Never land: Christodoulos Panayiotou (a project and conversation with Nicos Charalambidis in Art Papers magazine)

Never Land: Christodoulos Panayiotou

Christodoulos Panayiotou's work Wonder Land (80 color slides) is the outcome of extensive research at the municipal archives of Limassol, Cyprus, which revealed the citizens’ fixation on disguising themselves as Disney characters for their annual carnival. In Never Land, his project for ART PAPERS, Panayiotou put together a new series of related images, which thematically cast Cyprus as “the foam war island," "the extra-terrestrial island," and "the exotic island."




Nikos Charalambidis: I am sorry for laughing but what you just
said about the carnival parade of Limassol resembling a funeral
procession was rather amusing. It was quite unexpected.

Christodoulos Panayiotou: I have never participated in the carnival's
organized activities, nor have I ever joined in the parade. I never
understood the motive nor did I feel the festive impulse that many
carnival participants can describe so comfortably. To be
honest, I have never believed in it because I have never quite seen
this impulse realized, especially in the parade, which was the focus
of my last work. My own observations and my research in the related
photographic archives have made something evident: in the past few
years, the preparations for the carnival have become a kind of imposed
and somehow covered up melancholy. This feeling becomes, I think, even
more intense in the children. It might be a projection, but I get the
impression that the carnival parades of Limassol have acquired the
rehearsed character of our own archaeology. The parade is a kind of
revelation of everything we would like to be, of everything we know we
cannot be, and of everything we cannot afford to accept that we are.

NC: The way you put it is quite interesting. For me, the event has a
totally different significance. When I was a child, my siblings and I
used to look forward to the preparations for the carnival parade with
great impatience. They lasted three months. For us, this was a
spectacular manifestation of creativity. My aunt was a member of the
carnival's organizing committee. So it goes without saying that my
grandfather's house became an artistic workshop—a universe of
costumes, masks, and various painted and decorated parts, which were
intended to adorn the floats. We were all fervently enthusiastic about
dressing up and taking part in the parade. I never thought of a dull
description such as yours.

CP: The distinction between our experiences may come as a result of
our generational difference, which shades our perceptions of both the
local—Limassol—and the
national—Cyprus. In a way, this difference represents Cyprus as two
totally different experiences. I grew up in the 1990s,at a time when
Cyprus was—and still is—in the process of constituting a text with
many unclear lines, complicated references, and cryptic intentions. I
am referring to a time when Cyprus seemed confused. You grew up in a
"potentially" high-spirited Cyprus, characterized by imagination and
the force of its own efforts of self-definition. After all, your
Cyprus was looking ahead, whereas I was raised in a country whose gaze
cannot but turn to the past, however unclear, so that it may manage to
look forward again one day—which seems to start happening now.
It is this variation in the experience of the same landscape and its
historical perception that gives a different tone to our works.

NC: For your work Wonder Land, you chose pictures of Disney floats.
You focus more on the popular aspects of the carnival aesthetics than
on its mainstream and classical themes, such as colombinas, harlequins, samba dancers or even its satirical elements. This is certainly no random choice.

CP: When I began my research at the carnival parade's archives, the
unusually large number of Disney-themed floats, costumes, and masks
struck me. It seemed to become a dominant form of cultural expression
in recent years. I could not quite understand it. Going through the archives more methodically, I realized that this
trend has lasted with undiminished fervor for twenty years. I interpreted it as an indication of a kind of popular, subversive reformatting of the official aims of the parade, which presents itself as a continuation of the Hellenic tradition, in both historical and mythological terms. I then tried to isolate the many Disney themed photographs, as I realized that their inner logic reflects my concept of the complexity of the island's identity. […]

NC: Asubtly subversive element traverses your work, pressuring the ease and lightness of the popular images. In Never Land, these carefree crossings and meetings are laden with an imperceptible mystical sorrow. Looking behind the culturally imposed festive spirit, you attempt to lay bare a sacred moment of loneliness, which carnival spectators subconsciously try to hide.

