Akwa Ibom announces its second exhibition ‘The Crucifixion of Thanasis Totsikas’ by Greek artist Thanasis Totsikas, the first solo presentation of this scale by the artist in more than five years, featuring more than two hundred new works.
A segment of the exhibition was published on Akwa Ibom website in the period of self-isolation sharing photographs of the Crucifixion, Bikini, and Seascape series the artist took in his home studio in Nikaia, Thessaly. The physical exhibition brings together these works with Totsikas’ ongoing handmade knives series in a confessional show about life and death.
“In the exhibition, we are showing more than a hundred drawings that depict his Crucifixion, he raised on the cross, being taken down and placed in his mother’s arms. I find it hard to look at them. It’s not so much the violence and the suffering that I find difficult but the sheer quantity of them—the relentless repetition of the pain he gave time to sediment. I also fear people might look past these drawings and pass judgment on Thanasis personally for the amount of suffering to which, he has laid claim. Thanasis might have crucified himself to fulfil an advance sentence he’d come to expect from the outside” – excerpt from the exhibition text by Maya Tounta
Thanasis Totsikas (born 1951) lives and works in Nikaia, Larissa. He is a skilled luthier, cutler and autobody repair technician – an expertness that has shaped his artistic practice and has been present in his work since his first solo presentation at Desmos Gallery in 1982. His prolific career has included participations at the Venice Biennale and at documenta. His artworks, expressive of a way of life more than the outcome of vocation, often incorporate objects and materials from his everyday as diverse as mud and reeds and a Ducati motorcycle.
*To mitigate the spread of coronavirus ten people will be allowed in at a time. We’d appreciate it if you wore a mask and kept a safe distance 🙂
On view:
June 15 – July 10
September 10 – October 10
Opening hours:
Wednesday 4 – 8 p.m., Saturday, 2 – 6 p.m., and by appointment