Costis

born in 1950

media artist, visual artist, director, performer, writer, poet, videographer, sculptor

He studied Economics and Political Science in the university of Athens prior to his movement in France, where he obtained Licence et Maitrise in Cinematography and Audio-Visual Studies, UER in Cinema and Visual Arts, Licence de Philosophie in the University of Paris VII. He terminated his studies at the level of Doctorat d’etat under J.F. Lyotard.

After a series of technological investigations, Costis achieved the production of lightning from high voltage current. Playing the major role in his work, this lightning is programmed to appear and disappear, to flash and then fall silent. In a 1994 interview with Jacques Donguy, Costis spoke of the first appearance of lightning in his sculpture: "The first time I showed lightning was in 1989. And this was a sculpture called "Vision": the viewer was reflected in a concave mirror where lightning provided its flash. Parallel to that, I also showed an installation entitled 'No Man's Land: Ritual of the Explosion.' The lightning was driven through commonplace objects, as well as lava, coal, granite, and the vital lead ended in the explosion."

"His work is a meditation upon nature and light. Lightning, having become a poetic medium, permits the work to become integrated into the sensorial field as well as the mythological and philosophical," writes Xanthippi Skarpia-Heupel, President of the Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art in Greece.

"He reduces the heavenly phenomenon to the microcosm and the dimensions of man, not to proclaim it a ghastly symbol as primitive man would have done, but to propose a new relationship among nature, art, and technology," states art critic Anna Hatziyannaki.

The well-known art critic Pierre Restany, who characterizes Costis as "Promethean," writes at one point in his lengthy discourse on the artist's work: "Costis' enterprise is presented indeed as an exposition of philosophical objects, whose presence has as an ultimate justification the fact - at once simple and formidable - that it incites us to reflect on the dual valence of alchemical fire. A way of making us witness the permanent victory of life over death and of light over the ashes of darkness."


source:http://agxivatein.com/Costis.html

http://www.costis.gr/ http://www.artopos.org/artists/costis/ http://www.ksyme.gr/ksyme/