Risky Travels PAFOS2017

This is a story about respect and appreciation. It's the tale of two artists who never met in life, yet their art found a harmonious union in a prestigious sculpture exhibition.

As a citizen and artist of Pafos, a town rich in history on the island of Cyprus, I was invited to contribute an art proposal to support Pafos' bid to become the Cultural Capital of Europe in 2017. Pafos has witnessed the harmonious coexistence of Greek/Cypriot and Turkish/Cypriot communities for centuries. However, the 1974 invasion and subsequent division of Cyprus dramatically changed this, leading to a population exchange and leaving deep scars in the community.

In 1993, a significant event occurred in my family. My father, Andy Adamos (1936-1990), was a renowned sculptor from Pafos. In 1972, he moved to Ammochostos, a city later occupied during the invasion, leaving it a ghost city to this day. When my father was forced to flee south in 1974, he left behind his artwork in his studio.

Three years after my father's death, representatives from the American Embassy in Cyprus delivered his abandoned artworks to our home, an action orchestrated by Baki Bogac, a Turkish/Cypriot architect and artist. This act of returning the artworks was kept secret due to its potential risks for Baki.

After the borders opened in 2003, I learned Baki had visited my mother. I returned to Cyprus, met with Baki, and shared our story with the media. This meeting revealed a profound connection between us, united by art and shared history.

To honor this bond, I proposed a dual sculpture exhibition featuring Baki's work and my father's, titled 'Risky Travels,' for PAFOS2017. This proposal aimed to acknowledge Baki's courageous act and celebrate the shared artistic heritage of Pafos. The project was accepted, and Pafos proudly became the European Capital of Culture in 2017, with 'Risky Travels' playing a pivotal role in this achievement, symbolizing respect and appreciation between the two artists and their communities.

By Marina Schiza

As a citizen and artist of Pafos, a town rich in history on the island of Cyprus, I was invited to contribute an art proposal to support Pafos' bid to become the Cultural Capital of Europe in 2017. Pafos has witnessed the harmonious coexistence of Greek/Cypriot and Turkish/Cypriot communities for centuries. However, the 1974 invasion and subsequent division of Cyprus dramatically changed this, leading to a population exchange and leaving deep scars in the community.

In 1993, a significant event occurred in my family. My father, Andy Adamos (1936-1990), was a renowned sculptor from Pafos. In 1972, he moved to Ammochostos, a city later occupied during the invasion, leaving it a ghost city to this day. When my father was forced to flee south in 1974, he left behind his artwork in his studio.

Three years after my father's death, representatives from the American Embassy in Cyprus delivered his abandoned artworks to our home, an action orchestrated by Baki Bogac, a Turkish/Cypriot architect and artist. This act of returning the artworks was kept secret due to its potential risks for Baki.

After the borders opened in 2003, I learned Baki had visited my mother. I returned to Cyprus, met with Baki, and shared our story with the media. This meeting revealed a profound connection between us, united by art and shared history.

To honor this bond, I proposed a dual sculpture exhibition featuring Baki's work and my father's, titled 'Risky Travels,' for PAFOS2017. This proposal aimed to acknowledge Baki's courageous act and celebrate the shared artistic heritage of Pafos. The project was accepted, and Pafos proudly became the European Capital of Culture in 2017, with 'Risky Travels' playing a pivotal role in this achievement, symbolizing respect and appreciation between the two artists and their communities.

At the same time, 50,000 Turkish Cypriot refugees were gathered and installed by Turkey in the occupied Northern part. The two sides suffer losses and missing persons. The occupation line, dubbed ‘Attila line’ by the Turks, separates the island into a northern and southern part as a boundary between Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots. The areas around the Green Line are abandoned to the ghosts of the past as free movement across the island is prohibited. 

Several years later, in the late 1980s, as the wounds of 1974 began to heal, efforts to resolve the Cyprus problem prompted a motion to acknowledge reality; a need for physical contact with the Green Line area, where art events would gradually unfold, inviting research into the reception of the site as pole of artistic creation. The first rapprochement exhibitions, titled ‘Brushstrokes Across Cultures’, brought together Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots to jointly display their works with the mediation of the United Nations, the crossing of the green line being unfeasible at the time. 

