Thessaloniki Archeological Museum which is famous for its collection of Ancient Greek art, will host an exhibition of Alexander Djikia, special guest of the Biennale, entitled Drawings Based on Motifs of Minoan and Mycenaean Seals which is sponsored by Stella Art Foundation.
Alexander Djikia is a renowned architect and artist, famous for his paradoxical, ironical, philosophical graphics created with the superb control of line. The motifs of the ancient art proved to be very congenial to his artistic sense and were deeply explored by the artist. Archeological Museum hosts two series by Djikia of this kind.
There are two types of modern Greek language: that of everyday life and another, called Katharevousa, which is aristocratic and byzantine-sophisticated. While studying the later using a textbook by Sophocles Andriades the artist was charmed by this rare, vanishing language and the manner of it’s representation. In 2003 he created in the style of free interpretation of Ancient Greek vase paintings a series of graphics entitled Katharevousa. It was produced as a visual commentary to entertaining, lyrical, didactic and elegant phrases from grammatical drills.
Works from the second series, created in 2001 — 2002, are dedicated to Minoan-Mycenaean seals, and follow their originals rather closely. In comparison to frescoes, ceramics, sculpture or metal relieves the seals survived much better and they fully reflect the cosmogony of the Minoan-Mycenaean civilization and present the widest selection of its figurative styles and themes. The artist gave a refined replica interpretation of their vital force, of realism and mysticism junction, of symbolic veracity. This was a unique experience to Djikia of a research of images that were not originally a subject of his own and only imagination.
