The artist whose works were vandalized in Greece explains his approach

“I respect everyone’s beliefs and do not want to offend anyone. »» These are the words that delivers the artist Greek engraver Christiforos KatsadiDi (born in 1971) to the Journal des Arts As he finds himself at the heart of a controversy in Greece. Monday, March 10, a deputy for the far -right party Niki (“victory”), Nikolaos Papadopoulos, entered the Pinacotèque d’Athens. According to the museum, the elected man helped by an accomplice has “Violently detached from the wall” Four works entitled Icon 1,, Icon 16,, Icon 17 And Saint Christophe representing virgins in the mode of Orthodox, but distorted Orthodox icons and Saint-Christophe mid-Saint, mid-animal. Then he “Threw them on the ground, breaking them. »» The elected official justified this act, explaining that the paintings on display were “Blasphemous”.

Christiforos KatsadiTis who lives in France, rejects the accusation of blasphemy. If these works are presented in his native country, it is because they are part of a temporary exhibition entitled “The charm of the strange”. This is organized parallel to another exhibition, in the same museum, entitled “Los Caprichos” (The whims), devoted to a series of Goya etchings.

As Syrago Tsiara, art historian and director of the National Gallery explains, in her introduction to the exhibition, this series of the Spanish painter and engraver “Mark the peak of a creative imagination released, at its peak, of the constraints imposed by patronage, in a celebration of the absurdity of existence. »» For her, “the charm of the strange” aimed to show “Works of ancient and contemporary artists who kiss, explore and represent the strange, the hybrid, the unclassifiable and the grotesque” From the perspective of Goya’s work. In this sense, Christiforos KatsadiDi specifies: “This work is not an act of devotion. The pieces presented are not church images. These are works of art. »» Thus, he insists, “These images dialogue with the works of Goya exhibited at the Pinacotèque in which he used the distortion of his subjects to say certain things. »»

Is this what does not pass in Greece, a country that does not know the separation of the Church and the State and in which the Orthodox religion is considered to be constitutive of identity? If the artist recognizes that he is “Interesting to consider how society, politics, use religion as a tool for controlling and supervising masses using threats, fear and obscurantism”however, he does not try to “Seducing or convincing” But, he said in substance, to make people think.

By evoking “Religion, our modern mythology”according to his words, Christiforos Katsaditis therefore struck the extreme right, the same one who, in December 2023, had already attacked a Greek artist, Georgia Lale. The object of criticisms was, this time the Greek flag revisited in tribute to the victims of sexual violence. Georgia Lale had made a flag composed from sheets, pink or flowery, of 22 murdered women. The work, exposed to the New York Greek consulate, had aroused controversy in Greece and had been withdrawn from the injunction of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the time after Dimitris Natsios, another deputy of the Niki party had carried the controversy within the pregnant. For Christiforos KatsadiTis, there is, between the two stories, a parallel to draw: “The same audience felt offended, people who do not allow freedom of expression. »» Even if it means attacking art.