Action: Audience members enter the gallery to find the artist’s naked body laying on the floor, under an equilateral triangle frame with white fabric stretched over it. The body appears as an embossed object, whilst the only visible areas are the ones where fabric touches upon the artist’s skin. For the duration of sixty minutes, viewers move around the gallery’s area, listening to Daphne Nikita’s poem recorded in her own voice and repeated through the gallery’s speakers and observing the artist’s body that appears to slowly turn around and change position. At the same time, viewers come in contact with the artworks and archival material of Cypriot artist Michael Michaeledes, used as the basis for both the live installation and the poem. The installation in parallel to Michaeledes’s work, presented in the form of geometric stretch canvases moving between flat and embossed surfaces of white color, change in terms of appearance according to the exhibition’s lighting and the audience’s shifting position.

On the floor

Long-durational performance in collaboration with poet Daphne Nikita + in parallel with the artistic practice of Michalis Michaeledes (1923-2015) / Part of exhibition "I only ask for Light" curated by Eleni S. Nikita + Katherina Stephanidou / A. G. Leventis Gallery / Nicosia - CY / January - 2020 / Duration: 60'

Material: artist’s body, poet’s voice, wooden triangle frame (2.50 m on each side), white stretch fabric

Photo: Emma-Louise Charalambous