewhere between make-believe and reality, raise the issue of representing reality, and forcefully introduce the relevance of the fragment as a recording method. Well removed from the controversy and divisions of contemporary art, Magnum's photographers focus on the primacy of the eye, and the way it sees things, in its own specific and acute manner. We hope that everyone will find in these Periplus the first pieces of an endless jigsaw puzzle.
Sylviane de Decker-Heftler, Curator
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