at. this moment
MACRO Museum, Rome / 15 October - 28 March 2021
15 October - 28 March 2021
MACRO presents at. this moment, the first solo show by the Cypriot artist Phanos Kyriacou in Italy.Phanos Kyriacou’s installations present a state of in-betweenness: a sense of possible, continuous transformation through the interrelation between the host structure and the guest sculptures, as well as through the materials themselves, often untouched and unaltered. The untreated materials, marked with traces of the process, bestow them with a state of becoming. at. this moment is the title of the exhibition and a phrase which is hosting a preposition, at, expressing the time when an event is taking place. A moment which is happening now and in many other moments, which are also a manifestation of different relationships in a micro-society of sculptures. In this way the courtyard becomes a multifaceted transitional space-stage. Moreover, the proposition denotes what we are looking at, the objects which meet our eyes, and a specific state or condition. Confronted with the combined and arranged materials, the interrelation between materials and form, and the ways in which these complement and contrast one another, comes to the foreground. The individual elements are shaped and arranged to rest upon, support and interact with each other – the individual elements simultaneously in dialogue between one another, and the whole.The act of collecting is at the core of Phanos Kyriacou’s practice. Everything begins from a visual act of recording images from his surroundings, where a sensible gaze pays attention to unusual and abandoned encounters. The recorded unexpected situations and objects become a personal archive of ruins and vestiges to find constantly new sources of inspiration. In order to understand the circularity of the exhibition itself and its process of realization, which brings all the elements together in an organic dialogue, you can find below a glossary which offers a frame to imagine the installation's networks.
Narratives: Anonymity of rootsBoundaries Craft accidentsDiscretion DisunityEmotional filtersIn-between stateLocalLonelinessMapping the topology of the objectsNomadic Ontological paradoxOthernessPoetrySocial life of thingsThe role of the archiveTogethernessUnity
Sculpting and designing ActorsAlteringAssemblingBuildingChanging ExpandingFound ObjectsGrowingHybridizeInfusingMigrating Surfaces
Displaying Bodies choreographiesFight and flirtLiquid light and shadowsOpen narrativesPlace of actions Sculptures ad propsStageThe encounterThe walkTensionsVibrations
EXTRA
Me: What’s your relationship to architecture?
Phanos: Well, in my practice I relate to the building environment through the observation and documentation of peripheral movements and actions of animate and inanimate actors that occupy a space. But I am not really interested in architecture as a design outcome. I am fascinated by the potentiality of things that have not being ‘properly designed’ and are open to modifications.
Me: That makes me think of open source software.
Phanos: Yes, in the sense of systems of becoming, something that is in a continuous development.
Me: I’ve just heard a telling of the myth of Europa yesterday which put the story in similar terms. Three brothers who set out to find Europa but continuously find other things along the way, rendering the importance of Europa not one of being but one of becoming, precisely as you say about architecture.
Phanos: There’s always interesting interior and exterior narratives of physical and historical movement related to architecture. I don’t know whether you’ve been to Cyprus, it’s where I live and it’s a palimpsest of different pasts and styles it momentarily adapted toward.
Me: I haven’t been to Cyprus but I lived in Sicily for a while, and we speak about the stratification of the island all the time. They have a cake which is called cassata siciliana in which the ingredients brought by different conquerors are layered: inside there’s a cheese paste with ricotta dating back to the Romans, coated with marzipan made from sugar, almonds and pistacchio brought by the Arabs, and finally some decorations said to have been added by the Normans.
Phanos: This layering sounds quite architectural, actually!