Marigo Kassi: The inner space - The tightrope walker (ο μέσα χώρος

Nees Morfes, Athens

Νέες μορφές 1990

Yiannis Ch. Papaioannou

“The inner space – The tightrope walker”

The two complementary parts of this exhibition represent Marigo Kassi contemplations in the expression of space. Regardless of their different starting points both the “Inner space” as well as the “Tightrope walker” stipulate an internal path in two settings exchanging and interventing in such a way as to strictly balance the artpiece between the representative and the subtractive.
The “Inner space” begins from a direct stimulus: this is the inside room-studio storage, a peaceful space full of canvases that “writes” through the cracks of the shutters. Kassi seeks to disband this familiar space and to find a new connection expressing something more: an internal condition. Not wanting to shift the light sources neither the setting of the objects, she conceives interventions, which lead to another degree of flexibility. She exploits the darkness to turn the shafts of light into flashes. She adopts a savage but non the less lean and controlled gesture practically scrapping her colour, bringing the motionless space to life. Her nine artpieces in pastel and charcoal on paper constitute processes of the same initial picture but through different selections which spark-off intriguing additive and subtractive processes. It is interesting to point out how many of her achievements and artistic discoveries are also used in the “Tightrope walker” series which in its turn enriches, with its own powers, the “Inner space”.

The “Tightrope walker” constitutes a walkabout of multiple approaches both from within and from around the picture. The subject constitutes an allegory of the artist’s fate who risks his whole existence striving for self discipline on the verge of the abyss. In his own “Tightrope walker” (1958). Jean Genet wispers “Hunter and haunted, you expose yourself today, you who are both escape and pursuer. You approach yourself but for a moment only, in this deadly white loneliness”.

The “Tightrope walker” is a series of 26 small (pastel on paper) and 4 large (oil, pastel on canvas) artpieces. Champion in a space, which at times resembles the Abyss and elsewhere, the circus down-stage, he is the lonely person who, while gripping the pole, balance on the tight rope of the ultimate vertigos. Flooded in light he discovers the secret capabilities of the tightrope in o deadly accurate dialogue between them. The audience which had shared a place in the synthesis, is now lost in the darkness.

In certain artpieces the “Tightrope walker” resembles the Martyr-Crucified, whereas later we observe his gradual disappearance. In the final artpieces the space is stripped of every human presence. What remains is a stage of metaphysical calm, where ropes, spotlights and swings act insinuatingly.

Kassi works on her subjects with the highest degree of discipline fully aware of how easily she could be lead to melodrama. She is aware, like the tightrope walker that the search has to take place with no concessions to the audience neither to leisure. She perceives what capabilities, willpower gives to the body when on the tightrope, she perceives the logic of danger and the need to express the maxima through the minimization of her means. With intentionally few colours, lean handling and intense attention, she paints almost exclusively with the blade decisively “bringing out” the movement and light she pursues. In her larger artpieces she uses the rope stereoscopically, whereas movement and light are now depicted with harsh brushstrokes, even with the colourful directness of a bash from the tube itself.