ARIS GEORGIOU - UNFAVOURABLE CONDITIONS

ARIS GEORGIOU, UNFAVOURABLE CONDITIONS '86-'87

Agra Publications, Athens,1987. (Bilingual, greek-english), 48 pages, 24x17cm, Foreword by Niki Loϊzidi. 21 colour reproductions of art photographs of 1986-1987.

 

NIKI LOIZIDI
ARIS GEORGIOU’S UNAFAVOURABLE CONDITIONS

Foreword to the book Unfavourable Conditions 86-87, Agra, Athens 1987

I would like to avoid a tedious introduction bringing up for the nth time the false problem of the choice between art and photography. Besides, it seems to me that Aris Georgiou has fully assimilated a profound truth, which was first uttered in the early part of this century by Moholy-Nagy and the perceptive Walter Benjamin. Photography is not primarily an art, but a means of expression, which, among many others, opens the way to artistic creation. It is difficult, certainly, to draw a clear dividing line between the technique of painting — which was making use of the camera obscura as early as the Renaissance — and that of photography, which is equally bound to a number of traditional visual conventions. But, particularly nowadays, photography would seem to offer one important advantage: it can isolate and record, as no other expressive medium can, and with “deceptive” precision, the fragmentary and complex nature of present-day reality and also of our modern perception of the imaginary.

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