Instagram-friendly rainbow palette: check. Greek island setting: check. A 400-year-old ruin: check. Created especially for Paxos Contemporary Art Project (P-CAP), this pixel-perfect installation by multidisciplinary art duo Quintessenz has all the ingredients of a viral hit.
The German artists have suspended their installation in an abandoned stone building in the village of Kagkatika. Mesh-like fabric has been spray-painted in 120 different shades, creating a kaleidoscopic, digital pixel-like mirage. Each layer becomes larger and more prominent as visitors walk towards the centuries-old stone windows that form the backdrop to the artwork.
‘The wind and the sunlight make the installation appear like a digital body in the real world,’ explain the artists. It forms the interface between analog and digital, between today and then, and between old and new. The great contrast makes the installation look almost unreal, as soon as the wind settles in the layers and the sunlight underlines the colours even more, it seems as if there is only one place for this installation.’
Kagkatikas Secret nods to the Hanover and Berlin-based duo’s recent experiments in colour: Flickering Lights (2018), at Berlin’s Panorama Fashion Week, and their Paradis Perdus (2017) installation in Les Baux-de-Provence, France. Rooted in graffiti culture and chromatics, Quintessenz’s abstract works share one thing in common: they ‘make and create space for colour’.
Quintessenz’s Thomas Gransauer and Tomislav Topic join seven other artists at the first edition of P-CAP, curated by Berlin-based artist duo Leonid Keller. Initiated by Marina Tomacelli Filomarino, P-CAP is a newly launched site-specific art installation and performance project that transforms the little Ionian island of Paxos into an open-air gallery. §
