“In my Country” – 13/03/14 – 23/04/14

Maria Demetriades is presenting Stergios Stamos’ new work on Thursday March 13th at 8:00p.m. Stergios Stamos’ latest exhibition ‘dissects’ Greece of Crisis.
“Stergios Stamos elaborates on his concerns regarding immigration while enriching his references about Greece of Crisis when one Memorandum succeeds another. Immigration is one issue the artist has investigated thoroughly. In his 2009 exhibition called “ Inscriptions” Stamos dealt with religion ( the Islam, Christianity), in his 2008 exhibition called “Inside Out” he dealt with habitation , now he proves to be one of the few Greek artists who observes the world around him, not the London magazines in vogue. Stamos sets up an installation with five square plates on which the names of hundreds of immigrants are written. They suffered tragedy, unbelievable exploitation, cruel conditions of confinement. In other works Stamos dissects the country-patient “which is being healed” thanks to Memorandum serum. The installation is frigid. In Stamos’ works we can see expressionism, arte povera, conceptual art.
The artist adds an extra political dimension to all that. In our profoundly troubled times Stergios Stamos deals with problems only a few artists occupy their minds with.There is something monumental – yet not pompous- about Stamos’ work. The nodal points in his work are text and speech. They are structurally related to his political anxiety. Thus he is driven to using the material he sees fit, from the Republic by Plato – the point where he asks a politician to be a philosopher as well –to the text of the 2nd Memorandum. A political unity, traumatically timely as to our era…. Thanasis Moutsopoulos