Valassis kaniaris biography of william

Thursday 05 Oct 2023 – Saturday 18 Nov 2023

Produced in the period from the 1960s to the 1980s, this is the first solo presentation of the artist’s work in London since his exhibition Immigrants at the ICA in 1976.

Vlassis Caniaris (1928-2011) remains one of the most important Greek artists of his generation.

Valassis kaniaris biography of william

Having left Greece in the late 1950s to live and study in Rome and Paris, he lived in Berlin in the early 1970s, before returning to Athens in 1976 (two years after the fall of the Greek military dictatorship), where he remained until his death in 2011.

Caniaris abandoned traditional art materials in favour of plaster, paper and wire mesh, to create works which he called ‘almost sculptures’.

Caniaris’ large-scale installations were formed by everyday objects, including newspapers, clothing (often his own and his family’s), suitcases and children’s toys, to imagine and portray the experiences of migr