Florilegia
The prominent idea that Nature - with the recurring abundance of her animate and inanimate forms – grimly contains a veiled demonic (dämonish) quality, prominently begins with Aristotle, who already considered thatnatura daemonia est, non divina and it is ultimately raised to an indissoluble axiom by the pessimistic philosophy of A. Schopenhauer. Thus, cannibalistic Nature constitutes merely a phenomenal “objectification” of a blind and unintelligent Will, that lies (as substratum...) beneath all the ephemeral alterations of real phenomena and, as an insatiable drive without understanding, it is constantly consuming itself, thoroughly apathetic to its own individualized beings; all its transitory externalizations relentlessly devour each other.
Already since late antiquity (and the so-called -according to I. P. Culianu- demonization of the world, i.e., Gnosticism, Manichaeism, etc.), Nature itself (along with the seven planetary systems) constitutes primarily an illusory plaything of a demonic Demiurge, whilst the German Romantics -with their Kantian theory of the sublime (erhabene)- specifically considered Nature as the material expression of an undivulged and gloomy force that utterly transcends human cognition. Romantic writer Ludwig Tieck wrote in the 19th century; “I remember well that it was a plant which first made known to me the misery of the Earth; never, till then, did I understand the sighs and lamentations one may hear on every side, throughout the whole of Nature, if one but give ear to them. In plants and herbs, in trees and flowers, it is the painful writhing of one universal wound that moves and works [...]”
This transcendent and indifferent something, which actually inheres behind natural phenomena (and is invisible, incomprehensible and un-intelligent), which, -seen from its cosmic side, i.e., non-human side- Eugene Thacker (influenced by H. P. Lovecraft ) austerely calls the-world-without-us constitutes a posteriori the main non-subject/non-theme of this exhibition. The artworks of Glinou, Brisnovali and Sagkioti -through the multifaceted depictions of plant life (and Nature in general)- negatively delineate (or otherwise, do not represent...) the abysmal entity that lurks silently behind the unseen bowels of becoming - a curious world without us.
Aias Christofis
Curated by: Aias Christofis
Artists: Eleni Glinou, Angela Brisnovali, Vasiliki Sagkioti.
*The word “florilegium” is from the Latin words flos (flower) and legere (to gather): literally a gathering of flowers, or collection of fine extracts from the body of a larger work. It was adapted from the Greek anthologia (ἀνθολογία) "anthology", with the same etymological meaning.
«Florilegia» curated by Aias Christofis, is part of CHEAPARTWEEK 2023 | Curious worlds.
CHEAPARTWEEK2023 | Curious worlds
Curated by: Georg Georgakopoulos
Coordinated by: Fotini Kapiris
With the kind support of ZOIA.com
www.cheapart.gr
ZOIA.com
66 Zoodochou Pigis Str, Exarchia, 10681
Opening: Wednesday, December 13, 2023
Duration: December 13 - 23, 2023
14:00 – 21:00 daily and weekends
