Reflection

Kostas Tsoklis was born in 1930 in Athens, where he studied at the A.S.K.T. in the workshop of G. He lived and worked in Rome (1957-1960) on a scholarship from the I.K.Y., where he was a member of the Gruppo Sigma group. In the 1960s he lived mainly in Paris and then, on a DAAD scholarship, he stayed in Berlin from 1971 to 1972. Since then, until his permanent residence in Greece in 1984, he lived between Athens and Paris. Although he was familiar with most of the trends in contemporary art, often in their genesis and at the place of their creation, in reality his work does not belong to any one movement, but elements of conceptual art, pop art and the new realists can be detected in his works. Although the third dimension was added to his work very quickly, pictorial thought continued to characterize his compositions, and even the element of illusion, with the virtual elimination of the boundaries between pictorial and real space, runs through most of his work. After 1985 he added the use of video to his works, creating visual installations with multiple screens, sound effects, where the real and the imaginary intertwine. He presented his work in dozens of solo exhibitions in Greece, Europe and America and participated in important international group exhibitions, such as the Paris Biennale (1961, 1963), Sao Paulo (1965), Documenta Kassel (1975), etc. In 1986, together with Chr. Karas represented Greece at the Venice Biennale. 2001 was a landmark year for his exhibition activity, as the Frissiras Museum presented an exhibition in tribute to his youth (1950-1959) and the H.M.S.T. organized a major retrospective exhibition of his work. His works adorn public spaces, including the courtyard of the Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki, the National Defence Metro Station in Athens, etc.