Point Commissions. Phanos Kyriacou, exhaustion

In Phanos Kyriacou’s practice all operations are affected by the indeterminate performativity of the sculptural object. For his commission at Point Centre for Contemporary Art, he dwells into an attempt to exhaust the conventional semantic web between materiality and language in order to give way to the basic principle of artistic gesture. As properties of object-hood are rendered in different ways, we reach a horizon where the sculptor projects and works towards the creation of a unique process of compositions and classifications that allow for incremental additions of variation. The deceptive object, heavier than the eye suggests, the drawings that seek to dematerialise the flattening predisposition of their displaying, the yellow panes; they all point to a preoccupation with “restructuring perception and the process/product relationship of art, information and systems” (Lucy Lippard, Escape Attempts).

Here he simultaneously elicits the polysemy of the word ‘commission’ and deconstructs it as a triptych-image [‘co-m-mission’] that displays his methodology. The image-word itself restructures his practice in a way that renders operative its sociopolitical narrative as a chance to reclassify the building as a sculpture-derivative of the artist’s work. This yielding of productiveness allows him to ‘inhabit’ the gallery, to use it as an object that helps him on his mission. This mission is a co-operative one and invites the audience to partake in [the] work. In this way our expectations from sculpture are activated and subverted – we de-materialise, quite literally, the sculpture/poster-stack, and we are thus invited to a game where images and objects exist as information in time and space and multiply the chances of intervention in the production of meaning, creating the condition within which we can think about the relationships between object-information-society.
(Text by Evagoras Vanezis)

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Phanos Kyriacou (b. 1977), living and working in Nicosia, holds a BFA from Middlesex School of Fine Arts, London and a MFA from Goldsmiths University, London.

He has had numerous solo and group shows in Cyprus and abroad. Selected solo exhibitions include: “This Case is in Process of Arrangement”, Thkio Ppalies, Nicosia (2017); “Daily Life”, Maccarone, New York (2015); “Who is Nathan?”, Rupert, Vilnius (2015); “The Adventures of a Giant Midget”, Thkio Ppalies, Nicosia (2015); “view to river from north”, Maccarone, New York (2014); “Between a woman and a mountain”, The Temporary Museum, Nicosia (2013); “Intimate long shot”, Chypre Culture, Paris (2012); “corners concrete pine wood man standing” Kinderhook & Caracas, Berlin (2012); “Everyone should walk”, Salon Popular, Berlin (2011); “On Handling Considered as one of the Fine Arts”, Kreuzberg Pavilion, Berlin (2011); “I am going to have to disappoint you”, Altes Finamzant, Berlin (2011); “Glimpses and observations”, Glogauair Residency Program Berlin (2011), “It was an odd, almost unreal landscape, not without a certain beauty” Omikron Gallery, Nicosia (2010); “Crash helmets must be removed”, APOTHEKE, Nicosia (2009).
Kyriacou represented Cyprus (along with artists Constantinos Taliotis, Natalie Yiaxi, Lia Haraki and Maria Hassabi) at the 55th Venice Biennale (2013).
He is represented by Maccarone NY.

Opening : Thursday, 23 March 2017 | 19:00

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