Nikos Alexiou “The brittle trace of sympols” at the Contemporary Art Museum of Crete

The Contemporary Art Museum of Crete, continuing its dialogue with issues of art and society, returns to the artwork of Nikos Alexiou with his retrospective exhibition “The brittle trace of symbols.”

This exhibition presents selected fragments from the overall trajectory of the significant artist. Nikos Alexiou, born in 1960 in Rethymno, embodies the qualities of both a local and global artist.

As stated in her text, the exhibition curator, Maria Maragkou,
… The brittle trace of his symbolic language are the Labyrinths, the Solar Rooms, the Monasteries, the Squares-forms that surrender to the inner logic of the works, repeating themselves through different media and expressions, like a fragile imprint that inscribes without imposing.
What emerges is a resilient fragility, shaped by handiwork of time and silence, an immaterial that carries and records memory.

Alexiou’s practice is rooted in memory-from a childhood blanket to Mount Athos, where he stayed for an extended period. This memory is interwoven through hundreds of “characters” on paper in a serially manner, while an insistence on detail defines a play of innocence that conceals tragic manifestations.
Nikos’s reeds, strings, and papers balance but also are in danger, always at risk to be broken or destroyed by a clumsy move…