KOUTALIANOS KOUTALIANOS KOUTALIANOS, BABOULA AND THE CAPTAIN DANCE THE SIRTAKI, 2012
Ceramic
Courtesy Τhe Dakis Joannou Collection
In the ceramic work KOUTALIANOS KOUTALIANOS KOUTALIANOS, BABOULA AND THE CAPTAIN DANCE THE SIRTAKI, three figures rooted in both Greek folk and literary tradition dance the sirtaki: Koutalianos, a historical symbol of physical strength and masculinity; the Baboula, a bogeyman figure born of folk imagination, with perhaps as many forms as there have been mothers invoking it to discipline their unruly children; and the Captain, who alludes to the literary Zorba, a symbol of the “Dionysian” man who lives freely in the here and now, but also a trademark of a touristic perception of the Greek spirit. Created at the height of the Greek financial crisis, Dionysis Kavallieratos’s three ceramic caricatures of these enduring symbols offer an ironic commentary on stereotypes of Greekness and conventional notions of Greek masculinity. Particularly when viewed through the lens of the crisis, the work can be seen as a reference to the complete destabilisation of all kinds of traditional narratives brought about by that period, including national and gendered ones.
In this work, the figure of the historical wrestler Koutalianos appears with three heads, acquiring an almost monstrous and carnivalesque character. His figure forms part of a rather comical ceramic composition: embodiments of a manliness rooted in popular imagination dance the syrtaki. This dance, internationally recognised as a cultural ‘trademark’ of Greekness, functions here both as a stage for the performance of stereotypes and for their subversion, since, contrary to common belief, the syrtaki is not a traditional dance but a construct of cinematic imagination. Kavallieratos’s comic-book-like figures and the work’s humour expose Greek leventiá (a blend of honour, generosity of spirit and physical grace) and national pride as recurring cultural performances rather than fixed values. The work can thus be read both as a commentary on the erosion of national narratives and as a reflection on the transition from an understanding of identity as something inherent and immutable to a more fluid, constructed, and repeatedly enacted condition of representation, in which the national does not simply ‘exist’ but is constantly ‘performed’.
Dionysis Kavallieratos was born in Athens in 1979. He lives and works in Berlin.
