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useful genealogy, parallel to the “glorious
past” and its own history. Consider, for
instance, the hopes pinned on the future by
the movement of Futurism and all the desires
of the other pioneering acts during that time.
Avant-garde is by definition a parachronistic
concept, as it is manifested in a given present
as a reaction, projecting its contributions in
the future. Now, a century later, we all know
that this future never happened and it never
will. Therefore, there is nothing left for us to
do other than be done with it once and for all.
I despise nostalgia because it is nothing but a
caricature of the past. In any country I have
been to, in any society I have been over the
past few years, from Asia to Europe and the
Americas, I saw people being nostalgic of their
“glorious past”, through a series of choices
and misfires that placate and idealise the past.
Thus, unlike the futurists and the nostalgics,
I would rather focus all my thoughts on how
to win both the present and the responsibility
that we have in this present. I do not wish
to sound pessimistic, quite the opposite.
Pessimism is valid where there still remains
some fear that something may be lost, but now
when everything is lost, there is nothing left
for us to do but be optimistic. So I think that
contemporary art can function dynamically
in this charged field as it rests on memory
and imagination, past and future, those two
abstractions that the concept of “restoration”
dangerously coordinates. I like to think that
my work serves our responsibility to have a
voice against “restoration”, to reconcile with
the past and to capitulate, even now, with great
delay, to the present.
Address by the President of the Republic,
Mr Nicos Anastasiades
Politicians rarely express themselves on fine
arts. I wish to be frank and honest. We rarely
do so because it is a field with which, as a
general rule, most of us have little affinity.
Perhaps we are even intimidated by artists,
due to the fact that they express themselves
in a very different way to us. They express
themselves through their work, which is
sometimes allegorical, other times hyperbolic,
Distinguished guests included (from right to left) former President of the Republic of Cyprus, Mr George Vassiliou, his wife,
former European Commissioner Androulla Vassiliou, and MPs Averof Neophytou and Maria Kyriacou
