While being closed in my hotel room in Thessaloniki, writing, finishing a hypothetical art project and looking for some fresh air other than the beautiful view in the sea, I remembered that an old friend suggested me some months ago to visit a specific art gallery in the city that she liked it and she felt very welcomed there. Then I said let’s start our journey to explore the Greek Art Scene, emergent artists and established…
So, I walked, loosing the right address as always (me and my google maps… really bad orientation) but at the end I reached in the beautiful neoclassical architecture’s building, took the stairs to the fourth floor (reminding me Labov’s “fourth floor” linguistic experiment in a New York store… NO RELATION TO ART), and I am in front of the door of Lola Nikolaou’s Art Gallery! And she gave me a warm welcome!
Lola Nikolaou Art Gallery was founded in 1993 in Thessaloniki, is now situated in Tsimiski, 52. From its beginning took an important role in the art scene of the city, supported Greek and international artists, and has collaborated with cultural organizations and museums and participated in art fairs.
The current exhibition was and it’s still on “Empty Shaping” curated by G. Mitros with the participation of the artists Haris Kontosfyris, Vassilis Alexandrou, Vassilis Sentzas.
The exhibition is an interactive approach between the emptiness of the space, the forms, the philosophy, and the poetry and an interactive connection between the physical presence, the process of making a full space empty, and the technological abilities.
Kontosfyris uses his flies an installation intitled “A fly like thee?” referring to the poet and painter William Blake’s concept of “interstitial space” to define the space.
View of the installation “A fly like thee?” by Haris Kontosfyris at the group exhibition “Empty Shaping”, Lola Nikolaou Art Gallery, Thessaloniki, 2023 ©Eleni Kosmidou.
Alexandrou tries to re-interpret the concept of empty space with the installation of the “raised fists” intitled “Thinning the herd” and on every raised fist applies a barcode who sends you to the “cryptocurrency”, but also invites you to take a hand with you to “vacate” again the space, maybe the ideas…
View of the installation “Thinning the herd” by Vasilis Alexandrou at the group exhibition “Empty Shaping”, Lola Nikolaou Art Gallery, Thessaloniki, 2023 ©Eleni Kosmidou.
I left taking a raised fist with me!!!
(Photo in the margis of the article) “Goldflies” by Vasilis Sentzas at the group exhibition “Empty Shaping”, Lola Nikolaou Art Gallery, Thessaloniki, 2023 ©Eleni Kosmidou.
To learn more about Lola Nikolaou Art Gallery visit the website Lola (lolanikolaou.com).
