PHOTOGRAPHY

JOHN STATHATOS
PREFACE to the volume ARIS GEORGIOU PHOTOGRAPHY 1971-1996

University Studio Press, Thessaloniki 1997

One of the peculiarities of photography – owed, like so many others, to its relative youth and to the fluidity of its structures – is the fact that a single individual can exert upon it an influence greater than would be possible in any other artistic field. Of particular interest has been the case of those photographers whose personal artistic practice, allied with an energetic involvement in associated activities such as criticism, teaching and curatorship, have provided both a focus and a springboard for the medium in a particular national or regional context. Amongst the better-known recent examples of this phenomenon, one might mention Joan Fontcuberta in Spain, Franco Vaccari in Italy, Peeter Linnap in Estonia, and Aris Georgiou in northern Greece.

Georgiou was born in Thessaloniki, the capital of Macedonia and modern Greece's second largest city, and it is with this city that his artistic and organisational talents are most closely associated. This regional loyalty, however, has never in any way implied a concomitant provincialism - rather, indeed, the opposite. Fluent in a number of European languages, Georgiou studied architecture in Montpelier, and has since photographed and exhibited in many parts of the world, including the United States, Israel, France and Germany. A polymath endowed with inexhaustible energy, he has been involved in a wide range of cultural activities including book publishing, graphic design, broadcasting, translation and composition as well as every possible aspect of photographic production, promotion and organisation. By some inexplicable miracle, these activities manage to flourish alongside an ongoing and busy architectural practice.