Untitled

With the large-scale Manuscripts and Illustrated Manuscripts presented at the Iolas- Zoumboulakis Gallery in 1976, Niki Kanagini articulated a multi-layered visual language, drawing from the structures of typography and the printed word. The 1976 installation was designed in partnership with the architects Suzana and Dimitris Antonakakis. The EMΣT exhibition presents anew the central installation, comprising five separate sections with silkscreen prints of drawings. These produce a sequence of images lit from behind as advertising hoardings of sorts. In her original drawings, Kanagini spread typographic ink across the white surface of the paper with a cylinder to produce recurring vertical traces reminiscent of newspaper columns. This strictly structured layout is broken up by successive gestural interventions made by the artist using pencil and dry-transfer Letraset lettering to introduce letters, symbols, and punctuation marks. By selecting such images as the dollar sign and oil-well icons, the artist effectively critiques environmental destruction and the consequences of mindless technological and economic development.