Arcadia, 2011
Digital inkjet archival print
ΕΜΣΤ Collection
Acquired 2022
Yiorgis, 2011
Digital inkjet archival print
ΕΜΣΤ Collection
Acquired 2022
Panos Kokkinias’s works Arcadia and Yiorgis are characteristic of so-called “staged” photography, in which the photographer constructs the image, orchestrating every detail rather than shooting directly from reality. Kokkinias’s photographs focus on depicting commonplace, strange, or strangely commonplace incidents, presenting narratives open to interpretation. In Arcadia, a man in a business suit speaks on the phone within an archaeological site with the Megalopolis Thermal Power Plant—one of Greece’s most important energy hubs—in the background. At the same time, we can see a car with its trunk open parked nearby, apparently awaiting loading or unloading. The image encapsulates the con- tradictions of a country modernising while bearing the weight of its long history.
In Yiorgis, an Evzone soldier appears to float in an idyllic sea. Yet is he lifeless or merely floating at ease? Does he find himself just off the shore or adrift in the open sea? Although only two elements are depicted in the image, a man and the sea, both are symbolically charged and allow for multiple readings. In particular, the Evzone uniform is deeply tied to Greek history, from the War of Independence to the nineteenth-century reign of King Otto, while today it has also been co-opted into kitschy tourist imagery. With only national identity and the sea as its coordinates, the photograph humorously subverts the tourist ideal of Greece and beyond, and challenges perceptions of the country’s past and present. It is no coincidence that the photograph was created during the years of fiscal crisis and forms part of the series Leave your Myth in Greece, a wordplay on the well-known Greek Mythos beer slogan Live your Myth in Greece.
Panos Kokkinias is among the most prominent Greek photographers of his generation. For the rich, almost cinematic narratives he stages in his otherwise still photographs, he borrows storytelling devices from the traditions of painting and the moving image. The human figure, often solitary and melancholic, estranged from both its natural and built environments, is central to his work. At a time when images are easier to both produce and triviliase than ever before, Panos Kokkinias’ meticulously planned photographs—masterfully shot, processed and printed—reaffirm the enduring power of the medium as an art form.
Panos Kokkinias was born in 1965 in Athens, where he lives and works.
