Letters' Altar
Letters’ Altar (2022) by Tolis Tatolas examines our relation to the accelerating extinction of written speech as a medium of ultimate expression. The installation comprises an altar made of rubble –remnants of humanity– while written religious banner-type surfaces, establish a shrine dedicated to the decay and the deconstruction of civilisation as we know it. A book of holy writings –an assembly of words and phrases of humankind since its very beginning– demarcates the end of speech, which is represented by an act of sacrifice; it becomes an offering to a new consecrated and undeciphered actuality. Through his linguistic environment, the artist turns the choreography of words and symbols into a stratification of thoughts, all deriving directly from an inner source. Emphasising on notions of utopianism, Tatolas dwells on the disorder and the ideological follies of our world and invokes through a soundscape his fears about the metamorphosis of collective consciousness and intellect. A lingering light above everything suggests a threshold of hope and faith.
Dr Kostas Prapoglou
Contemporary Art Curator
The Letters' Altar installation is a site specific audiovisual installation and was created in situ for the group exhibition Reality Check II: Inner Sanctum, curated by Dr Kostas Prapoglou, at Bodossaki Building of Dafni Psychiatric Hospital of Athens, from the 29th of September until the 30th of October 2022.
Letters’ Altar (2022) by Tolis Tatolas examines our relation to the accelerating extinction of written speech as a medium of ultimate expression. The installation comprises an altar made of rubble –remnants of humanity– while written religious banner-type surfaces, establish a shrine dedicated to the decay and the deconstruction of civilisation as we know it. A book of holy writings –an assembly of words and phrases of humankind since its very beginning– demarcates the end of speech, which is represented by an act of sacrifice; it becomes an offering to a new consecrated and undeciphered actuality. Through his linguistic environment, the artist turns the choreography of words and symbols into a stratification of thoughts, all deriving directly from an inner source. Emphasising on notions of utopianism, Tatolas dwells on the disorder and the ideological follies of our world and invokes through a soundscape his fears about the metamorphosis of collective consciousness and intellect. A lingering light above everything suggests a threshold of hope and faith.
Dr Kostas Prapoglou
Contemporary Art Curator
The Letters' Altar installation is a site specific audiovisual installation and was created in situ for the group exhibition Reality Check II: Inner Sanctum, curated by Dr Kostas Prapoglou, at Bodossaki Building of Dafni Psychiatric Hospital of Athens, from the 29th of September until the 30th of October 2022.