What if We Switched Positions – What if We Asked the Visitor to Become the Artist?
On the occasion of its 10th anniversary, the A. G. Leventis Gallery invites you (and at the same time challenges you) to an alternative exhibition – which is also an opportunity to reconsider what we think we know about art, about the creative process and about the relationship between the creator and the viewer, the ‘transmitter and receiver’, when it comes to a work of art.
Starting with the idea of ‘paint by numbers’ – a hugely popular hobby born in the post-war prosperity of the 1950s in America, forever associated with the somewhat ‘easy’ reproduction of often famous works of art that allowed anyone to become an artist – the A. G. Leventis Gallery requests that its visitors switch places with artists from the distant and more recent past and interpret in their own way paintings that they have come to know and love from the Gallery’s permanent Collections, as well as ten years of temporary exhibitions, educational programmes and fruitful exchanges of ideas in the spaces of the Gallery.
The objective: to revisit the Gallery’s Collections with new eyes and, for the more daring, to address meaningful questions that seek the essence contained in artistic creation. Thus, this participatory exhibition deals with the legacy of modernism that was inextricably linked to the questioning of the role of the artist as ‘creator’. At the same time it experiments with the myth of artistic genius, collaborative culture and the mechanical art that gave birth to Pop Art, an era brought back to life through paint-by-number boxes (and the bold proposition ‘Paint it Yourself!’) that subversive artists from Andy Warhol to Damien Hirst and beyond have been dealing with for years.
So we immerse ourselves in the charm of ‘paint by numbers’ as a subversive visual commentary on our creative nature, but also in the aesthetic pleasure that (seemingly) ‘meaningless’ art can offer. This issue is perhaps more topical than ever at a time when artificial intelligence is dynamically entering the field of art; at a time when the questions that the exhibition raises in a playful way challenge us to reflect on whether by unravelling the myth of the ‘creator’ we are also inadvertently questioning ‘artistic intention’ as irrevocable truth.
If all you have to do is ‘follow the numbers’, then what exactly is the meaning of the artwork?
By using a paintbrush, we are invited to reconsider what we think we know. The viewer becomes an artist, yet he/she is then involved in a mechanical way of reproducing an image, so one may ask: is he/she then really free? How much room do we leave for imagination? Is it homage or sacrilege to recreate a Ghika or craft a revised version of Renoir’s Coco?
In this context, the exhibition introduces in a tangible way a more democratic approach to art while focussing on extroversion and inclusion. It offers everyone the opportunity to reflect and to engage intellectually with a series of questions, to interpret actively, to confront perceptions and ideas and to consider his/her own role as transmitter/receiver in a visual game. It challenges us at the same time, if perhaps we arrive alone in the exhibition’s welcoming spaces, to work side by side, perhaps even together, participating in a collective culture that has been systematically cultivated by the A. G. Leventis Gallery for the past decade, gradually building a sense of community where people can merge in a place designed to function as a hub, as a workshop and as a beacon of ideas, dialogue and art.
Ultimately these ideas may be taken as lightly or seriously as one wishes. The visitor can choose: try to reinterpret an artistic tradition, work alone or as part of a postmodernist ‘workshop’ or simply enjoy the moment, the process and the texture of colours in a space full of potential and promise.
The exhibition will be inaugurated by the First Lady of the Republic of Cyprus, Mrs Philippa Karsera Christodoulides, on 5 April 2024 at 18.00 pm.
For the duration of the exhibition a number of musical events will also take place so that the visitors may paint while listening to music.
The first event has Misharoz Jazz Band joining us for a unique musical evening! Come by for drinks and tunes and… be an artist for the night.
Playing a selection of traditional early jazz and blues songs, as well as original compositions, the Misharoz Jazz Band will bring you the sounds of rich, original New Orleans rags, the glorious melancholy swing of Billie Holiday, the hot intensity of Caribbean Beguines and the folkloric music of Cyprus and England.
Dimi Shoe – guitar and vocals
Ulaş Öğüç – drums
Will Scott – woodwind and vocals
Date: Thursday, 11.04.2024
Time: 19.00-22.00
Exhibition duration: 6 April – 9 June 2024
GENERAL COORDINATION, CONCEPT AND DEVELOPMENT:
Myrto Hatzaki
Loukia Loizou Hadjigavriel
Katerina Stephanides
EXHIBITION CONSULTANT:
Demetra Theodotou Anagnostopoulou
