Cristos Gianakos Explained

Cristos Gianakos
Birth Date:4 January 1934
Birth Place:New York City, U.S.
Education:School of Visual Arts
Movement:Postminimalism
Signature:Cristos Gianakos signature 1981.svg

Cristos Gianakos (born January 4, 1934) is an American postminimalist artist known for his large-scale ramp sculptures and installations.[1] [2] He lives and works in New York, where he has been teaching at the School of Visual Arts since 1963.[3]

Biography

Cristos Gianakos was born in the Washington Heights neighborhood of New York in 1934. He spent much of his early childhood in Greece, before returning to New York where he attended public school, studied Graphic Design at the School of Visual Arts,[4] and ran an independent graphic design business from 1961 to 1971.

Gianakos began exhibiting his sculpture in the late 1960s.[5] He was represented in the 1968 Whitney Annual at the Whitney Museum and the 1970 exhibition A Plastic Presence[6] at the Jewish Museum in New York with works made of cast polyester resin.[7] [8]

In the mid-1970s, he began making ramp sculptures composed of raw wood.[9] Artist Stephen Westfall describes: "Gianakos' ramps are sculpture with a planar front, or 'face.' ... The narrower planes slice through the environment with some of the partitioning power of Barnett Newman's zips."[10]

In 1983, Gianakos began a series of two-dimensional works on large sheets of Mylar. New York Times critic William Zimmer writes:

Cristos Gianakos' point of departure is always plane geometry, but a geometry made solid in his sculpture by the use of construction materials such as wood and steel. His drawing on Mylar is likewise emphatic ... [and] commands attention because Mr. Gianakos, using acrylic, ink and graphite, has built up a surface so solid that it has a near-metallic sheen.[11]

Yorghos Tzirtzilakis writes: "Gianakos works on the material dimension of sculpture (the choice of a single basic material each time seems to dominate) and attempts to redefine our understanding of space and the environment."

Influences such as Russian Constructivism, Suprematism, Minimalism, Constantin Brancusi, Franz Kline and Giorgio di Chirico have been noted in Gianakos' work.

Gianakos has presented solo exhibitions at the Nassau County Museum of Art (1979),[12] the University Gallery at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst (1989),[13] and the State Museum of Contemporary Art, Thessaloniki (2002).

Other notable exhibitions include Artist as Adversary at the Museum of Modern Art in New York (1971),[14] Tit for Tatlin at the Alternative Museum in New York (1984),[15] Walk on, sit down, go through at Socrates Sculpture Park in New York (1987),[16] Large Scale Drawings from the Collection of Wynn Kramarsky at the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art (1989) in Ridgefield,[17] Pratt Sculpture Park at Pratt Institute in New York (1999),[18] and ron bladen, cris gianakos, max bill, hans josephsohn, beat zoderer, richard long, christoph haerle, richard serra, beatrice rossi, frédéric dedellay und bernhard tagwerker at the Max Bill Foundation in Zumikon, Switzerland (1999).[19]

Gianakos has exhibited with other postminimalist sculptors including Eva Hesse, Nancy Graves, Richard Nonas, Alan Saret, and Richard Serra.

Site-specific and public work (selected)

Collaborations

Gianakos designed the Artist's Reserved Rights and Transfer Sales Agreement, initiated by Seth Siegelaub in 1971.[30] In the late 1960s, Gianakos participated in performances at Judson Dance Theater choreographed by Deborah Hay.[31] He was invited by Eva Hesse to photograph her studio in 1970, shortly before her death.[32] In the 1980s, he was a guest artist at the Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop.[33]

Collections

Gianakos' sculpture, painting, drawing, prints, photography and books are represented in collections worldwide including the Brooklyn Museum, New York,[34] Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University,[35] Gothenborg Museum of Art,[36] Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Cambridge,[37] Moderna Museet, Stockholm and Malmö, MOMus-Museum of Contemporary Art, Costakis Collection, Thessaloniki,[38] Museum of Modern Art, New York,[39] Skissernas Museum, Lund,[40] Umedalens Skulpturpark, Umeå,[41] Walker Art Center, Minneapolis,[42] and Wanås Konst, Knislinge.

Awards

Gianakos has been the recipient of numerous awards including grants from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation (2014)[43] and the National Endowment for the Arts (1980).[44]

