He is not interested in pointless congratulations and has kept his composure, even his sense of humor, when faced with extreme reactions against his works, reaching all the way to vandalisms at times. “As in several works the response of the audience is the whole point, I cannot utterly and beforehand dismiss any conduct, even if it goes astray from the context of the issues I’m touching upon. I am interested in audience engagement, the nullification of the distance between the work and the viewer, which emanates from restrictions such as “do not touch”, “do not mock”…”

Each viewer’s interpretations on the works of visual art are destined to be versatile and unpredictable, but he always aims to trigger a crystal-clear first impression, without undermining the value of the interpretations that will follow up. In any case, according to Vasilis Alexandrou, born in 1990 in Thessaloniki and a graduate from AUTh’s Faculty of Fine Arts in 2014, the way the viewer perceives the works is the reason behind any art exhibition.

“It is only then you realize what is the outcome of your work. Only then is your work complete. When you receive the feedback from the audience you reach out to. The works of art are created to interact with the social entity.” He admits feeling touched by the response of the audience following his last exhibition titled “Politically rekt”, showcased at MOMus-Experimental Center for the Arts in Thessaloniki, and curated by the art historian-museologist Eirini Papakonstantinou.

“What happened exceeded by far my highest expectations with regard to the interaction and the follow-up interpretations,” he explains. This exhibition is the outcome of a practice-based Phd thesis he had started in March 2020, at the Department of Audio & Visual Arts of the Ionian University, titled “Political Art in the Digital Age”. The research was carried out with the support of the Hellenic Foundation for Research & Innovation, which offered him a scholarship to complete his work.

In fact, the research is no other than the work of art itself, featuring a total of fourteen creations, ten of which were included in the exhibition. “The title “Politically rekt” serves as a wordplay for political correctness, the abuse of which according to the artist/researcher “leads the digital age to self-censorship, as we yearn to feel accepted in a totally meaningless way.”

The exhibition’s title is intriguing by itself, as the ending “rekt”, an abbreviation and a neologism of the word wrecked, is used amidst the members of the online gaming community as a synonym for defeat and failure, while also alluding to the notion of politically correct that the artist wishes to criticize. The socio-political reality is at the spotlight of Alexandrou’s work for many years now, as attested by his previous large-scale exhibition titled “Short Memory”, showcased in February 2020, which casts a glance at the way society has learnt to forget everything: from its history to anything that may ooze a negative vibe.

Vasilis Alexandrou uses many techniques, placing emphasis both on the space where he wishes to incorporate the audience and the way to achieve this goal, aiming to eliminate the distance created by the boundaries of the wall-mounted frame. At the Faculty of Fine Arts he majored in painting, a path he still walks on, with the only difference that his gamut of tools has grown much richer, going way beyond colors and canvases.

“From my standpoint any medium carries with it a conceptual load. I will resort to it only when necessary. Some insist on formalism, whereas I believe in conceptualization.” One of his dreams was teaching, as he was inspired by his professor, visual artist Giorgos Tsakiris; a dream partially made true, as he has taught in several academic institutions. Within the academic framework, he is mostly interested in developing a meaningful relationship with the students, through which each one will cultivate their own proper visual art language.

He is not a fan of the notion of career, which he views as something deeply technocratic. He has two permanent visual art interventions in the public sphere, eight individual exhibitions, as well as more than seventy collective exhibitions under his belt. Among his achievements
stand out the honorary distinction at the 2019 MATAROA Awards, hosted by the Cultural Society of Entrepreneurs of Northern Greece and the Art Thessaloniki – International Contemporary Art Fair, the award bestowed by ARTWORKS in 2020, and his selection for the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Artist Fellowship Program.