CONTEMPORARY ART CENTRE OF THESSALONIKI

To a certain extent, this exhibition constitutes a continuation of the Tradition – Reversal exhibition of the 4th Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art, as it investigates the element of tradition that is recorded —and therefore survives— in collective memory, and how it is evolving, through the new media, current events, and modern practices and theories, into a linguistic artistic vocabulary. This metalanguage brings out the “special character and idiom” of the Mediterranean, a region with a long and rich cultural, historical and intellectual heritage. Relative Motions refers to acts, motions and actions that no longer exist, not because their essence has been lost, but because the social dynamics and expediencies which caused their original emergence and allowed them to persist for centuries, no longer apply. They nevertheless survive in the collective consciousness, always looking for an occasion to stimulate our individual and collective memories. Subtle but decisive references to the tradition of the Mediterranean basin define the work of E. Kranioti and J. Prévieux (two artists who had never met before) and are responsible for the intensity, originality, poetic qualities and interactivity of the exhibited works. These values and characteristics allow their work to become integrated in the realities, challenges, conditions and particularities of our time, without rejecting or severing their ties with tradition. In their work, both artists also bring out the healthy relationship between art and tradition, showcasing the eclectic relationships and “relative motions” of two artists who are the carriers of an exceptionally rich cultural tradition, revealing how this tradition can be recast in a modern idiom, suitable for a contradictory, paradoxical and volatile era of transition and change such as our own.