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Cris Gianakos . 1 January 2023 . Minus Space.
  2. Web site: Cris Gianakos . 1 January 2023 . Citronne Gallery.
  3. Web site: First Look: Cris Gianakos . 2023-01-02 . archives.sva.edu.
  4. Book: McEvilley . Thomas . Cris Gianakos . 2002 . Ministry of Culture, State Museum of Contemporary Art, Costakis Collection . Thessaoloniki .
  5. Web site: BIO . 2023-01-02 . crisgianakos . en.
  6. Web site: A Plastic Presence .
  7. Book: Whitney Museum of American Art . 1968 Annual exhibition contemporary American sculpture. . 1968 . Whitney Museum of American Art . Frances Mulhall Achilles Library Whitney Museum of American Art . English.
  8. Web site: Robert Pincus-Wittent on Frank Lincoln Viner, Craig Kauffman, DeWain Valentine, Peter Alexander, Bruce Beasley, Robert Bassler, The Gianakos brothers and Eva Hesse . 2023-01-02 . www.artforum.com . en-US.
  9. News: Shirey . David L. . 1979-10-21 . New Approaches to the Heroic . en-US . The New York Times . 2023-01-02 . 0362-4331.
  10. Book: Westfall, Stephen . Cristos Gianakos: Rampworks . University of Massachusetts at Amherst . 1989.
  11. News: Zimmer . William . 1998-03-08 . Art; Matters of Scale, and of Nostalgia Too . en-US . The New York Times . 2023-01-02 . 0362-4331.
  12. Book: Zimmer, Bill . Cristos Gianakos . Nassau County Museum of Art . 1979 . Roslyn, NY.
  13. Book: Cristos Gianakos . University Gallery, University of Massachusetts at Amherst . 1989.
  14. Web site: The Artist as Adversary MoMA . 2023-01-02 . The Museum of Modern Art . en.
  15. News: Glueck . Grace . 1984-11-16 . Art: Apocalyptic Vision of Cucchie's Paintings . en-US . The New York Times . 2023-01-02 . 0362-4331.
  16. News: Brenson . Michael . 1987-07-17 . City as Sculpture Garden: Seeing the New and Daring . en-US . The New York Times . 2023-01-02 . 0362-4331.
  17. News: Glueck . Grace . 1998-04-24 . ART IN REVIEW . en-US . The New York Times . 2023-01-02 . 0362-4331.
  18. News: Muenster . Maureen C. . 1999-07-18 . Playing in the neighborhood . en-US . The New York Times . 2023-01-02 . 0362-4331.
  19. Web site: haus bill – maxbill.ch Haus Bill / Foundation: Exhibitions . 2023-01-02 . www.maxbill.ch.
  20. Perrault . John . June 5, 1969 . Para-Visual: Street Works III . The Village Voice . 17.
  21. Book: Kostelanetz, Richard . A Dictionary of the Avant-Gardes . Routledge . 2001 . 242–243.
  22. Web site: Dark passage . 2023-01-02 . sis.modernamuseet.se . en.
  23. Web site: Ronny H. Cohen on Artpark . 2023-01-02 . www.artforum.com . en-US.
  24. Web site: Eclipse - Public Art Fund . 2023-01-02 . www.publicartfund.org.
  25. Web site: Cristos Gianakos . 2023-01-02 . Socrates Sculpture Park . en.
  26. Web site: Cristos Gianakos Images . 2023-01-02 . fac.umass.edu.
  27. Web site: Cris Gianakos . 2023-01-02 . www.wanaskonst.se.
  28. News: Braff . Phyllis . 1992-05-10 . New Outdoor Sculpture for Strolling By . en-US . The New York Times . 2023-01-02 . 0362-4331.
  29. Book: Tzirtzilakis, Yorghos . Cristos Gianakos: Gridlock . Cultural Capital of Europe . 1997 . Thessaloniki.
  30. Web site: Department of the Newly Uncovered: Seth Siegelaub's Artist's Contract . 2023-01-02 . archives.sva.edu.
  31. Book: Janevski, Ana . Judson Dance Theater: The Work is Never Done . Museum of Modern Art . 2019 . New York . 20.
  32. Web site: Lucy R. Lippard, Nancy Holt, and Robert Smithson; James Meyer, postscript . 2023-01-02 . www.artforum.com . en-US.
  33. News: Glueck . Grace . 1988-07-12 . Printmaking for the Love of It . en-US . The New York Times . 2023-01-02 . 0362-4331.
  34. Web site: Cristos Gianakos, Brooklyn Museum of Art . 2023-01-02 . www.brooklynmuseum.org.
  35. Web site: Cantor Arts Center - Parameter Series . 2023-01-02 . cantorcollection.stanford.edu . en.
  36. Web site: Göteborgs Konstmuseum, Cristos Gianakos . 2023-01-02 . emp-web-34.zetcom.ch.
  37. Web site: Harvard Art Museums Cristos Gianakos . 2023-01-02 . harvardartmuseums.org . en.
  38. Web site: Cristos Gianakos . January 2, 2023 . greekstatemuseum.com.
  39. Web site: Cristos Gianakos MoMA . 2023-01-02 . The Museum of Modern Art . en.
  40. Web site: Museum . Skissernas . Explore the Collection – Skissernas Museum . 2023-01-02 . skissernasmuseum.se . en-US.
  41. Web site: Cristos Gianakos – Beamwalk – Umedalens Skulpturpark . 2023-01-02 . sv-SE.
  42. Web site: Cristos Gianakos . 2023-01-02 . walkerart.org . en-US.
  43. Web site: The Pollock-Krasner Foundation, Inc. announces 116 grants totaling $2,163,000 to visual artists internationally in fiscal year 2013-2014. . 2023-01-02 . Pollock-Krasner Foundation . en-US.
  44. Book: Princenthal, Nancy . A Creative Legacy, A History of the National Endowment for the Arts Visual Artists' Fellowship Program 1966 - 1995 . Harry N. Abrams . 2001 . 219.

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