CP: Popular culture and its aesthetics were never an end in itself for me. At the same time, however, pop aesthetics seems to manifest all that interests me. As a result, my work is elusive but, unlike pop imagery, it is not exhausted. Lately, I have been thinking of my work as a book whose chapters are being written disorderly, in the same way that I observe things around me. The links between these chapters open up as new directions while together they make up a project that is constantly negotiable.

NC: Just recently, I wrote a text about the Argentine artist Guillermo Kuitca.I was impressed by his insistent denunciation of any political implications in his work. While other critics were quick to associate his production with the dictatorship period, he attributed it to his problematic childhood. Might a similar interpretation be valid for your work too?

CP: I don’t denounce anything. I am interested in human nature and its manifestations. This, in itself, is something deeply political. Much so-called political art is simply an attempt to make political philology through the use of political iconography. This is a rhetorical representation of the existent political rhetoric, which seems vain and unappealing. My work comes together as a result of existential and social reflections, which I regard as deeply political.

NC: There is an intense loneliness and melancholy in all your work. It heightens the sense of absence, which seems to be the focal point of your artistic practice. This feeling is present in Slow Dance Marathon, (2005 ongoing), and in your recent works guysgocrazy, (2008), shot at Prague’s porn production studios, and Sunday,2005,the collection of all the confetti used during the Limassol carnival parade, which all invoke the work and strategy of Félix González-Torres. Unlike many of your contemporaries who, returning to traditional painterly concerns and a predilection of the handmade,
are engaged in a kind of neo-formalism, you seem to insist on practices and themes that mainly characterize the 1990s.Why?

CP: As you know I have been trained in dance and theater. I came to visual arts quite late and González-Torres was one of the first artists with whom I felt a real ideological connection. His work manages to combine political purity and personal, human experience without being didactic. I also aspire to this in my work. On the other hand, I don’t follow a specific strategy. Sunday and Slow Dance Marathon start from totally different perspectives. I understand that you think that one aspect of my work refers to Torres. This aspect is, precisely, what I find essential in art. I hope that it continues to stimulate artists well after the 1990s. But, as I already mentioned, my references also go back to dance and theater. These disciplines have taught me a rather
observatory process, which begins with the political morality of distantiation in Brecht’s theater and ends in the emotional systematization of Stanislawski’s method. This legacy has transformed my logic, ideas, and feelings into a kind of political ideology of the individual.

NC: Do you think that your work reflects your locality? I know that you spend a lot of time abroad. Nevertheless, your base is Cyprus. Do you feel that this restricts you in
any way?

CP: Lately, my work has developed around a series of trips abroad. This back and forth has inevitably influenced my practice. Locality is never purely a theme in my work. Rather, it is a functional condition. My experience of Cyprus—both as a landscape and as a function—defines me deeply. In the same way, however, I am influenced by my experiences in a new city. Working as an artist-in-residence has provided valuable balance. From this point of view, I have never felt restricted in Cyprus.

NC: You have lived for some months in Istanbul as an artist-in-residence. Until recently, Cypriots could not enter Turkey, even as tourists. Can you talk about your
experience in Istanbul? How were you received by the local art scene?

CP: This experience has been somewhat liberating, for myself and for my work. In Istanbul, I was suddenly confronted with the biggest abstraction of my education. At the same time, it gave me the opportunity to explore parts of the diverse history of the city and to better understand both the Turkish mentality and the complexity of the political situation of which I, as a Cypriot, felt to be a part. Everyone—the local art scene and the people I socialized with during my six-month residency at Platform Garanti—was kind and friendly. Our interactions were, however, colored intensely by the brotherly exoticism that my national identity meant to them. I feel extremely lucky to have had the opportunity to experience it. This was a precious and productive time which I have carried with me ever since.

Translated from Greek by Antonis Bogadakis.