Vlassis Caniaris: Works from 1962 to 1980: Galerie Peter Kilchmann

11-13 rue des Arquebusiers, Paris

Galerie Peter Kilchmann is pleased to present its third solo exhibition dedicated to Vlassis Caniaris (1928-2011), which also marks the first major retrospective in France since his passing. The artist had a special connection to Paris, where he lived twice with his family, from 1960 to 1966 and again from 1969 to 1976. In 1970, he was granted a solo exhibition at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris.

The work of Caniaris stands out for its immediate historical context, sincerely concerned with the socio-political conditions shaping human destinies. Raised in a climate marked by war and occupation in Greece, Caniaris developed an early awareness of injustice and the imbalances of power. Social aspirations and the appearances they take on are, of course, distorted in relation to the real psychological needs of the individuals within these societies. For Caniaris, art is a field that must embody “[…] two driving forces: […] the ambition to develop and exploit artistic work as a global tool, capable of establishing a diagnosis and a sharp, lucid vision of social, cultural, and personal asymmetries in order to [...] expose the pathological symptoms of industrialized societies [… ultimately], a means to acquire ideas and shed light on them.” 

In 1960, after spending five years in Rome, Caniaris moved to Paris and became acquainted with the Nouveaux Réalistes. He abandoned traditional painting on canvas and began to work with humble, everyday materials such as wire mesh, iron wire, and plaster. Unlike his French contemporaries, he was not swept up in the enthusiasm for new objects produced by a consumer society. Instead, he observed the illusory and disappointing nature of a world that, in his view, failed to deliver on its promises of happiness, security, or progress. The sculpture Only this (1962) is part of his series of “works on the economic miracle,” initiated in Paris in 1961. This assemblage consists of various fabric scraps draped over a spiral-shaped wire structure and held together with glue. This concrete sculpture represents nothing more than what it is: a demonstration of the ennobling techniques adopted by consumer culture within a dynamic of commodified aestheticization. The material is unsuitable, the form dysfunctional.

The sculpture Coexistence (1964) belongs to the same group. A worn-out shirt is tightly wrapped around a small electric heater. The assemblage of these two elements reveals a practical dysfunction and evokes the very obstruction that cohabitation imposes on each element: the former cannot provide warmth, and the latter cannot heat.

In 1966, one year before the military junta (also known as the Dictatorship of the Colonels) abolished Greek democracy, Caniaris returned to Athens. His 1969 exhibition at the New Gallery in Athens, which featured constructions made of plaster and barbed wire, provoked strong reactions—not only for its unique and fundamentally new artistic approach, but also for its denunciation of the dictatorship. Actively involved in a resistance group, the artist was soon forced to leave Athens and take refuge in Paris. The following year, the same exhibition was shown at the Musée d’Art Moderne in Paris.

The works in this “anti-dictatorial” series feature everyday objects such as shoes, plastic carnations, or children's toys—as seen in Untitled (1970)—which the artist immersed in plaster. Serving as metaphors for the state of Greek society, “cast” under the military dictatorship, they appear suspended in time, waiting to be set free.

Between 1973 and 1976, thanks to a DAAD scholarship, Caniaris settled in Berlin and created the Gastarbeiter–Fremdarbeiter series, inspired by the world of Turkish, Italian, and Greek migrant workers living in Germany. The installations feature wire figures combined with everyday objects. This approach allowed the artist to portray the human condition in an even more radical way—individuals are now transformed into objects.

In the assemblage Plus and Minus (1974), the artist uses two cans: each symbolizes a different world, the promise of opportunities versus the harshness of reality. One, with a recognizable American brand label, evokes the allure of the West, often idealized as a land of success and prosperity. However, the barbed wire protruding from it forms a powerful symbol of restriction and confinement, referencing the physical and symbolic barriers faced by immigrants. The other can, labeled with a Greek brand, is filled with ordinary stones. The juxtaposition of these two cans illustrates the tension between the hopes for a better life and the unforgiving realities that immigrant workers must confront.

In 1976, Caniaris was appointed professor and head of the art section at the School of Architecture of the National Polytechnic University of Athens, where he returned. The monumental installation Urinals of History (1980) features three life-sized figures. Made of wire mesh, they are positioned to mimic the act of urinating against a wall. This wall is covered in red, blue, and green graffiti, reminiscent of the political slogans that were scrawled on the walls of Athens during the Nazi Occupation, the Civil War (1946-1949), and the military dictatorship. The graffiti also echoes Caniaris’ series of paintings titled Homage to the Walls of Athens. These three men, who could be described as "politically indifferent," urinate against a wall that, despite being disfigured by graffiti and slogans, remains a metaphor for the collective effort of the Greeks to erase the memory of their past by vandalizing their heritage. For Caniaris, this wall held a particular significance, as it alluded to the very structure of their lives. The artist described his sculptural figures as "witnesses" and placed the visitors on the same representational level as these figures: both objects, observers, and participants—thus occupying a radically open position, one he himself adopted in his life and work. Urinals of History was first exhibited in 1980 during the Hélas-Hellas exhibition in Athens, marking a decisive turning point in the artist's career.