Nikos Moschos, the visual artist who just a few months ago designed the cover for To Vima’s student newspapers, is now presenting his work at VOLTA Art Fair in Basel.
14.06.2024
By Angeliki Kouroutzi
Just a few months ago, the prolific artist Nikos Moschos was invited to create the cover of To Vima’s student newspapers. That issue featured writings by students from Karditsa, a region still struggling with the devastation left by Storm Daniel.
The artist accepted immediately, without hesitation. The fresh scars of the unexpected disaster — and the constant need for humans to adapt to new circumstances — are themes closely connected to the questions that have preoccupied him for years.
"The Next Day," the work Moschos created for To Vima’s student newspapers this past February.
Now, Moschos takes his “illustrated allegories,” as he calls them, to Basel, Switzerland, and the VOLTA Art Fair. The Greek artist is presenting, together with George Polyzos’ gallery Depo Darm, a series of works at one of the most anticipated international art fairs in the world.
“A total of seven of my works are being shown. At the booth, I am presenting four paintings and one sculpture, while another sculpture and one more painting are on display in the Art Fair’s main hall and at the Basel Art House respectively. All of them revolve around the idea of constant transformation, transition, continuous evolution — not only of matter but also of thought and, by extension, the human psyche,” he told us during our phone conversation.
“These ideas are explored through smaller thematic axes that have preoccupied countless artists throughout history — from antiquity to today. Themes such as love, fear of death, vanity,” he adds.
These thematic pillars have been shaping and developing Moschos’ painterly identity more clearly since 2012. His purpose, as he explains, is to express “humanity’s struggle to adapt under forces it cannot control.”
“We are human beings, and we need to express our anxieties. Perhaps that’s why the work I created for the student newspaper cover came out so spontaneously, so immediately. There is a great need to return to a communicative art that speaks to people rather than remaining purely decorative. Decorative art is valuable — it can often transport us and lighten our burdens — but still, we live in the present, we live with our anxieties, we live this life, and I think it is good to metabolize all these stimuli in our own way, to stand with one foot in reality and the other in imagination. Because art always needs imagination.”
Student Newspapers: A Commendable Effort
This is not the first time a major visual artist such as Nikos Moschos has created the cover for To Vima’s student newspapers. Each month, the initiative features works by significant artists, both emerging and established.
With dozens of issues already published, this initiative has gained unique momentum, which was highlighted by the major exhibition Greece Through the Eyes of Students, held last September at the Municipal Gallery of Piraeus. The show featured unique works by distinguished visual artists as well as talented graduates and final-year students of the Athens School of Fine Arts, created exclusively for To Vima and its student newspapers.
Today, the student newspapers are a pioneering initiative for many reasons.
“It is a commendable effort in the sense that it gives young people a voice,” Moschos says, just before our conversation ends. “Young people may feel that social media already gives them the ability to express and share their views — which is true, but it can also be a trap. Through the newspaper, they learn to articulate their concerns in a well-founded way. And, in addition, it brings them back to paper and to reading.”
VOLTA Art Fair takes place from June 10 to June 16, 2024, in Basel, Switzerland.