The knowledge that Panos Sklavenitis, in recent years, studies, explores and transcribes in his work the carnival ceremonies, the transformation, the unmasking of the mask, raising political issues, is indeed conducive to a correct reading, however I think that the interpretations do not extend vectorially from the starting point to the present and overlook the fact that it is ultimately the artist’s obsessive commitment which brings about successive transformations in the work itself.
In The Head “, it is the artist’s own head which is detached and placed in other bodies to be carried around, through multiple osmosis, as they ultimately desire. I detect here a magnanimity of despair: “Take my head because there are times when I can’t keep it in place, and let’s play by changing burden and lightness. From the first “portraits” of The Head, to ZETE and then the Study of Five Parader’s Heads, the progression is evident. The connection between the formations and the surrounding natural landscape is now strong. The work is enveloped by an organicity, it becomes part of it, the bodies acquire branches, the tongues are aloe leaves, as color and bodily forms flow in streams in dionysian and colorful hedonisms. It seems like the Place has been found, but has it really? Because now the project digs its claws into the mud and chews up dirt. Having previously emerged, it is now striking down to the earth, taking on a chthonic form until its next transformation.
With the book The Head. Works on Paper, Panos Sklavenitis gives us the gift of his vision, at a moment when he is immersed in the ecstasy of his art, i.e. he is like all dedicated artists in danger, as through his work he reveals and delivers himself to us. I flip through the pages and repeat Cézanne’s phrase like a mantra every now and then: “The landscape thinks of myself in me”. —Yro Kazara
