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The Callas (Lakis & Aris Ionas) | Strange Fruits
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(“Flower” by Sonic Youth, 1985)
Dio Horia Gallery is delighted to introduce 'Strange Fruits', an exhibition by The Callas (Lakis & Aris Ionas), marking their debut as represented artists with the gallery. ‘Strange Fruits’ comes shortly after their monumental museum exhibit held last season at the Onassis Stegi.
Greek D.I.Y pioneers The Callas, consisting of the brothers Lakis & Aris Ionas, along with their friends/ family/ collaborators, have been leading a loose-knit artistic collective dedicated to creating works spanning art, film, and music since 2002. Their focus revolves around themes related to urban symbolism, collective archetypes, and the creative possibilities inherent in experimentation, infused with copious references; from song lyrics and literature to visual time travels.
‘Strange Fruits’ (a note to Billie Holliday’s anti-racist anthem, southern trees are well-known to bear strange fruit), brings together the duo’s diverse visual practice, encompassing the fields of painting, sculpture and embroidered tapestry.
The dark acrylics and spray paintings welcome viewers at the sidewalk, the forms and colors blending together in a peculiar interplay of midpoints, in lo-fi, emotional geometric compositions, attesting to Urban culture, in its most complex and mystic facet. In the same vein, the gallery space is full of flowers in dark backgrounds. A memento-mori in the subtlest of ways, their scent evokes scenes from the nearest or more distant past, while a neon palette and Manet’s still-life works meet the darkest visions of the Spanish masters. Taking the time to fully absorb a familiar setting with the blinds half-closed, in the middle of the room there stands a grandiose column, made out of old Athenian pavement marbles.
Finally, at the basement (annex) of the gallery, The Callas deliver a traditional/ utopian, neon-colored installation, directly opposed to the upper floor’s darker hues. Here, The Callas’ distinctive hand-made tapestries, conceived by themselves and crafted by their beloved mother and aunt, coming from a Greek rural village, seem like privately, yet boldly paving the way to the strange times ahead.
Or, in The Callas’ own words, "Don t know exactly how to express it. Flowers & Marbles & Embroiderism. Sounds like an Emily Dickinson's lyric or a Gertrud Stein's poem-as-pill or like some Sun Ra's guidelines for a recording. It's like resting under a Cypress' shadow, next to a Psychladic sunset, trying to hold honey in your palm. Cut. A Raymond Carver's living room, a table, a window on his back, a vase with flowers, maybe. Did you know that Death and Dreams were brothers? And Night was their mother? Sorry, a pause, how many open tabs have you in your browser right now? Proust's "madeleine effect" drags up Manet, El Greco, a muted Morandi poster on the wall and a Coke Zero dawn. Half night as in Mulholland Drive, a colorful basement- bubble-bunker but there's no window, and you can't realize where the light comes from. Not sure if you really care. As a final word, we'd love you to know that we always carry a Sylvia Plath's book in our pocket, as an apotropaic gun, as a tender "fuck off" to "foreverness"."