The secret is revealed 

In one of these art encounters, Turkish Cypriot sculptor Baki Bogac found the opportunity to reveal his big secret, in essence “to free himself of a burden carried within for years” – as he himself confided to me in October 2003 when I met him in Pafos.

In the spring of 1990, the American Centre in Nicosia organized a joint exhibition of Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots in the framework of the ‘Brushstrokes Across Cultures’ exhibition. It was then that Baki shared his long-kept secret with the head of the American Centre, asking her to help him deliver the artworks and other material to their rightful owner; it would prove a challenging task. 

At the same exhibition, Baki had met Greek Cypriot artist Aristoteles Demetriou with whom he went on to forge a close friendship, as they both recognized that the tragic situation created in Cyprus in 1974 was the result of the fanaticism of Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots. Aristoteles offered to help Baki fulfill his dream: deliver the material he had found to his owner, Andy Adamos. 

Art found in the ghost town 

The story of the liberation of Andy Adamos' body of work lends itself to a script that would stimulate the interest of any film director – what with its uncanny interweaving of the relations between politics, art, mystery, and suspense.

This story of liberation, a story of locating and transferring from the occupied areas the works of a significant Greek Cypriot artist reflects a tragic aspect of the history and culture of Cyprus. 

After the 1974 invasion, the authorities of the pseudo-state appointed officials to list all Greek Cypriot property in the enclosed area of Ammochostos. Among them was Baki Bogac. 

Before the invasion, Baki lived in Larnaka. He had graduated from the high school in Ammochostos and around 1970 went to Istanbul to study architecture. When, he later, returned to Ammochostos, he was appointed to the government of the pseudo-state to make a list of Greek Cypriot property abandoned in the boarded-up area of Varosha. 

Baki went on to visit the area several times accompanied by soldiers. At some point, he entered a house where, being an artist himself, he was impressed by what he saw: sculptures, paintings, photographs on the ground, catalogues from the owner’s participation in various Biennales, for instance, the Budapest Biennale. He found himself in the studio of Andy Adamos. 

From reading the biographical note in the catalogues, Baki realized he was standing in the workshop of a significant artist. He asked the soldiers if he could take a few items with him, but his request was declined. However, as he returned to the house several times later, he managed to convince them. This was during a period when the pseudo-state had gathered together several works of art from various studios; many of the works were sold to collectors at very low prices. 

Baki took with him a few paintings, drawings, photographs, and sculptures. He intended to return them to their owner, but the political situation would not allow such a thing. Therefore, he kept the entire precious body of work in his house and waited for the right moment. The moment came in early 1990 when the American Centre launched the ‘Brushstrokes Across Cultures’ bi-communal exhibitions and he got the chance to talk to the head of the Centre.

A few months later, the American Centre notified Baki they had located the wife of Andy Adamos in Pafos – the artist, they told him, had died. Still, the Centre would help him deliver the material to his family. Baki went on to deliver the entire body of work to the American Centre. Upon receiving the works, Andy’s wife sent word to Baki that she wished to meet him. “I wanted so much to meet Andy’s wife”, Baki tells us, “but it was virtually impossible to cross the green line”. 

When the roadblocks opened, in spring 2004, Baki decided to come to the free areas. He took the bus for Pafos – his first time in the city. He looked for Andy’s restaurant and when he found it and stepped in, he came face to face with the photograph he had sent to Andy’s wife; he knew then he was in the right place. “I am Baki, from Ammochostos”, he told her. There was no need for more words. “Ms Hadjiadamou lovingly threw her arms around me. We talked for half an hour, but then I had to rush to catch the bus. I was so happy; my dream had come true”.

Brushstrokes Across Cultures II, which is sponsored by the American Center, begins on Monday at Famagusta Gate.

The exhibition will then move to HP Gallery for an opening on September 24, lasting until October 1. It is being organized in cooperation with Gloria and Fluxus galleries.

As with Brushstrokes ! the exhibition features the artwork of Greek Cypriot, Turkish Cypriot, and American painters and sculptors. The first Brushstrokes, which was held in October 1992, was an excellent exhibition. The Turkish Cypriot artists came to the Famagusta Gate show and later that month the Cypriot Greek artists went to the same exhibition at the HP Gallery. This year's participants are a totally new group and the new exhibition will prove once again the richness of Cypriot art. I am not familiar with the "reality" of the Turkish Cypriot artists at present but photographs of their work show, once again, that the 'renaissance' in Cypriot art is islandwide.

