DIPOLA,
«Eternal Womb»

«Eternal Womb»

The exhibition «Eternal Womb» by the group DIPOLA takes place at the historic building of the Basilica of St Mark’s in Heraklion, Crete, and brings together Greek artists in a fruitful intergenerational dialogue about art and life.

Following the project under the same name that took place last summer at the Digenakis Winery, on the outskirts of Heraklion, it is functioning as an exhibition in progress enriched with new works, where many more established and promising artists are participating. The concept of the exhibition raises topical concerns about the status of artistic work in the age of the internet, the information revolution and intangible cryptography (NFT). In relation to the visual field, the word “womb” evokes the notions of the original and the multiple, of uniqueness-authenticity and the copy. Concepts that are reconfigured under the new condition of the digitized reality of NFT. Most artists approach the subject in a free-spirited manner, deconstructing the image and emphasizing the idea of the fragment. Here, the multiple fragments that make up the overall visual effect – often seemingly identical to each other – allude connotatively to the concept of the multiple. Something that is emphasized through the juxtaposition and structural rhythmic repetition of similar lines, signs, spontaneous gestures and writings, units and patterns within the work itself. In a broader philosophical context, the exhibition refers to genesis, the perpetual flow of time and the unbroken cosmic cycle. Drawings and paintings coexist with sculptures, installations, constructions, digital prints and ephemeral architectural interventions. The works are spread across the wall and floor or hung suspended in the space. They assemble compositions that create the impression that they could extend to infinity. Like the videos and performances, they are also derivatives of a fluid process of sequences, allegories for endless and unending existence.

Artists use a multitude of different materials and a multiplicity of media, traditional, mechanical and technological. It thus becomes clear that the contemporary aesthetic view is not a result of the raw material and the method of production but of the conceptual conception and the specificity of the artistic gaze.

Bia Papadopoulou
Art historian, Curator