Biography

In the realm of a new avant-garde emerging in the artistic scene of New York, primarily from the late 1960s, with Andy Warhol (1928-1987) as its main exponent, during a time when the logic of “unprejudiced affirmation” of pop art prevailed, alongside the complete acceptance of spectacle culture,[1] two prominent Greek-American diaspora artists emerge: first, Loukas Samaras (1936-2024), and later, in the 1980s, his student and friend, Philippos Tsiaras. Philippos Tsiaras was born in 1952 in New Hampshire, Boston, with paternal roots from Grevena in Macedonia and maternal roots from northern Thessalia. He describes himself as: “the son of a leftist family with a partisan past, who was expelled from Greece after the war for political reasons.”[2] As a child, his father would often have him memorize and recite poems by Greek poets of the late 19th century, primarily patriotic in content.[3] Growing up, he became fascinated by Albert Camus’ The Stranger and Existentialism, understanding it as a form of cultural alienation.[4] He studied classical music and comparative literature at Amherst College in Massachusetts. During his studies, he also systematically explored photography. Initially, he distinguished himself as a poet, winning the American Academy Prize in 1975, and later, in 1976, the Thomas Watson Fellowship. During this time, he traveled to Greece to translate Ritsos, Elytis, and avant-garde poets, specifically Tasos Denegris and Katerina Angelaki-Rooke. Ultimately, he set aside his engagement with Ritsos to spend time with the then-new poets, while nurturing his inclination toward visual arts and photography. An opportunity arose from Jean Brenier, with a successful exhibition (for which reviews were written, salons appeared in Gynaika, and a television program was produced by Maria Karavia) he organized at his gallery in Athens in 1977, featuring paintings over photographs. This turned him toward the art of painting, a shift solidified by his successful exhibition in New York in 1980.[5] In fact, this inclination had existed since the early 1970s when he saw the November-December 1970 issue of Art in America featuring Loukas Samaras on the cover, which included a spread of his works. In 1976, he sought to meet him, and the otherwise socially reserved Samaras welcomed his visit, primarily out of curiosity about the fact that, in addition to being an artist, he was also a poet. During this meeting, they recited poems each had written about their Greek grandmothers. From then on, they maintained a warm mentor-student friendship. In fact, Samaras advised him against working at Warhol’s famous “The Factory,” where the renowned American artist had invited him, urging him to cultivate his own artistic identity. Moreover, Philippos Tsiaras is primarily a self-taught artist, a fact he believes allowed him to make his personal contribution to the avant-garde art movement during a time when a certain area of art he refers to as “aggressively naïve” was flourishing in America.[6] He is based in New York, where he moved after his university studies, maintaining his modern studio in Manhattan, but he often visits Greece, where he has a home in Kolonaki and a summer house in Lefkada.

Philippos Tsiaras has showcased his work in approximately 80 solo exhibitions to date, as well as in many more group exhibitions. He first presented his works in 1974 and 1975 at Amherst College and in Seattle the following year, but his first significant exhibition was in Athens in 1977, with the help of the diaspora collector and gallerist Alexandros Iolas. Subsequently, he has presented his work almost annually in the U.S., primarily in New York, starting with the Haber/Theodore Gallery, and later at the Shea & Beker Gallery (1988, 1989), the Greek Consulate (2002), and in 2017 at an exhibition titled “Diaspora.” He has also organized exhibitions in Denver at the Inkfish Gallery (1989, 1993, where he showcased the series “Horses,” 1997), in Miami (1986, 1989, 1991), in Los Angeles (1989), and elsewhere. Tsiaras has organized numerous exhibitions in Italy (1981 Milan, 1983 Turin, 1992 Milan, 1995 Syracuse and Venice, 2001 Feltre and Venice, 2002 Milan, 2003 Venice), where he has exhibited three times at the Venice Biennale, where he received an award in 1995 for his work “Culture of Water” (“Civiltà dell’Acqua”), which was installed at the Grand Canal. In Greece, he maintains regular contact with galleries, initially showcasing his work at the Jean Bernier Gallery (1977, 1984), as well as in many others in Athens (1992 Titanium Gallery, 1994 “Pieridis,” 1995 Aria Gallery, 2015, 2016 & 2021 Blender Gallery) and in various other cities.[7] He has also held solo exhibitions in Germany (1993 Bonn, 1994 Mannheim with the exhibition “Airplanes and Ceramics”), Canada (1997 Toronto and Calgary, 1998 Montreal), Jamaica (1997 Kingston), Hong Kong (2002), Turkey (2006, 2007 – the exhibition “Sandwiches” – and 2008 Istanbul, 2008 Bodrum), the United Kingdom (2009, 2022 London), China (2014 Shenzhen), and Poland (2015 Sopot). As part of group exhibitions, his work has also traveled to Japan (1985 Kobe, Tochigi, and Tokyo), Switzerland (1992 Basel), Sweden (1994 Gotland), and elsewhere. He participated in the exhibition “Modern Odysseys,” held in New York in 1999 and in Thessaloniki in 2000, featuring prominent Greek-American diaspora artists. In addition to the awards mentioned, he received the New York State C.A.P.S. Grant in 1980, the Blickle Stiftung Prize for photography in 1994, and twice the N.E.A. Grant, the Arts Prize from the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Lifetime Achievement Artist Award from The Alexandrion Foundation. His works are included in many collections and museums, notably the MET in New York, the National Bank Collection, the Emfietzoglou Collection, among others. Finally, in the new Marina of Vouliagmeni, there is a 3-meter sculpture titled “The Social Climber,” which was presented at the Venice Biennale. A total of 18 books and catalogs have been published about the artist by significant publishers, such as Electa and Mondadori.