Here is a brief guide to the Greek Cypriot artists whose work I know from their exhibitions and studios.

Written by Glyn Hughes, Painter and Gallery Owner.

Risky Travels - PAFOS2017

Address by the Curator Sergis Hadjiadamos

Above all else, the exhibition Risky Travels honours peace – what should be our resolute aim and main pursuit across all levels of our life and social coexistence. Art comes to our aid.

Here there are neither roadblocks nor animosities. Far from it! There is only potent communication between two assiduous creators who, each in his own way and distinct style, invite us to an artistic humanitarian dialogue, a quest for our shared references.

The extremely symbolic act of Baki Bogac, to protect for a period of seventeen years, at personal risk, the artworks of a colleague unknown to him is a sublime act of humanity, a token of appreciation of artistic creation and culture that has a direct impact on all of us. There is a common line between the works of both creators in spite of the varied influences and trends they engaged with, the age difference, and the dissimilar way in which they were raised.

The stimuli that are common to their works – free curves and airy forms, volumetric simplicity, measure, and harmony – are dictated by the joint geographical area in which they were born. But something else connects Andy and Baki: faith in life and human beings; creation, fraternity, and solidarity.

When Baki stepped into Andy's studio in Ammochostos, he didn’t see Andy in person but works of art made by dexterous hands, meticulously considered, thoroughly, painstakingly, and devotedly. Baki readily recognized this truth and this is precisely what he went on to protect: he preserved works of art that can stand on their own wherever they may be displayed, for they are genuine artworks, creations of a genuine talent.

Getting to know Baki after he had returned Andy's works to us, I discovered a person filled with love and affection. A dedicated father and husband who knew the history of his land down to the smallest detail, irrespective of sides. I was impressed by his profound knowledge of all Pafos’ archaeological sites, though he came from Larnaka and lived in Ammochostos.

I remember his joy at reuniting freely (without being policed) with the Pafian artists, he had first met when they all exhibited their work at the ‘Brushstrokes’ exhibition in 1991: Aristoteles Demetriou and Costas

Economou.

I also remember, in 2004, how impressed I was when we all sat down for dinner at our family restaurant, “Hondros Taverna”.

Andreas Charalambides with his broad smile was with us too. It was as if these people had known each other for years, as if they regularly met and teased one another like children, discussing art, history, and politics.

Deeply thankful, to the Adamos family and PAFOS2017 for raising the game of culture, reciprocate Baki Bogac’s act with this joint exhibition.

The adventure of matter and form

by

Writer THANOS STATHOPOULOS 

In his celebrated Testament, written at the beginning of the previous century, Auguste Rodin emphatically noted, among other things: 

“You, statue makers, strengthen within you the sense of depth. It is difficult for the intellect to familiarize itself with this notion. Only the surface can it visualize distinctly. It finds it difficult to imagine forms in terms of thickness. However, this is your task. Above all, establish with precision the total layout of the figures you are sculpting. Vigorously emphasize the orientation of each part of the body; the head, the shoulders, the hips, the legs. Art demands decisiveness. Only with unequivocally stated lines can you dive into space and take possession of depth. Once the large plan is conceived, everything has been found. Your statue is already living. Details come forth and fall into place by themselves. When you sculpt, never think in terms of the surface; think in terms of relief. Your spirit must conceive of every plane as if the extremity of a mass pushing it from behind. Imagine the forms as if pointed towards you. Every life emanates from a centre, then sprouts and bursts from the inside out. In the same manner, in a beautiful sculpture we all guess a strong impulsion from within. This is the secret of ancient art. […] Art is nothing but feeling. But without profound knowledge of mass, proportion, without the dexterity of the hand, even the most vibrant sense is reduced to paralysis”. 

Such were the words bequeathed by Rodin to young sculptors more than a hundred years ago, in his intellectual testament; and though the times and state of things have changed, their truth remains timeless. The sense of depth, knowledge of mass and proportion, perception and mostly inner strength will always guide the sculptor toward the achievement of the artwork. The case of Andy Hadjiadamos, an artist for whom sculpture had been identical to feeling and living, stands out prominently.

