For those who fell in freedom’s name
From being a child, I felt a breath of air on my face and the waving of an incorporeal flag, left behind by those who perished for the sake of freedom, yearning for a better life. A bittersweetness urged me on.
But what must the imperative ‘freedom or death’ sound like within an aggressively consumerist living condition? Divested of meaning, a dead letter to our civilized world, a foolish demand, when it isn’t an outright cause of embarrassment. Even though it still moves some downtrodden people to calmly demonstrate their inexorable, silent resistance; that part of their soul that refuses to be bought by the handicapped free market. And though today it seems futile, a lifeless body, let us not forget that from Thermopylae and the Melians to Rigas’ heroic lads and the free besieged, the klephts and the bandit-rebels in the mountains, all the regulars and the irregulars that fell in the name of their country, it is with an awareness of that price that abnegation and valour envisioned the generations and the places we still live in, free
Freedom of the market, freedom of choice, freedom of movement of tourists and immigrants, freedom of comfort, freedom of the unrestricted acquisition of consumer goods and their accumulation in vast rubbish dumps, the numerous freedoms regarding pleasures and rights, only require money in return, they can only be valued in economic terms. They have replaced the challenging freedom of the height, of obligations, of toils and sacrifices. Death, as the ultimate price, we exile to the realm of ideology and fictional fantasies; and when it is not “natural”, encountered in deep old age, we only accept it as an unfortunate coincidence of diseases, accidents, addictions and weaknesses. The era, whatever that may mean, has withdrawn its confidence from the concept of value and the criteria of the elevated. For a while now thought has also ceased to ascribe the function of the tangible representation of the sacred to art. My only resistance to the worsening case of forgetfulness of our time is the act of remembering. In the widely advertised, bright oblivion lies latent our dark memory. There, in its darkness, I sometimes light a candle. These also increase with time.
I insist on painting and on still perceiving of the image as a visual manifestation of a functional ethos. Our culture is not exactly the works of art themselves, but the conscious awareness of their value, it is not the value of the objects alone, but the collective consciousness of values of the subject, of each one of us who views them. And here arises, or is brought fourth as a requirement, an artistic creation’s ability to retrieve or to support this conscience, transcending definitions and its very self and becoming a collective consciousness.
Even at the edge of solitude and isolation, people and communities are recognized in relation to other people and communities. They come from somewhere and adapt themselves to their surroundings. Naturally and necessarily. Pure individuality is a theoretical construct. Our individual adventures cannot be irrelevant to the experiences of the world. Collective memory is our intellectual environment, our common code, our inner language. Thus, to me, it seems natural to engage with it and define myself against it. It is through the collective memory that each individual communicates with the other who sees, hears or converses with him. And even if, nowadays, flags stand for nationalities and mutual hatreds, collective thinking will always find ways and symbols to preserve a sense of selflessness and community in the history of lands. And even if nations become jumbled and confused, and their symbols only honour the history of the people who honoured them, let us not hand over to multi-national companies the exercise of man’s highest freedom; the freedom to dream and to establish the exalted and the worthy, to shape the criteria of his existence and his personal conviction. Eternity is present in our own moment.
Greece in the Second World War – War, Occupation, Resistance, Liberation
is the new exhibition organised by the Consulate General of Greece in Istanbul at the Sismanogleio Megaro (İstiklal cad. No 60) from 29 October until 15 November (opening hours: Mon-Fri.: 17.00-20.00 and Sat-Sun.:12.00-20.00).
This exhibition aims at familiarising the Turkish public with these important moments in modern Greek history and includes a series of captioned photographs taken during the war, a 30-minute documentary film, Turkish and Greek newspapers that were published in Turkey during the first days of the war and a large panel by the acclaimed painter Christos Bokoros that commemorates the names of all the men who died at the front. The opening will be held on 28 October, at 19.00.
