Zoumboulakis Galleries 20 Kolonaki Square 10673 Athens Greece (city map) Send E-mail tel +30 210 36 31 364 www.zoumboulakis.gr

GEORGE LAZONGAS
"Réalité, Res, Rien"

Opening, 14 May 2009, at 8pm

Zoumboulakis Galleries proudly presents the exhibition by George Lazongas "Réalité, Res, Rien" (reality, thing, nothing). The exhibition features new works by the artist and opens Thursday 14 May 2009. Lazongas uses as his starting point the Gaza massacre and the events triggered last December in Athens to allusively explore the new reality of the globalized economy and its various aspects.

He uses printing techniques, drawing, video, photography and painting according to the requirements of the work, while he reinstates the printed transparencies that he established in the 70s. He works on big scale (5,00 x 2,50 m.) as well as on smaller scale works.

The exhibition is accompanied by a publication with texts by philosopher Kostas Axelos, art historian Thanassis Moutsopoulos and environmentalist Ilias Efthymiopoulos.


Réalité, Res, Rien

George Lazongas, motivated by the Gaza events in his exhibition "Réalité, Res, Rien" at Zoumboulakis Galleries, is allusively exploring the new reality of the globalized economy and its various aspects.

Disconnected from itself, from past and from doubt, this new reality (globalization) is considered to be and is transformed into a thing. The same, more or less, is happening to people. The "thing" (res) has to define its price in order to exist. The only thing that circulates freely in all markets without being defined is death, the absolutely nothing (rien).

In the centre, at the heart of all events, the re-installment of a balance amongst certainties and uncertainties seems to be of no interest and has no recipient. This absence of actively seeking a balance leads us to the dead-end of destruction. In the new reality the children are not children, they are either rien (nothing with no tomorrow) or "thing". The death of a child equals to the absence of the recipient, and the absence of the recipient to death in art.

The wars, the dividing walls, the privatization of natural resources in Palestine all signify elimination. The new reality of the globalized economy urges what it values as a "thing" (man) to destroy what it considers as a "thing" (life).

In "Planetic thought", Kostas Axelos writes "The reality itself (réalité) makes us think and feel that the word res, where it derives from, gives through its accusative case Rien (nothing), doesn't nothing make you nervous?"

In Lazongas' more recent works, printing techniques, drawing, video, photography (from Gaza) and painting are used according to the requirements of the piece, while the artist also returns to the printed transparencies that he established during the '70s. He works on big scale (5,00 x 2,50) as well as on smaller scale works.

For the purpose of this exhibition Lazongas borrowed and used two short scenes from the multi-awarded documentary "Palestine Blues" by Nida Sinnokrot, as he was not granted permission to travel and film on location.

The exhibition is accompanied by a publication with texts by philosopher Kostas Axelos, art historian Thanassis Moutsopoulos and environmentalist Ilias Efthymiopoulos.