A tender look at everyday objects
The use of objects in art has almost invariably been tied to renewal and a desire for change. Whenever art has come to an impasse it seems that objects, anything from objets trouvés to readymades or commodities, have come along to broaden its scope, question its values and invite the perennial question of art’s absurd relationship with life. Objects themselves have been used to their fullest aesthetic and conceptual potential, stirring controversy along the way, but it is Duchamp’s invention of the readymade as a work of art that still stands as the greatest and earliest provocation of all. Indeed, a measure of Duchamp’s genius and the permanence of his ideas is the fact that seminal but diverse 20th-century movements, conceptual and pop art among them but also many strands of contemporary art, are seen as having their roots in his work. Readymades seen from a contemporary viewpoint is a way of describing the work of Cypriot artist Savvas Christodoulidis. In his recent work, on view at the Alpha Delta gallery, the artist has collected a number of everyday objects, furniture, a clothes line, a football on a chair and a tie rack and has turned them into sculpture. The effect is impressive yet subtle and the mood is meditative rather than playful or derisive. Whiteness predominates – the furniture is either white or painted white – with only a few black lines creating an elegant juxtaposition. In its starkness and almost cleansing effect, Christodoulidis’s works offer a new way of looking both at art and mass culture, not contrasting but complementing and illuminating one another. By stripping utilitarian objects of their function and turning them into sculptural compositions, Christodoulidis does nonetheless pay tribute to their original function by somehow making us notice the beauty behind shapes and objects that we take for granted. His monochromatic use of white removes all specificities and sense of impermanence away from everyday objects, but rather than transform them into pure visual form he manages to retain the sense of familiarity that such objects usually produce. At a time when disposability and abundance have permeated our lives, Christodoulidis casts a tender and composed look at everyday life and mass culture. Seen in reverse, by making art out of everyday objects, he seems to be considering the ambivalence of art and life. But there is no tension in this juxtaposition and the impression that one is left with is that, in the end, it does not matter whether something is pure art or a mass-produced object; that it is not what you see that matters but the care and attention with which you see it.
