Living painting
Nelum’s first three collections, Sisyfos, Prometheus, and Oedipus, are unique pieces of art from the Living Painting of Costas Tsoclis.
Bruno Corà, one of the most renowned critics of contemporary art, has expressed that the quality and contributions of Tsoclis to Art are vast and layered. He discussed how Tsoclis’s relentless curiosity prompts him to venture into diverse artistic experiences. According to Corà, if one were to define Tsoclis’s unique contribution to the Art History of the 20th century, and to contemporary or modern art, it would undoubtedly be the integration of the static nature of painting with the dynamism of illuminated projection. This distinctive visual language, Corà believes, is exclusively Tsoclis’s, distinguishing him within the broad spectrum of Art History. In his own words:
“I must say that no other artist has done this before. Not even Titian. And that is what distinguishes Tsoclis from his contemporary colleagues, and generally in the pages of the History of Art… This visual idiom, I believe, belongs absolutely and uniquely to him, and it singles him out in the History of Art.”
You can see several Living Painting works from the Tsoclis museum here.
Costas Tsoclis explains the concept of the Living Painting, in his own words.
The tale of the «Living Painting» actually began in 1977, in New York, when I was dazzled by the Impressionist works in the Metropolitan. These were works I had known from reproductions since my earliest years. But they were different. Because they were the actual works, not their images. And I was delighted. But when I found myself back in New York two years later, somewhat changed in appearance and thought, and went to see those works again, something bothered me, something distanced me from them. I had changed in the interim. They had not. My own works, three-dimensional until then, would change form constantly depending on the position of the viewer. Their materials (wood or paper) would change colour over time. The reflections on the Plexiglas would constantly alter the appearance of the work, giving it a liveliness, a sense of perpetual movement. Which they didn’t have. These thoughts, or rather sensations, would keep going round in my head, tormenting me, for years. Until, in 1985, I found myself sitting in a café on the island of Kea, dizzy in the burning sun. And saw a spear fisherman walk past, carrying a fish threaded on a wire. And strangely enough, another snorkeler passed by soon after, also carrying a stringful of fish, including the one the first fisherman had just carried past. And I was scared. How could he possibly be carrying the same dead fish? I jumped into the sea with my mask to recover from the hallucination, but then a miracle took place before my eyes: I saw the same fish swim by, alive and well, without a care in the world, as if nothing had ever happened to it. So that fish was a deity which, though killed and killed over and over again, was still alive!
So «Living Painting» was born in 1985 and has gone through eight different phases so far.
In the first, «Harpooned Fish and portraits», I wanted to animate painting, which had been immobile for centuries. But the moving video image remained bound to the painting of the representation.
In the second phase, the movement of the figure in space intensifies and the projection of the moving image becomes independent of the painting, whose role is restricted to that of a background–Imprisoned Bird, Wayfarer, Sisyfos–though they work in parallel.
Phase three. This is where a linear narrative begins. The works begins with a videotaped theatrical performance, Medea, which is projected onto a painting, parts of which are primed to capture the fleeting image of the protagonists and to freeze it for a moment. It should be noted that Medea is the first of my works that requires a specific viewing time.
In the fourth phase, Oedipus, things are reversed, because instead of the still image coming to life, it is gradually immobilized until the living painting ends up a painting pure and simple.
In a fifth phase, the video image is simply part of the work/environment–Beginning and End, Angels of the Future–and becomes just one of the elements that make up the final work.
In the sixth phase, I take old existing photographs, enlarge them and intervene, sometimes by painting them (removing the superfluous elements the photograph inevitably contains) and sometimes by activating them, bringing an element of the photograph to life (a sea, a smoking cigarette, a little dog on the move, troop movements), thus creating a different, dreamlike image between life and death–Resurrections, Antonis Benakis.
In the seventh phase, the viewer is part of the digital and painted environment–(Fires), Prometheus imprudent.
In the eighth phase, Tsoclis, Ourselves, my own body is turned into a screen onto which the videoed figures of friends are projected, creating third persons which can be multiplied infinitely. And we end with the Ten Points of Vision. I have explained all this in detail, because I want it to be understood that «Living Painting» wasn’t an invention, a novelty, for me, it was an artistic and historical need which continues to evolve as both an image and an idea, which is the only way in which the title «Living Painting» can be justified.