Philippos Tsiaras’s work, while influenced by that of Andy Warhol—whose unique canvas pieces he collected, at one point owning around 70—[8] falls among the most critical and personal visual proposals in contemporary art, being closer to that of Samaras. However, it makes various references to the past, drawing from Coptic painters and Byzantium to the Fauves, Cubists, and artists like Munch, Dubuffet, Bosch, Redon, and Pollock.[9] Initially, he creatively engaged with photography, adding, as Niki Loizidi highlights, a new plastic and mythological dimension to the art of “photo montage.”[10] Moreover, as noted by Chrysanthos Christou, he becomes recognizable by combining materials and expressive elements, shaping them into a new unity.[11] One of the series he has explored for nearly thirty years in his painting is the so-called Dot Pop, characterized by the abundant use of dots in the vein of neo-impressionists, with which he creates modern icons of famous personalities, referencing Byzantine art in both mosaics and icons. This work captures the religious intensity that Byzantine iconography imbued in the depicted figure, due to the absence of perspective and background, elements that dominated Western painting after the Renaissance.[12] He himself expresses admiration for the past despite his clearly modern artistic perspective: “Everything is actually built on the past, but with fresh, imaginative, and even extreme variations.”[13] In his work, he frequently engages with recurring themes, such as airplanes, heads, vessels, and horses.[14] Among the thematic series he has developed are the so-called “Topologies,” the “Family Album,” the “Horse-Boy” series, the “Sandwiches,” his glass sculptures, the “Liquid Heads,” and the “Night Drawings.”[15] Tsiaras boldly navigates creatively fertile yet challenging areas of the unconscious, producing results that, while stemming from his personal life, address themes of timeless and intense interest. Dora Iliopoulou-Rogan highlights this gifted aspect of the artist’s psychographic work: “Reconstructed through overlapping and interweaving color vortices and meshes, Philippos Tsiaras’s psychic stimuli embody an inspired and simultaneously ever-changing ‘golden section’ between the organic and the ‘psychological,’ the ‘primordial earthly’ and the ‘eternally metaphysical.'”[16] Miltiadis Papanikolaou also emphasizes his work’s characteristics: “The world of myth and dreams, the ceaseless desire for flight and transcendence of earthly limitations are transformed into images of expressionistic passion and surreal compositions.”[17] Through the vast array of mediums and materials he employs, he manages to maintain a fresh and playful sensibility in his art, simultaneously imbued with an intellectual quality.[18] The reflective dimension of his work expresses itself through a intertwining of the subjective and objective elements, of dreams and thought, in a phenomenological space, as noted by Theodore Georgiou.[19]

Moreover, Tsiaras is a quintessential artist of the Diaspora who has absorbed a plethora of socio-religious stimuli, transforming them into universal messages.[20] A characteristic element of Tsiaras’s work, aside from his tendency toward personal expression—which was influenced by Loukas Samaras—is the concept of horror vacui, as emphasized by Marco Meneguzzo. This refers to the fear of emptiness that primarily characterizes Baroque artists, but here it takes on a genuinely modern interpretation, as it is intertwined with an awareness of the overflow from a culture of objects. However, the Greek-American artist does not forget to distinguish between the utility of an object and its aesthetic value, as first conceptually noted by philosopher Georg Simmel in 1911.[21] Another distinct aspect of his visual creation is the belief in a vital impulse, as Donald Kuspit points out, which is a personal tendency that aligns with the irrational and impersonal nature of existence. In this way, the self becomes one with the life force that surrounds it.[22] In Greece, the personification of vital impulse in literature is represented by Kazantzakis’s Zorba. Throughout his work, Tsiaras maintains a sensuality intertwined with the world of the unconscious, a simplicity that seeks memory, enriching experience and stimulating imagination, as noted by Catherine Cafopoulos.[23] The esteemed magazine Artforum succinctly describes his paintings as “enriched and vibrant works with excessive use of color and complex formations.” His photographs, on the other hand, are distinguished by their sensual self-sufficiency and critical stance towards modern aesthetic inadequacy,[24] with references to significant photographer-artists who focused on self-portraiture, such as Loukas Samaras, Melissa Shook, Paul Diamond, and Lee Friedlander.[25] In the words of his contemporary Andreas Giannoutsos, Tsiaras “sarcastically critiques the nerve-wracked American dream, stripped of human motives and desires, highlighting personal cultural elements rooted in his childhood and ancestral past.”[26]

