Sculpture, 25/12/1999 – 15/ 01/2000

As a present for its twenty years, Medusa gets entirely new premises; a new exhibition area, a space with jewellery and objects by its associate artists, with gifts and utility objects, and an area dedicated to works by its associates.

On Thursday, 25 November at 8:00 in the evening, Maria Demetriades presents the latest work of Nakis Tastsioglou in the new exhibition space of Medusa.
For this exhibition, Nakis Tastsioglou has created three sculptures: three pillars—with all of the subject’s associations, emotional charge and conceptual content—which stand out for their pronounced formalistic interest. Although solid and tangible, they create an intangible, ethereal impression due to the translucence of the material (Plexiglas). The transparency of the material, in full harmony with the simple and austere lines of the sculpture, conspires creatively with light to mould impeccable forms which in turn make up a uniform whole (installation).

Nakis Tastsioglou has shown his work at Medusa several times in the past. 1987 – presented small Plexiglas sculptures with geometric order, harmony and simplicity as their main attributes; 1991 – presentation of large-scale works in which the notion of measure was more evident than ever before. 1994 – successfully attempts an artistic reworking of the interior of Medusa+1, with four sculptures-gates. 1996 – presentation of a sculpture measuring 600 x 350 x 1.50cm which unfolds on the gallery floor; the artist had participated with this work in the XLVI Biennale of Venice in 1995.

Duration of the exhibition: 25 November 1999 – 15 January 2000

Untitled, 1999, plexiglas, iron, light, 218x200x100 cm

1/4

Untitled, 1999, plexiglas, iron, light, 232x137x66 cm

2/4

Untitled, 1999, plexiglas, iron, light, 232x123x60 cm

3/4

Untitled, plexigls,iron, light, 160x90x50 cm

4/4

“HESTIA”, 6 December 1999
Kristi Konstantinidi

Sculptural transparence, painterly challenge
In the recently renovated, very fresh space of “Medusa” Gallery, which celebrates its twenty years of operation, Nakis Tastsioglou presents his latest work: three large sculptures – columns made of Plexiglas, iron and light. Although autonomous, the works are placed in such a way that they can be seen as parts of an installation.
We first met Tastsioglou at the same gallery in 1987, with his small sculptures of geometrical austerity. And it was there again that he showed, in 1991, the works which brought to mind telephone booths.
In 1995 he created the floor installation with which he participated in the Venice Biennale, again with Plexiglas as his main element. Why this obsession with the transparent material? Perhaps because it is uniquely capable of appearing at once existent and non-existent, visible and invisible, fragile and unbreakable. It mirrors and reflects, absorbs and diffuses the light, is illuminated by all the conceptual associations resulting from its very soul.
In the case of the three sculptures which make up the core of his latest show, the transparence of this material ‘levitates’ the tangible, heavy mass of iron with which it is combined. At the same time, light comes to penetrate the body of the work and play with our senses in an almost mystical way. The artist continues his research, combining symbolism and formalistically interesting solutions with excellent results.

ELEFTHEROTYPIA, 9-12-99
– Μaria Marangou

Familiarities with the materials
Nakis Tastsioglou lays a good claim in what we call consistency. At the fully renovated and always good Medusa Gallery, the artists presents three sculptures in his usual material, the hard and transparent Plexiglas.
Austere and dynamic, these sculptures receive and offer light, allow the gaze to go through them. They hide no secrets save, perhaps, for a certain aggressiveness which would hardly go unnoticed, anyway. The black colour, which constitutes a kind of foundation of the work, is in dialogue with the white industrial material that covers the body. At the same time, the red beam of light which goes through the work emphasises its dynamism and manages things so that nothing is decorative or superfluous.