selective exhibitions & ancient works...

..this is not intended as an exhaustive listing of exhibitions I have participated in.
The first exhibition in which I was a participant was a joint surrealist exhibition at Roen Art Gallery (a small local suburban gallery) with school friend artist Heather Robinson in 1981. My paintings were only exhibited once more in the eighties, in 1985. My works were rejected by all the commercial Melbourne galleries I approached in that decade. I then exhibited with the Contemporary Art Society of Victoria from 1992 to 1996. Since 1995 I have exhibited with Roar Studios, an artist run gallery. My first solo was at Roar in June 1999. My works were also included in the Roar stand of the 1996 Australian Contemporary Art Fair 5 (the Australian Contemporary Art Fair is now known as the Melbourne Art Fair). In the nineties, I did one better than the previous decade: I was rejected not only by all the commercial galleries I approached in Melbourne, but also by all of the commercial galleries approached in Sydney. In Australia if it's not decor, Australiana, or the faux avant garde, it will not sell!
 
 

..... when art is defined by the (art) market it is no longer art that is sold, but a commodity intended to pay for the wages, rent, overheads of the venture (gallery) in question. When the 'artist' deliberately sets out to create work that caters to market appeal, for the sole purpose it being sold, instead of expressing an idea, they are reduced to the status of artisans, not artists. Regardless of whatever talent these artisans may possess they instead create objects d'art, not art. The creation of such pseudo-art usually entails a considerable degree of self-censorship. It is 'art' that has only come about by researching what buyers want. High art has nothing to do with with what buyers want, for the prospective buyer is merely looking for a work of craft that serves merely as an adjunct to their other decor. Art created with the tastes of the prospective buyer reduces the artist to an artisan whose work contributes nothing to the sum total of human endeavour..
 
 

17 February - 16 March 2000

Exhibition of paintings at the CASspace, Collins St Melbourne: 17 February 2000 - 16 March 2000
(featuring paintings & digital prints from 1996 - 1999)

2001

Four works exhibited in group show featuring emerging artists at Melbourne gallery Mansour + Hill in LaTrobe Street in Melbourne's CBD. The show ran from 31 July - 11 August 2001. Fortunately no works were sold ... Prospective buyers could have made substantial savings as the Gallery had listed three of the four paintings' prices without including the gallery commission and/or GST! I would have received around half my asking price .... meaning half of the (approx) $2.80 per hour my paintings sell for....

2002

         After all, the exhibition "Dada and Surrealism in Chicago Collections" held in Chicago in 1984-85, exhibited works from the private and public collections of that city. It was a profound demonstration of just how many superb surrealist works were collected in just this one city.

The book In the Mind's Eye Dada and Surrealism Published by Abberville Press ISBN 0-89659-596-X, accompanied that exhibition. The introduction Chicago: "The City of Surrealism" By Mary Jane Jacob reads:

"Chicago's interest in Dada, and especially Surrealism, is not a new one... Chicago's involvement with Dada and Surrealism is a phenomenon mainly of the 1950s that continues today. It was in the 1950s that saw the beginning of great collection of quality and depth that have had an impact on the role of modernart in the community and the direction that artists here have taken for nearly four decades.  This exciting, formative period of activity coincides with the decline, if not rejection, of Surrealism by the New York art world...To arrive at an understanding of the growth  of the extraordinary holdings in Chicago that constitute  the exhibition...it is enlightening to look from this juncture around 1950 in both directions: to the waning of New York's interest in Surrealism, and to the rise of the Chicago art community."

ehco gallery late evening... showing the Chicago skyline

ancient works.....

.....the paintings below are examples of my earlier works. The paintings of 1978 and 1979 were executed at the age of 15 and 16 respectively. Between divine work ii of 1978 (below) and divine work iii of 1987 (as a case in point) much technical improvement had occurred!

divine work iii. 1987

POST SCRIPT

In January 1999 I finally came on-line after overcoming my Luddite tendencies and purchasing my first computer. Since then more galleries have been approached, both domestically and in the US, via e-mail; regular mail; as well as in person but without success. Any assumption that the US somehow has a pluralistic art market is misplaced. From magazines like the moronic JUXTAPOZ; to the publisher Morpheus; to Arnie Fenner's fantasy kitsch publication, SPECTRUM; to Galleries like Forum, the only criterion considered in gauging what art is to be reviewed or exhibited is its popular/market/$$ appeal.

FORUM is constrained by a conservatism that entails Odd Nerdrum's exquisitely painted but pointless decor is exhibited. Its "evocative feel" is good enough to convince any self-respecting decorator that with Nerdrum we have decor with intellectual/artistic substance. However, simple juxtapositions with foreboding skies and still-life-lit multiples of the same figure are not a corollary to a "deeper meaning"; nor does a Rembrandt-like execution add to its profundity.

JUXTAPOZ only showcases art its readership can emulate. If the work is too technically accomplished it might alienate its readership*. We aren't all artists. But if you're a JUXTAPOZ reader then the purpose of that magazine is to help you cultivate your personal delusion that you are. It acts as an affirmation to all those aspiring to grandeur but who lack ability.
* the last edition of JUXTAPOZ to feature an artist of note was the Spring 1998 edition (Volume 5 Number 1) which showcased the work of Judson Huss.

SPECTRUM confuses fantasy kitsch as fantastic art and thus diminishes the credibility of genuine artists... When it comes to a comparison between Fuchs or Giger with Frank Frazetta kitsch, there is no comparison. For Spectrum however they are all practitioners of the Fantastic!

Indeed it is publications like Spectrum which really increase the difficulty for genuine artists to be taken seriously. Once galleries come to associate Fantastic Art as being the kind of art(sic) Spectrum promotes as being "fantastic art" they lump genuine fantastic art with the comic book illustration that Spectrum promotes.

When one is confronted with the misdefinition propounded and popularised by Spectrum it is easy to appreciate why James Cowan, head of Morpheus, refers to "fantastique" art instead of fantastic art.... Publications like Spectrum have commandeered the definition of a genre and diminished the artistic credibility of genuine practitioners.
 
 
 

© copyright Demetrios Vakras

note: you can see more paintings in the painting gallery on the other site:http://www.vakras.com