Tsoklis Costas

Costas Tsoklis is a Greek visual artist. He was born in Athens in 1930. He studied at the School of Fine Arts until 1954. From 1957 to 1960 he continued his studies in Rome with a scholarship from the I.K.Y. From 1960 to 1984 he lived and worked in Paris, with a short break in 1971-72 where he stayed in Berlin invited by the D.A.A.D. In 1984 he settled permanently in Athens. His work gained international acclaim in the late 1960s when he began exposing the perspective "Objects". Since then he has continued to experiment systematically with various means of expression, painting, sculpture, drawing, photography, construction, video, performance, light and sound, looking for new ways of approaching objects, nature, myths. but also of social problems. A milestone in this uninterrupted reflection was his participation in the Venice Biennale of 1986, where he represented Greece with a series of works such as "Tamed Fish" and "Portraits", paintings on which the videotaped image was projected. These were the proposals for a "living painting", which evolved in 1990 with the introduction of this viewing time in the work of art, for the complex "Medea", presented at the Cadran Solaire in Troyes (France). ). Costas Tsoklis has had over a hundred solo exhibitions in Museums and galleries around the world, at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels (1971), at the Kunsthalle in Düsseldorf (1972), at the Pieridis Gallery in Athens (1983), at the Lui Museum Pecci in Prato, Italy (2000), at the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Athens (2000-2001), at the Palazzo Strozzi in Florence (2003) etc. He presented his work in solo exhibitions in major European and American cities and participated in major group international events, such as the Paris Biennale (1963 and 1965), the Sao Paulo (1965) and the Documenta de Kassel (1975). In 1986, together with Christos Karas, he represented Greece at the Venice Biennale. The Frysira Museum presented a tribute to his youth works (1950-59) in 2001. In the same year, a large retrospective of his work was held at the National Museum of Contemporary Art. Together with Vlasi Kaniaris, Giannis Gaitis, Nikos Kessanlis and Dimitris Kontos, he participated in the artistic group Gruppo Sigma, in Rome in the late 1950s. His works adorn public spaces, such as the courtyard of the Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki (Tribute to Alexandros) and the National Defense Station of the Athens Metro (Underground Park).