Open Studios

Billed as "the biggest cultural event in Cyprus is back for its third year.

The free Open Studios 2008 guide to artists is available across Cyprus and from CTO Offices and other locations in Nicosia, Larnaca, Limassol, Paphos.

Also Polis Chrysochous, CTO Office, Origin Asia, Forza 9 Art Gallery, Art Cafe Kivotos 3000. Open all weekends in October.

To the sea

Aristotelis

Demetriou,

Gallery K

Aristotelis Demetriou was born in Paphos in 1962. He studied at the Athens School of Fine Arts between 1982 and 1987 in the workshops of Panagiotis Tetsis and Demetris Mytaras. His exhibition opens on October 8.

Here is our top-notch landscape artist and this time he will be exhibiting paintings of the sea and pools at Gallery K.

Dr Nadia Anaxagorou has written an admirable comment in Aristotelis’ catalogue and here it is:

Cerulean Infinity

With bold, fulsome strokes, Aristotelis Demetriou explores countless, resplendent shades of a blue tonality that mingle and intertwine in a linear array, with emerald or lime-green graduations and mystical highlights of purple, in a spectacular contrast with ochreous, earthly hues.

His mastery of landscape painting is taken with his new series of compositions and seascapes, a step further, through his succinct and abbreviated images of coastal vistas and swimming pool incidents, dividing the picture plane into simple, parallel, horizontally disposed bands, with strips of pebbles and stones, in the forefront, stretches of fallow land, strips of sky or clusters of flowering bushes, in the background, with an expanse of pool or seawater, in the middle, either dominating or over-flooding the canvas from one end to the other.

The cerulean stillness, juxtaposed with barren or fecund shores, in an abrupt, convex and concave schematic alternation of capes and bays, provides a source of an unprecedented visual interest in both form and colour.

This is reinforced by a breeze, casting and revealing a wide chromatic scale of reflections in the sun-dappled water and liberating white, frothy tips of foam in a volume engendering that imparts space with the sensual luminosity of a magic infinity.

The plethora of light, sweeps descriptive details away, erasing face features in the sunbathing female figures, turning the built environment, at the far site, into minimal dots, concentrating on nature’s inner voice, capturing, thus, the ambience evoked by the coasts of Paphos and echoing summer moments of serenity, rest and rumination.

Dr Nadia Anaxagorou

In full

swing

The season is now in full swing; individual exhibitions everywhere – the Open Studios in Paphos and western Limassol – and those exciting group experimental shows as we have had in Old Nicosia, Aglandjia and last Saturday the Urban Soul Festival in the Nicosia Moat, organised with the Pantheon Cultural Association which has become an annual event.

(However, a power cut this time stopped play for quite a while).

The brilliant non-figurative exhibition by Despo Frederikou continues at Gloria’s, Nicosia until Monday (October 6), followed by Rinos Stefani with Acrobats 1998-2008 on October 9. The Miriam MacConnon- Papageorgiou exhibition has now opened at Apocalypse (until October 10) and how intriguing it is – white becomes full of feeling, a very difficult feat. A real personal issue is dealt with and succeeded. Congratulations.

And – mentioned earlier in the month on this page – the fine Judith Constantinou exhibition "Completing the Circle" has now opened at Kyklos Gallery, Kato Paphos, continuing until October 10.

Christos Antonaropoulos is on at Silks Gallery, Limassol from today, Friday. Opus Gallery has Yiannis Karayiannis’ paintings from October 8, with Minister of Health Christos Patsalides opening the show at 7.30 pm. Also see Natasa Socratous Epaminonda at Elvira Gallery 58, Ledra Street, Nicosia with "See Through Windows".

Meanwhile, other great individual exhibitions are on their way too. Remember, Ermioni Zachariadou will have her much-awaited exhibition at Alpha Gallery on Wednesday, October 15. Amorgos has its Open Day on the 13th of the month.

Waterfalls' artist receives

award from NY Mayor

NEW YORK (AP)

Mayor Michael Bloomberg presented an environmental award to the artist who created the "Waterfalls" art installation on New York City's East River, despite criticism that its salty spray might be damaging trees and plants.

The Mayor gave the 2008 Doris C. Freedman Award to Danish artist Olafur Eliasson and the Public Art Fund, the organisation that commissioned the four manmade waterfalls.

The award, named for the fund's founder who also was a former director of the city's cultural affairs department, was established in 1982 to honour people or groups that enrich the environment.

"The Waterfalls have had a major impact on New York City, and I'm not just talking about the glowing critical reception they received or the financial benefits we have received from the many visitors," Bloomberg said in a statement.

Visions

He was referring to earlier predictions that the project would generate more than $55m in economic activity as visitors spent money on boat excursions, hotels and restaurants. Updated estimates of how much revenue had actually been produced were not available.

"This project proclaims that New York City is home to bold visions and visionaries," the Mayor's statement said.

Last month, the Public Art Fund announced it was cutting the installation's operating hours in half after the Brooklyn Heights Association complained that mist from the falls was destroying trees and plants on the Brooklyn Promenade. The association had asked the city to dismantle the installation after Labor Day.

Judy Stanton, the association's president, said Friday while she wasn't in a position to comment on Eliasson's artistic reputation and congratulated him on the honour, she "wished that he and others associated with the art project took into account the environmental impact that saltwater blown by winds from the waterfalls could have on the promenade garden."

The $15.5m installation, which runs through Oct. 13, was funded by donations from individuals, foundations and corporations, including Bloomberg's media company Bloomberg LP, and state funds.

Paris Hilton portrait

is made of porn

NEW YORK (AP)

A well-known British artist is exhibiting collage portraits of President Bush and celebrity Paris Hilton he made out of porn magazine images.

Jonathan Yeo's portrait of Hilton was bought by artist Damien Hirst ahead of the show opening, said Lazarides Gallery spokeswoman Elizabeth Barrett, who said she didn't know the sale price.

Yeo has painted portraits of Tony Blair, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Rupert Murdoch and Prince Philip.

He got the idea for the collages following the cancellation of a commission by the White House to paint Bush in 2004. He made the portrait, anyway, but in the form of a collage using pieces of pornographic magazines.

Gesture

Barrett said posters of the Hilton portrait, titled "Paris, 2008," will be sold for $20 each at the gallery.

She said Yeo was offering Hilton proceeds from the sale of the posters as a "lighthearted" gesture because the hotel heiress has said she didn't receive any money from the notorious 2004 sex video that starred her and then-boyfriend Rick Salomon.

Hilton was in New York to tape an appearance on CBS' "Late Show" with David Letterman. Her manager did not immediately return a telephone call seeking comment.

The London-based Lazarides Gallery will operate the temporary gallery, called a pop-up, at a former restaurant supply store on the Bowery in Manhattan. The two-week show, "The Outsiders," opens to the public Friday.