DIMITRIOS ANTONITSIS

DIMITRIOS ANTONITSIS 

Phimôsis

Opening:  May 30th, 19:00 – 22:00

Exhibition Duration: 30.05.2024 – 27.07.2024

In his fifth solo exhibition at Ileana Tounta Contemporary Art Center, Dimitrios Antonitsis presents a large-scale sculpture, a comment on the current socio-political landscape both in and beyond the art world.

Taking an ancient Greek ceramic (of the 6th century BC) from the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York as a starting point, Dimitrios Antonitsis reframes the issue of gender and identity as a broader question: how free are we to express ourselves within the constraints of excessive political correctness and woke culture? The artist elaborates the original sculpture into an oversized augmented totem of Worship and Decadence. The title of the exhibition, Phimôsis, is the Greek word for ‘muzzling’, but it is also a medical condition in which the foreskin of the penis cannot be retracted.

“It is an incredible thing that is happening,” says Antonitsis. “No one, even in the art world, dares to open their mouth in fear of being attacked. A pervasive silencing prevails, signaling a more permanent and deeper decadence.”

Professor Panagiotis P. Iossif, scientific director of the Museum of Cycladic Art, inquires in the text accompanying the exhibition: “Why “Phimôsis,” then? The medical condition implies suffering and “confinement.” From there, it is easy to extrapolate the situation of suffering and “confinement” to the metaphoric and symbolic level: that of restriction of expression, of sexual frustration, of censorship and repression (of speech, gender, sexuality etc.). […] The penis has always been a powerful symbol of life and creative power. If such a potent symbol can be constrainted, other types of freedom can also be in danger. That’s the reason why the sculpture “Phimôsis” is positioned high up in the most visible place, flying free even if it is always in serious danger of losing its freedom.”