“Impersonal Trainer”: Dio Horia Acropolis presents a large-scale solo exhibition of Greek artist Elias Kafouros

Throughout the summer, Dio Horia Gallery will be presenting a large-scale solo exhibition of Greek artist Elias Kafouros titled “Impersonal Trainer”. The exhibition was partly co-curated by fellow visual artist Dora Economou, who has also authored the text that follows. This will be Kafouros’ third solo exhibition with Dio Horia Gallery, and his first exhibition at the gallery’s Acropolis venue.

ELIAS KAFOUROS | IMPERSONAL TRAINER

“When Elias asked me if I would like to try writing something about his work, I thought, great, I will work on it as if I’m working on a journey. Even I don’t quite know what i meant by that. You enter a new landscape, like that first dive into the sea, the moment you open your eyes under the water, every time, the nth time, is always like the first time, and the very next moment, it is all those times at the same time. On each next journey, you discover (or perhaps invent is a more accurate verb) the previous one and vice versa. The same goes for every painting/image. A sea of signs and references, you throw the dice, you spread the tarot cards, you drop the sticks, or the bones, you read sediments, grounds, the trace of the flame, the signs of the zodiac, call it what you will. You’re grasping at something, Ariadne’s thread, to navigate the labyrinth, to find out what will happen next but also what has already happened. What you’ve seen.

At his studio, I look at Elias’s images and listen to him, listen to us, try not to try to understand, drawing lesson for beginners, you draw what your eye sees, not what your head knows is there, so that another eye can see it too. Of course, what each person sees is a whole other conversation. I wait for that click, the password, the ‘open sesame’ that will crack open the code so I can start. The girls of Miss July, 4 in a circle like the cardinal points on the horizon, are not human beings, they are simulations/machines, robots, androids, karakuri puppets, automata, call them what you will. I happen upon the title Idoru. I had traveled a lot and many times with William Gibson’s books. Before I officially started traveling. Before I reached Japan, before I realized that idoru is the Japanese pronunciation of the word idol, before I saw nerds in cartons in Shinjuku. And when I saw them, I didn’t remember them. I remembered them at Elias’s studio. We talk about the showcases [of the exhibition] and I experience a déjà vu. I’ve seen this somewhere before, I’m sure of it. In one of the books of the Bridge trilogy. It wasn’t in Idoru, probably in All Tomorrow’s Parties. It doesn’t matter, I can’t remember any of the plots. But I remember where in the house the book might be; the phrase was on a right page, somewhere around the middle. It goes like this: ‘In those windows are small empty pedestals, formal absences of precious things, locked away for the night.’ And although ‘absence’ is not the first word that comes to mind when you look at Elias’s work, and what you call precious and what not is rather relative, there is something there.

His paintings, my folded papers, are inevitably just representatives/representations of the world, but when we do it well, they manage hopefully to retain and convey that little bit more that is hidden behind things and when you look at it something happens. I cannot resist mentioning “All Tomorrow’s Parties” the song. Fortunately, there is Google now, a modern-day Pythia I turn to when I don’t remember much but remember enough to ask the right question, and she tells me: Lou Reed wrote the song inspired by Warhol’s clique, looking at Warhol looking at his world. In Dreamtime, we look at the artist looking at the foire; in the objects in the showcase, we see many Eliases looking at us. The title of the exhibition: ‘Impersonal Trainer.’ I am not quite sure what it means. Impersonal educator? Intermediary? Middleman? Facilitator? Medium? It’s one of those titles that I feel rather than understand. The phrase ”Don’t Forget To Breathe” springs to mind. Good advice in any case, and very rhythmic. I imagine young Elias doing parkour in empty factories in Kaminia. (I use parkour schematically, but on a website I read: ‘It has to do with progressing into an everincreasing capacity to move differently and effectively within your environment,’ and I like it.) A very dense and thick urban universe that envelopes you. I recognize it in the images he makes. Over-saturation of colors, shapes and information, from a certain point onwards my eyes hurt, I can no longer see, I now feel the energy. Pattern Recognition (Gibson).” – Dora Economou, visual artist

Short Bio

Elias Kafouros (b. 1978, Athens, Greece) lives and works in Athens. The artist has received a BFA in Painting from the Athens School of Fine Arts in 2004 and studied Animation at the School of Visual Arts in New York. Kafouros’ solo exhibitions include: ‘Push Buttons’ at Dio Horia Gallery, Athens; ‘Incognito’ at Dio Horia Gallery, Mykonos; ‘The Image is Unsustainable’ at Francoise Heitsch Gallery, Munich; ‘A Thesis on the Shelf’at AD Gallery, Athens; ‘High on Definition’ at Volta 7, Basel. Kafouros’ group exhibitions include: ‘A Vibrant Sanctuary’ at UNTITLED Miami, Dio Horia Gallery, Miami; ‘Nikos Alexiou. The Collection’, Curated by Polina Kosmadaki, Yorgos Tzirtzilakis, Benaki Museum, Athens, ‘NOW’ at Art021, Dio Horia Gallery, Shanghai; ‘Theorems III’, ASFA, Athens; ‘Cities of Men’, Kydoniefs Foundation, Andros; ‘After Hope’, Dio Horia Gallery, Athens; “Art-Athina Pop Up”, Dio Horia Gallery, Athens; ‘Symbols andIconic Ruins’ at National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens; ‘Newer Revolutionary Narratives-Transitions of an Ideal Nation’, J&E Vatis Art Hall, Syros; ‘Caritas Romana:15 Acts of Devotion’, Main exhibition of the 59th Thessaloniki International Film Festival at Thessaloniki Center of Contemporary Art, Thessaloniki. His work has been featured in Hypebeast, Artforum and in Vitamin D2 among others. Kafouros has been commissioned by Hèrmes to create a series of designs for the legendary Hèrmes silk scarves. In 2013, he was the recipient of the Fulbright Foundation Grant.