Urgent Conversations: Antwerp – Athens, Part III
(c)image: Giannis Vastardis, National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens
[…] The reappraisal of cultural pluralism and the hybrid nature of culture as well as the dangers of its homogenization –the field, after all, of a most extensive range of discourse, around “globalization”- will be the motive of Alithinos’ investigation in the following years. Already since the beginning of the 80s, with the Concealments series, Alithinos questions of the difference of the topical, and of the heterogeneity and multiplicity of the ecumenical. […]
The Concealments which begun in 1981 and are still in progress, numbering 201 to date, develop across the planet as an ecumenical diaspora of works, which the artist hides inside the earth in different locations – from Thessaloniki to Borobudur and from Machu Picchu to Varanasi. It is important to point out that the Concealments were born out of Alithinos’ need to express his anxiety about the manifold threats of extinction the planet is facing – from nuclear annihilation to ecological disaster. In the four decades that followed, the concealments were continuously enriched with new meanings and without ever settling in a series of works with uniform characteristics, assume multiple forms: closed and open Concealments lasting several months, with no witness apart from the artist to ones taking place in the presence of a museum audience. The only evidence that comes to light regarding all the Concealments, are the cards sent by the artist, on which there is always reference to the specific place and time.
- Tina Pandi, EMST
- Stamatis Schizakis, EMST
“A Retrospective / A Happening”, Dimitris Alithinos. A retrospective, National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens, 2013