IYP X Museum of Contemporary Art, Andros
Nikos Engonopoulos: With the Colours of the Word and the Word of Colours
Curated by Marie Koutsomallis-Moreau
In the summer of 2017, the Museum of Contemporary Art of the Basil and Elise Goulandris Foundation in Andros presented a tribute to the distinguished Greek poet and painter Nikos Engonopoulos (1907-1985).
Nikos Engonopoulos lived by Horace’s maxim Ut pictura poesis: “as is painting so is poetry” or, more freely translated: “Painting and poetry must be based on the same principle”. He was a painter, a poet, he was also a professor at the National Technical University. Three inter-related paths – the term career is unfitting in this case – for a single man, who followed them unceasingly and tirelessly for almost fifty years. Three areas of activity separated to some extent which, however, enriched one another thanks to a prevailing common denominator: Engonopoulos’ immense, diverse and insatiable – over time – broad and wide-ranging education.
The aim of this dedicated exhibition was to highlight this manifold activity and the undisputed talent he demonstrated in everything he became involved. In a museum setting of course, the facet of the painter inevitably prevails without however overshadowing the side of the poet and the professor. There is so much one can say about the role of the painter alone… The painter who is as afraid of the black hole as the writer is of the blank page, as he described very well himself:
“The painter handles colours and brushes, oil, white spirit and others. But he knows that behind the canvas there is a terrible, deep black hole. He moves the canvas aside, with the boldness of a dream, and leaning into the dark abyss he sees far, far away, near the bottom, something glowing faintly. At the same time -silently- black birds, winged fish and ghosts are flying. He comes back to the light. Between him and the canvas is now a beast. But still, he is not afraid”
Who could have expressed better the agonies of the poet if not the painter himself?
Nikos Engonopoulos (1907-1985)
Theseus and the Minotaur, 1961
Oil on canvas
73 x 60 cm
