AS A reference in one document that opens up one text after another, the hyperlink generates a continuous transfer of information through discontinuous texts. In the hyperlink, information is both stored and displaced, obtained and deferred. Primarily a tool for exploring the infinite database of information stored in cyberspace, the concept of the hyperlink has also penetrated contemporary aesthetic practice and theory. Art is longer thought to be pure and autonomous, but rather draws from an encyclopedia of words, images, feelings and impressions. With thousands of references embedded in every work, art releases and conjures a sprawling chain of disparate associations.
It is precisely this web of connotation and inter-textual relation that renders the title of “Hyperlinks” particularly appropriate for an exhibition of contemporary Cypriot art currently on display at the Lanitis Centre in Limassol; as the title and theme for an exhibition, “Hyperlinks” suggests both a plethora of different artistic signs and their undeniable inextricability.
After spending several hours contemplating the creations of some 20 Greek and Turkish Cypriot artists in the voluminous exhibition space, the concept of the hyperlink seemed even more apposite. What emerged as the unifying theme in this exhibition, which disregards harmony and all encompassing narratives in favour of something far more interesting, was a transcendence of genre, an imaginative interlinking of many means of communication and representation, and a dialogue between local particularities and global conditions.
Taken by the breadth of aesthetic and theoretical references, I asked curator and art historian Efi Strouza to comment on the relationship, if any, between the artists that had been included in the exhibition. “The 20 artists in this exhibition present 20 different proposals that belie homogeneity,” she says. “If these artists have something in common, it is their tendency to push out the boundaries which limit language to a single system of speech and writing and their free interlinking with elements from other cultural modes.” Strouza’s interest in what she calls the “reality of art from the periphery” is an extension of her conviction that artists residing in the periphery are more free to abolish boundaries and experiment with various aesthetic forms and idioms.
To behold the entirety of the exhibition, I found myself climbing stairs, opening doors, ducking under walls and peeling away curtains. In my exploration of the space, I was confronted with videos, constructions, installations, paintings, structures and sculptures. The sensation of transformation, of construction, destruction and disruption followed me throughout, and the art seemed simultaneously to unsettle and fascinate me. When I shared my experience with Strouza, she reminded me that in Cypriot art, concepts of division, alienation and loss are not abstractions but lived as concrete realities.
Indeed, perhaps the greatest common feature amongst this eclectic group of artists and their heterogeneous mediums is that they belong to the same generation, lived through a similar historical climate and mostly remember a divided Cyprus. “This reality, Strouza says, “has entered the sensibility of each artist but is expressed in their own way.”
Each work of art that goes to make up this impressive exhibition contains a myriad of links that open up a ceaseless chain of images and narratives, gesturing at once to the specific particularities of the local socio-political landscape and to greater trends and transformations in modes of communication and representation.
Cyprus 2004 Hyperlinks. An exhibition of art by twenty Cypriot artists. Until January 10. Evagoras Lanitis Centre, Limassol. Open Mon.-Fri. 9am-1pm, 5pm-10pm., Sat.-Sun. 5pm-10pm. Tel: 25-324123.
