GREEKS-ΕΛΛΗΝΕΣ

KATERINA KALOUDI, GREEKS – ELLHNES, BILINGUAL EDITION, EDITIONS 2K, ATHENS 2004, PROLOGUE VICKY THEODOROPOULOU

“In this work,” writes the poet Takis Sinopoulos about a poem of his, “if you look more closely, […] On the upper floor you’ll see the surface elements, moving rhythmically […] The lower floor is where the myth dwells. Don’t try and draw it out of its lair; it cannot be bought.”

I promise not to pry into the myth in the work of Katerina Kaloudi.

I stop first at the upper floor, among the prevalent emotions evoked by her work in a consistent observer of the art of photography. Surprise, emotion, enjoyment – an arithmetic progression. An invitation to lift one’s gaze to look more closely at people, Greeks, water, earth, animals, water, expressions, gazes, water, the body, movement, water, symbols, gestures, water, stones, geometry, water, feasts, geography, water.

The main fabric that holds the Greeks together: water. Far from emphatic, it is an element which is allusively unifying, somewhat like a whisper, like women talking next to infants they have just sung to sleep. It is in this place that the reader encounters the magic of Katerina Kaloudi’s photographic narrative. In this imperceptible fabric of allusions which she has skillfully woven to bring together reality and her photographic vision.

One of the joys of the reader is arbitrariness. Discoveries in absentia, impressions in the way of personal associations, assumptions on behalf of the artist. 

Water then? And not the child? Or the mother, the harvester, Nature? Neither the old man, nor the lovers, the adolescent, the young folk, the athlete, the guard-dog, the beast of burden, the woman, the flock, the priest, the sailor, the organ-grinder? Water first, I say. And the wonderful thing is that all kinds of different people are invited to say all kinds of different things.

One of the joys of the artist is the multiple readings of her work. This occurs when the work is important. This occurs in the work of Katerina Kaloudi.

Going down to the lower floor, I hang on to her words. “I studied mathematics, but I found great joy in the art of Photography. By taking photographs, I found a way to come in contact with pieces of myself which I could not and still cannot express otherwise.”

As I stand facing the stationary time of her photography, with the Greeks in front of me and her gaze at my back, an affectionate, teasing mood dares me to put out my hand and playfully pull at the ball of thread.

So, Katerina Kaloudi, here is a way, agreed upon years ago, for people of letters to carry out the fundamental arithmetical act of addition.  A part of you is courtesy, another is respect, yet another is sensibility, one more is studiousness and its resulting knowledge, still another is love, and one, of course, is the gift. Added up, all these things give us your gaze. Today, this equals 110 photographs, aspects of Greeks seemingly captured by lightning; 110 images placed in an order worthy of Isaac Newton.  What’s left? A word of thanks, I believe, which can be noted down next to the sum.

Vicky Theodoropoulou
June 2004