Exhibition: Petros Efstathiadis – Gold Rush

Opening: 21.3.2017, 7 pm
Petros Efstathiadis will be present
Exhibition: 22.3. – 29.4.2017

Liparo, North of Macedonia, Greece. Here is a place where land has brought for decades peaches to its inhabitants, a land now swept by the wind of a fierce economic crisis. The village, where photographer Petros Efstathiadis was born, has been the setting of his work for a decade. There, in his parents or neighbors backyards, in the surrounding fields, he carefully composes minute mise-en-scène, made of leftovers and disregarded goods.

This time, the large-scale and ephemeral sculptures set the decor for a 21st century goldrush. He tells us the story of this man who stepped in the village a few months ago, entered the homes, waiving at the locals a ticket to wealth : their land had been elected to host a new gas pipeline from Azerbaijan. Villagers signed off contrats, photographer’s father too, in the same backyard. In an elliptic moves of his, Petros Efstathiadis brings back to birth, from this very soil, buildings and machines from the time of Californian Gold Rush. One would recognize some familiar figures, iconic pictures from an era of great expectations and deceived hopes – a church reminiscent of Walker Evans’ Alabama decrepit façades. And if the typical pioneer austerity arises here, we discover which other resource the land holds for sure : Efstathiadis theatrical and delightful sense of fantasy.

Raphaelle Stopin