Jannis Varelas
“Caliban Case”
Opening April 21st from 5-8 pm.
Exhibition period April 22nd - May 31st 2006
Kirkhoff is proud to present the young Greek artist Jannis Varelas’
first solo exhibition in Denmark. Varelas was born in Athens in 1977
and lives and works in Athens and London.
The exhibition “Caliban Case” presents painting, life-size drawings,
sculptures and a mural. The name Caliban refers to a character in
William
Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” and is an anagram of the word “cannibal”.
As a native living on an exotic island Caliban experiences a colonial
domination from the shipwrecked Prospero who enslaves him. The savage
and deformed monster Caliban tries to rebel against the exiled Duke
Prospero but fails his attempt.
The Caliban character has been adopted as a cultural icon. During the
twentieth century it became a symbol for oppressed native populations
especially in the West Indies in their fight for liberation from
European colonization.
Jannis Varelas works include a gigantic hybrid figure which is
portrayed as a delicate mixture of man, woman and beast. The bearded
and peculiar character wears high heels and animalistic masks. In an
environment of palm trees, tropical fruits and colourful parrots you
discover a man who moons in front of a school or people reaching for
and worshiping a mighty deity equipped with an umbrella functioning as
a symbol of power or feminine attribute.
Staring eyes and impressive masks show up everywhere. A massive house
turns into a disturbing and sinister mask when added big dark eyes. The
well-known become strange and unsettling. The use of the mask and the
animation of objects have a symbolic and spiritual value in many
colonized cultures.
Varelas appropriate elements from diverse sources including cut-outs
from magazines and imagery deriving from children’s drawings, primitive
masks and a stereotyped paradisiac universe. The religious, historic
and mythic narratives are combined in a contemporary comment on
everyday life experiences of hierarchic divisions.
Varelas works can be seen as a humorous rebellion against different
kinds of authorities. The power relations found in church, school,
cultural meetings and between genders are questioned. His exotic
character is placed outside society and its current norms. The
surprising and powerful depictions deal with the paradoxes of being a
stranger unable to fit in with the commonly accepted cultural
categories and fixed female and male identities.
Jannis Varelas is educated at Athens School of Fine Arts and the
University of Fine Arts, Barcelona and will graduate from Royal College
of Arts, London in May 2006. Varelas has participated in a group show
at ICA, London and at The Absolute Summer Show at Kirkhoff, August
2005. Future solo shows are with The Breeder, Athens, and Krinzinger,
Vienna. Jannis Varelas is represented in the collections of Benakis
Museum, Frisiras
Museum and the Dakis Joannou.
