Your Excellency Mr. President,

Distinguished guests,

It is a great honor and certainly a real pleasure for me to preside over the expert committee (consisting of Chantal Béret, Curator at the Pompidou Center, Anaël Pigeat, art critic, Androula Michael and Sarah Wilson, art historians and exhibition curators) that has convened many times this year to award a “visual arts” prize to a Cypriot artist for the first time.

Indeed, for this past decade, we have witnessed the emergence of a very vibrant, creative and original contemporary art scene. This remote little island, lying between the East and the West, with its rich, tormented history, has given birth to many Cypriot artists whose work has been inspired one way or another by the cultural identity of their country and who surpass the national question even though they set off from a divided situation. This new scene develops in a context of globalization and artist nomadic migration as well as the hybrid new media and the blending of different genres shaping a critical post-colonial rethinking of History and its founding myths. Cyprus actually symbolizes a rich archaeological past (see the 2008 Theodoulos Grigoriou exhibition at the Louvre Museum) and a very contemporary present at the same time.

So, this Foundation award comes at just the right moment to reward a Cypriot artist for his work and give him international acclaim.

But I have to admit that, due to the quality of the work of so many artists, this was a difficult choice. I hope that our chosen artist will not be displeased with me for mentioning the names of some of the other artists we considered: Nikos Charalambides, Socratis Socratous, Phanos Kyriacou, and also Charis Epameinonda, Marianna Christofides and so many others.

We received more than forty portfolios reflecting the very diversity of art creation in Cyprus, from the most traditional art to the most modern trends, from pioneers to young innovators.

Christodoulos Panayiotou was born in 1978 in Limassol, he lives between Cyprus and Berlin but, since he has spent the last years traveling interminably (Brazil, Italy, France, Italy, England), he thinks of himself as coming from “nowhere and everywhere”, in other words a universal artist, an artist without borders.

He initially studied dance, specifically choreography in Lyon and in Paris, and anthropology (which he studied in London). He met with plastic arts later on and he is self-taught, he considers it as a natural step forward like a physical extension of his body and an intellectual extension, the connection to the Other.

The performance, theater, stage space remains very present in his later work as evidenced by the rolls of red carpet he exhibits in various spaces, carpets that still trace the steps of Hollywood actors. Or else, that big piece of sky (Nowhere), a painted setting, that he takes with him to every single one of his exhibitions… By folding these materials, by hiding their surface and showing nothing but their exterior, he maintains the trace, the memory of the events while reversing their performing function. That which was supposed to be seen, shown becomes secret and hidden.

In Casino Luxembourg in 2013 as well as in Venice in 2015, he was inspired by the aura of the space to arrange his objects, create a dialog with the architecture and essentially “direct” the scene, a tale with many spurs.

This year, he represented Cyprus in the weird little Palazzo Malipiero and his installation, called “Two days after forever”, was so relevant to the space, it had such a poetic and critical refinement that it persuaded us and made our decision. Ceramic pots with rare roses, road signs in two alphabets, pink Murano glass, a copper fountain, mosaic, golden paintings, terracotta… And a mountain of shredded banknotes… So many clues that tell us different stories about the history of Cyprus, from its ancient past to its entry in the Euro system and the disappearance of its own currency.

Christodoulos Panayiotou actually uses various media: video, installations, photo prints, slides, acts, and one could say that his artistic process approaches that of memory, in search of mementoes buried in the images and in the marks of time. He tries to make the presence tangible within the absence, but he also questions the way we form the identity of a culture out of images and archives.

He identifies artistic practices with those of archaeology, that can uncover a story, and he is interested in the state of objects (see the Moderna Museet exhibition in Stockholm dedicated to the transport of ancient ceramics from Cyprus to Sweden between 1927 and 1931). In his slideshows he questions the photos of the Cypriot newspaper Phileleftheros in order to present an image of his country in full transition. In I Land, (2011) he projected official photos of Makarios III, the first president-archbishop of the Republic, and at the same time other more intimate photos in order to understand how time gives value and meaning to objects, to events. But also how we can manipulate these documents. Christodoulos examines the way national identities are shaped through collective narratives. So, he projected images of the traditional carnival of Limassol contaminated with Disney characters, a mix that expresses well the ambiguity of the folklore that we call authentic.

Thus he always uses a subversive inversion of roles, of meanings that allows for multiple interpretations all the while contrasting the visible with the invisible, the past with the present, the fake with the real, silence with singing, movement with pause.

The other axis of his work, equally charming, is the reactivation of old and traditional techniques: terracotta, mosaics, painting icons on a gold background, leather or copper processing… So many forgotten crafts that he attempts to reactivate. Copper has a special resonance playing a main role in his work because its name in Latin is Cyprum (the metal of Cyprus) and copper plates he uses in his temporary fountains come from the most important mine of the island.

The shoes and clothes that he makes with great care out of various materials (bags belonging to his family or bags bought in Venetian markets) are substitutes for the body, a ghostly absent presence, but also empty sculptures that will never be used, only made with art.

One last element is added to this polyphonic work: the writing, the telling of tales either in the form of published books or in the form of correspondence. Letters from Japan, 2013, Prologue: Quoting Absence.

In fact, this so subtle art constitutes, as critic Hans Ulrich Obrist once wrote, a form of modern baroque. Christodoulos Panayiotou perceives the world as a theater, a stage where one cannot distinguish reality from fiction.

After a first award in 2003 for his work as a choreographer, the prestigious Greek art prize by the Deste foundation in 2005 and the The Future of Europe Award in 2010 (a title that echoes the tragic reality we live in), I am happy and proud to be able to present him with the Nemitsas Foundation Prize, an award of excellence that includes all sectors of science and creation. To be certain, Christodoulos is still a young artist in the middle of his career but his reputation is already largely established, and we wish that this award proves beneficial to him. I warmly thank you all for this invitation

Marie-Laure Bernadac,