Alexandros Tzannis - Scattered Memories from the Next Millennium

Opening: Friday 14 May 2010, 8-11pm

Duration: 14 May – 19 June 2010

Opening Hours: Tuesday to Friday 12-8pm & Saturday 12-5pm

The Breeder is pleased to present the second solo show of Alexandros Tzannis entitled “Scattered Memories from the next Millennium”. Tzannis new labour intensive works on paper employ a number of different materials such as ballpoint ink, spray paint, pencil, charcoal, oil paint & collage. With his intense futuristic noir aesthetics, Tzannis succeeds in creating a timeless world, where the past and the future entangle in a spatial reality.

As in his presentation in the 2nd Athens Biennial, in this show, Tzannis brings to the foreground the settings where his heroes act, but in this instance they are absent. The result resembles the kaleidoscopic works of Nicolas Schöffer, with optical illusions and cubist references. Ceramic spheres or planets surround the works on paper and strain the futurist disposition of the artist. The title of the show is playing on the idea of memory, oblivion and time and is a paraphrase of Italo Calvino’s last book «Six Memos for the Next Millennium».

As art historian Nadia Argyropoulou notes «Alexandros Tzannis work positions itself in a field of neo-goth or post-heroic reference and sensitivity. His paintings are formed in a space deliverately ambiguous between smooth drawings and the process of painting and are also giving the impression of a reversed collage (parts are eliminated rather than added). In this way, the quality of Tzannis work seems to have the fluidity of a voyage; a voyage that ranges from the stormy symbolism of Arnold Böcklin to the landscape-painting romantisim of Caspar Friedrich, the sharpness of Dürer to the dready neopsychedelia of the US West Coast art scene.»

Alexandros Tzannis (Athens, 1979) is a a graduate of the School of Fine Arts in Athens and currently lives between Vienna & Athens. In 2009 he participated in the 2nd Athens Biennial “Heaven” curated by Nadia Argyropoulou, while in 2007 he presented his first solo show at The Breeder entitled ‘Doomed by Fantasy’. His work has been included in 2009 in ‘Paint-ID’ at the Macedonian Museum of Art curated by Sotirios Bahtsetzis, in ‘The First Image’ at Centre Regional d’Art Contemporain Languedic Roussilion in Sete (France) curated by Denys Zacharopoulos, ‘The Beautiful is the first degree of Horrible” in The State Museum of Contemporary Art in Thessaloniki curated by Apostolos Kalfopoulos. Works by Alexandros Tzannis are also currently on show in Mole Vanvitelliana in Ancona, Italy ‘Arrivals & Departures- Europe’ curated by Andrea Bruciati & Walter Gasperoni.