The exhibition presents 102 works, mainly paintings on paper, from various periods, in the artist’s archive, most of which go on public view for the first time. On display are large-scale wall-mounted multi-panel works, as well as installations taking the form of individual open-ended archives; also, a series of drawing variations on the same subject and notebooks, dating from the artist’s stay in Berlin to the present day. Also on view are photos taken and videos captured with a smartphone – a lesser-known facet of the artist’s diverse portfolio.
The exhibition is designed around the idea of a closed-open archive of images, sounds and concepts, which is hidden and revealed, as a scene and as a sanctuary. Public “murals” alternate with miniature paintings and inaccessible archives of drawings. Archetypal images of the house and empty interiors, mazes, face-numbers, shadows, primordial cryptic scripts, riddles and mythical symbols create intimate and unsettling dream topographies of confinement and freedom, interiority and contemplation, in black and white. The dream, in its Freudian meaning, an unintelligible writing in images freed from constraints, finds its visual analogue in the works of George Xenos. His painting as a place of meditation seeks the thought he would dream of.
Above:: “Thinking Man”, ink on paper, 29,7 x 21 cm., 2017
The exhibition will remain closed on 25/3 and from 13/4 – 18/4.