Anestis Melidonis

Art Historian

Scientific Associate of the Foundation for Hellenic Diaspora

[1] This trend was expressed by Interview magazine, co-founded by Warhol (see James Meyer, “The mirror of fashion: Dale McConathy and the neo-avant-garde,” Artforum, vol. 39, no. 9, May 2001).

[2] “Interview” with Syrago Tsiara, in Diafani Topoi, March-April 2003, Visual Arts Center of Contemporary Art, Larissa, May-June 2003, State Museum of Contemporary Art, Thessaloniki, p. 24.

[3] Interview with Michael Komanecky, in Philip Tsiaras. Private Myths, The Currier Gallery of Art, 1992, p. 28.

[4] “Dialogue between Philip Tsiaras and Francesca Alfano Miglietti,” source: https://tsiaras.com/dialogue-between-philip-tsiaras-and-francesca-alfano-miglietti/

[5] See the artist’s interview with Ilia Kanelli, in the magazine Anti, no. 620, 8/11/1997, p. 50.

[6] See ibid., p. 51.

[7] 1995 Cephalonia, 1996 Voula, 2003 Thessaloniki and Larissa, 2006 Halkidiki, 2009 Thessaloniki, 2016 Asteras Vouliagmenis, 2017 Amanzoe Kranidi, 2018 Paros and Mykonos, 2019 Vouliagmeni. His work has also been exhibited in the galleries of Syros, Ithaca, and Corfu.

[8] See Lee Sharrock, “Philip Tsiaras: ‘The Greek Warhol’,” Art Plugged, 29/11/2022, source: https://artplugged.co.uk/philip-tsiaras-the-greek-warhol/

[9] See the artist’s interview with Michael Komanecky, ibid., p. 20.

[10] Niki Loizidi, Greek Artists Abroad, Athens 1983, p. 230.

[11] Crysanthos Christou, Artists Abroad, trans. Diana Ladas, Athens 1988, p. 290.

[12] See Lee Sharrock, ibid.

[13] “Everything in reality is built on the past, but with fresh and imaginative and even extreme variations,” see Fotini Androulaki, Volta, 11/11/2022, source: https://voltamagazine.com/mia-elliniki-odysseia-me-superdots-apo-ton-phillip-tsiaras/

[14] See the comment by Katerina Karavida, in Philip Tsiaras. Atlantis, Tsatsis Projects / Artforum, Thessaloniki 2006.

[15] For the last two, see Amy Fine Collins, Art in America, April 1989, p. 267.

[16] Psychoanalysis through color, ed. Dora Iliopoulou-Rogan, Galerie Titanium 1995, p. 7.

[17] See in Diafani Topoi, ibid., p. 10.

[18] See the comment by Michael Komanecky in Private Myths, ibid.

[19] Theodore Georgiou, “Art: the subjectivity that dreams,” in Topologies and Ceramics, ibid., p. 8.

[20] See Evi Baniotopoulou, “Philip Tsiaras: Between the dot and the galaxy – the superdot,” in Philip Tsiaras. The Superdot, Athens 2021, p. 18.

[21] Marco Meneguzzo, “A world of objects,” source: https://tsiaras.com/un-mondo-di-oggetti-by-marco-meneguzzo/

[22] Donald Kuspit, “Philip Tsiaras’ Elan,” source: https://tsiaras.com/philip-tsiaras-elan-by-donald-kuspit/

[23] Catherine Cafopoulos, Arti, no. 26, September-October 1995, p. 235.

[24] Angela Kyriakopoulou, Eikastika, March 1984, no. 27, pp. 45-46.

[25] Allan D. Coleman, “Philip Tsiaras: Photography Using Artist,” in The Supereal Philip Tsiaras 1971-2009, 9/10-6/12/2009, Thessaloniki: Museum of Photography Thessaloniki, 2009, p. 41.

[26] Andreas Giannoutsos, “The Nostalgia of ‘Odysseus’ and the Spring Seed,” in Diafani Topoi, ibid., p. 12.