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Konstantin Kakanias: Divine Personality Disorder, 200m2

Athens, Greece, 2024

Photography by Christos Simatos

The work of painter and multimedia artist Konstantin Kakanias was presented through the retrospective exhibition entitled Divine Personality Disorder at the Rebecca Camhi gallery.

The two-level gallery was split into areas thematically based on various periods of the artist’s life and career. His interest in different mediums allowed for a visual and sensorial experience throughout, fully embracing the duality and coexistence of his darker and lighter themes. Our aim was to summon the visitors’ emotions as they navigate through a variety of customized spaces of different geometries, colors, and qualities, which contain Kakanias’ photographs, sculptures, watercolors, and recordings. Visitors are sometimes placed at an intentional distance from the artwork, while at other times the setting is more intimate.

Two artworks were created for the exterior spaces of the gallery: the first is a neon sculpture representing the face of the iconic Mrs. Tependris on the main façade of the building, and the second is a large mural reproduction of a characteristically humorous piece reading “άχ μωρή μή μου λές” in the private courtyard.

The visitor is initially led to the upper floor, where four separate spaces are walked through sequentially.

A partition was erected at the center of the gallery’s main floor to create a miniature labyrinth within the previously unified space, the natural obscurity of which assists in showcasing the artist’s darker themes.

The visitor is guided around the labyrinth through a second gallery-style hallway, at the end of which hints of orange light can be detected. A two-layer white, then yellow plastic cord curtain was created as an entrance into the bright orange Mrs. Tependris room, acting as an element of transition into the brighter and more light-hearted themes of the iconic persona.

On the ground floor, the main hallway, which hosts large photographs, leads the visitor to a white wall with a small peep hole. The glass door of the gallery’s elevator was covered with a large white MDF board with two small cutouts: the first at eye-level, inviting the visitor to look inside the boarded-off space, the other clearing the elevator’s button, which once pressed lights up the artwork hidden inside. Once again, the visitor is invited here to examine the artist’s work under intimate circumstances.

The visitor is summoned to enter the gallery’s bathroom by sound recordings: two auditory artworks from the artist, set on a continuous loop.

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