The exhibition Blind Prohibition is showcased up until November 30 at Lola Nikolaou Art Gallery, in Thessaloniki. The collective works by the siblings Alexandros and Dimitris Kapetanou aim to serve as an intervention, navigating with ease between the artistic and the social context. Seeking new creative passages, they playfully interact with the notion of tangibility and the surfaces, exploring the very boundaries of semiotics.

According to Alexandros Kapetanou, “Blind Prohibition is our first interindividual visual art exhibition, which intends to bring forth issues revolving around the notion of prohibition and delimitation, as experienced by every person not only nowadays, but in the course of time. The exhibition’s works attempt to serve as an intervention, seen
as a wholesome entity, and activate tactility and the sense of touch as a medium of their interpretation by the audience. This condition applies to both wall-mounted Βraille works and the installations composed of white and red prohibition tapes,” he explained.

“Dimitris’ braille works, based on the titular code, include interviews he had conducted with people dealing with visual impairment problems as to how they experience a series of prohibitions in multiple levels of their everyday life, visibility and accessibility. The need for these issues to be heard out loud and raise awareness led us to an out-of-the-box approach so as to avoid a one-sided address.
In other words, their goal was to embrace inclusivity themselves,” he added.

“In contrast, Alexandros’ works adopt a more experiential approach on the notion of prohibition, through painful and endless tasks of handicraft. Like the countless weaving knots of the white and red prohibition tape, collected from the urban habitat and serving a dual purpose. On one hand, a major urban pollutant that would otherwise end up in the sea, is collected and reused. On the other hand, it is endowed with a new meaning through the traditional weaving techniques, thanks to its transformative qualities,” pointed out Dimitris Kapetanou. “Therefore, the exhibition seeks an osmosis of the experiential and the social, a constant dis-equilibrium intertwining the human boundaries, containment, confounded hopes, total prohibition and the need for absolute freedom,” he went on to say.

“The idea of teaming up with Lola Nikolaou was ignited last fall, in November 2022, on the occasion of the MATAROA Awards, co-hosted by the 6th Art Thessaloniki and the Cultural Society of Entrepreneurs of Northern Greece, with the intention of bringing forth and supporting young and upcoming visual artists from all parts of Greece. Dimitris and I were among the ten nominees selected by the jury. I remember us being approached while setting up our works in the pavilions of Art Thessaloniki, long before Dimitris snatched the top prize with braille. As we counted and placed the tactile warning tiles, an inextricable part of Dimitris’ work, we did not miss the chance to present our work to anyone asking what we were up to. That’s when we were asked to join forces with Lola Nikolaou, a proposal we were glad and honored to accept,” commented Alexandros with regard to their partnership with Lola Nikolaou.

The two siblings are forming an artistic duo for the first time: “It is surely important that we jointly convey to the audience what we conceive and materialize. However, in reality nothing has changed for us. The help we offer to one another, throughout this process of communication and confrontation found in the very core of art never ceased to be the bedrock of our work. We are both encouraging and critical at the same time, trying to help one another evolve and dig deeper into a series of issues, regardless if it is an individual or a joint work, as we know each other inside out,” stresses Dimitris.

As for his future plans, Dimitris Kapetanou will take part in the collective action Art, A Silent Revolution, scheduled to be held in the Athens Conservatoire in December, with his visual art work intervisibility braille. This visual art exhibition, featuring ten selected works by ten artists, is hosted by the Ministry of Education, Religious Affairs and Sports, following an open call to Greek artists. “In the beginning of the next year, my debut series of works titled braille will be individually showcased at the French Institute of Thessaloniki, in collaboration with the Center of Education & Rehabilitation for the Blind of Northern Greece (Thessaloniki branch) and the Art Gallery Lola Nikolaou, an art institution that once again proved its social reflexes. Needless to say that everyone’s support is pivotal and touching in this endeavor, which will be presented for the first time in its city of origin. Moreover, for the first time since the MATAROA Awards, the entire work will be unveiled, contemplating on how three visually impaired people perceive colors. A series of other actions will also take place within the duration of the exhibition,” he informs us.

The partnership between the Kapetanou siblings and the French Institute of Thessaloniki will carry on with a series of further actions later on in 2024, among which a collective project on surrealism, featuring the works created by 25 selected students from the School of Visual & Applied Arts of AUTh’s Faculty of Fine Arts.

As far as Alexandros is concerned, this year’s priorities, with the exception of some collective exhibitions that are still in the works, scheduled for June, are of academic nature, as he is about to wrap his 5-year studies at School of Visual & Applied Arts of AUTh’s Faculty of Fine Arts with the completion of his thesis. “The academic journey
is never-ending, as life has proven to me over the last twelve years,” he concludes with a smile on his face.