Exhibition duration: 20th of June 2015
Location: Onassis Cultural Center, Athens
Curator: Dr Sozita Goudouna
Peggy Kliafa participates in the show with the artworks:
Remedy or Poison, 2015, 247x126x40 cm. 2 Vitraux by MDF, metallic paint, gelatin, pills blisters
Armory Column II, 200x23x23 cm covered with pills’ aluminum blisters in various formations and motifs
Armory Sculpture, 60x40x9 cm. Aluminum pills blisters, silicone, plexi glass
Peggy Kliafa has been invited to present part of her work entitled “Pharmakon” at the 5th floor of the Onassis Cultural Center on the 20th of June 2015 during a scientific event.
The central piece that has been presented was the new installation – sculpture “Remedy or Poison”, which comprises two big Stained Glass Windows in a vertical position, “back to back” and placed on the floor (dimensions: 247cm Χ 126cm Χ 40cm).
As the curator Dr Sozita Goudouna has written about the equivalent installation with the three stained glass windows: “… it reflects on the ambiguity of medicine by presenting its two sides as remedy and poison. The greek work farmakon (farmaki-farmako) denotes this ambiguity. Ontologically the medicine is tied to the notion of the promise, it is identified with the experience of the promise of remedy or cure. The infinite power of a promise alludes to Derrida’s notion of the ‘still to come,’ to a future that is yet to come. The artist elevates the significance of the medicine by creating artworks made out of a kaleidoscope of pills. The artworks are representations of stained glass windows from cathedrals; in their religious allusion, they manifest a deepening of interest in different notions of therapy. The contemporary compulsive desire to consume pills aims to cure our mental, psychological or somatic weakness. The work challenges this therapeutic or placebo effect”.
At the Onassis Cultural Center the piece “Armory Column II” has also been presented. It is a sculpture of dimensions: 200cm Χ 23cm Χ 23cm covered with pills’ aluminum blisters in various formations and motifs. Finally, the piece “Armory Sculpture”, another sculpture of the Armory Series in dimensions 60cm Χ 40cm Χ 9cm has been presented.
The artworks of the Armory Series are non figurative pieces of two or three dimensions, in which the building materials are the pills’ aluminum blisters placed in various formations and motifs with an internal rhythm. As the curator Dr. Lina Tsikouta-Deimezi has written in the preface of Peggy Kliafa ‘s solo exhibition catalogue, entitled “Pharmakon”: “…The body of her work has affinities with Minimal Art, Op Art, and of course Conceptual Art. … The visual interplay of lines, surfaces, planes, colours, where applicable, as well as the harmonious linear layout with flawless combinations of positive and negative, concave and convex, in a luminous polysemy… The stimulation of the gaze engenders an aesthetic interplay of light. … shapes, and forms, resulting in a visual experience with a quality of motion anthe strictly organized groups, highlight the relationship of light, shapes, and forms, resulting in a visual experience with a quality of motion and change, despite the stillness of the whole…”.