It would not be an overstatement to say that Andy Hadjiadamos’ life was defined by constant movement, separation and nostalgia – divided in effect between two homelands: Cyprus and South Africa. His biography speaks for itself. Andy was born in Ktima, Pafos, in 1936. He spent his childhood in the area of Geroskipou, moving as a teenager to his maternal aunt’s house in Ktima, in order to attend the Hellenic High School of Pafos. After graduation, he enrolled at the American Academy in Nicosia for courses in commercial studies. In 1955 he followed his family emigrating to South Africa and settling in the city of Durban in the area of Natal. There he studied graphic arts and advertising at the city’s Technical College. In 1959 he moved to Pietermaritzburg, registering at the Department of Fine Arts of the University of Natal and majoring in sculpture. He worked as an assistant lecturer at the Department of Sculpture. He met his future wife, Jennifer Lynn Thompson-Colenzo. In 1964 he left for Greece to work as conservator for the Archaeological Museum of Olympia, a post he would soon resign from. He spent some time in London and in 1965 returned to Cyprus. He got married in 1967. He worked as an art teacher at the Public College of Commerce in Morfou until 1970, then returned with his wife to Africa. They settled in Johannesburg but in the same year moved to Pietermaritzburg. Hadjiadamos attended a program of postgraduate studies in sculpture at the University of Natal. Due to a vehement disagreement with the head of the programme, he cut short his studies. He presented his first solo exhibition at Jack Heath Gallery. The couple moved to Durban where he took over as director of the Department of Sculpture at Natal Polytechnic. In 1972 they returned to Cyprus and settled in Ammochostos until the Turkish invasion. Their first son, Yiorkos, was born. Andy Hadjiadamos left his studio behind, along with a significant number of works from that period. (The artworks would eventually be salvaged by Turkish Cypriot architect and artist Baki Bogac who after several years of tribulations would manage to return the body of work to the artist’s family in 1993). The family had had to move once more to Johannesburg, South Africa. In 1975 and 1978 respectively, Sergis and Natali were born. In 1979 they settled in the seaside city of Salt Rock. Their third son, Alexis, was born. Finally, in 1980, the family returned to Cyprus for good, settling in Pafos. In 1986 Andy Hadjiadamos represented Cyprus at the 2nd Cairo International Biennale and won the Gold Medal for Sculpture. In 1988 he was diagnosed with stomach cancer. In 1990 he lost his battle with the disease.

It is quite obvious that almost throughout his life the artist experiences the “here” and “there”; two homelands where each separation is nothing less than painful. One could ask where it is that he belongs. There is no doubt his soul lies in Cyprus. As we have seen, Hadjiadamos comes into his own as an artist in South Africa. There he studies sculpture, teaches, exhibits his work; there he will become acquainted with international movements and contemporary art trends, but also with African art which will have a decisive impact on his body of work. There he matures as an artist and there the largest part of his artistic activity unfolds. However, his links to Cyprus are indissoluble – how cοuld it be otherwise? – adding to his nostalgia which though he tries to alleviate by means of his creative output, he finds it impossible to quench. Moreover, the tragedy of the 1974 Turkish invasion will make him lose the ground under his feet. His permanent resettling in Cyprus, in 1980, will put an end to this condition.     

Andy Hadji Adamos’ sculpture could be recognized as a contemplating study on matter and form. The need for a clear form through abstraction and the employment of contemporary and primeval elements epitomizes a host of references. In his art, the sculptor puts to use the entire experience of European and American modernism, but also African and ancient Greek art. Apparently, by his own admission, Henry Moore had had the greatest impact on him. However, we can still detect distinct influences from Hans Arp and Alberto Giacometti, as he was particularly appreciative of their oeuvre. Modernism is the great trend, the movement within which Hadjiadamos will recognize himself and discover his art. His artistic idiom is expressed in relation to modernistic credos and the expressive particularities they project.       

Raw material is his guide in the composition and creation of the artwork. Hadjiadamos rightly thinks that nothing can be achieved unless you know the material you work with and allow it to guide you. The nature of the material is critical; it invokes the manner in which you need to treat it, and this manner can carry nothing less than respect. By working methodically, you discover the properties of wood or stone or any material – and this is precisely what will show you the way, the direction you must take. The importance he attributed to nature and the treatment of materials largely derives from the quests and experimentations of the early years of his studies. As a student at Natal University’s Department of Fine Arts, he remembered his favourite professor, the sculptor John Hooper. He was adamant, Andy said, that no sculptor would ever achieve anything if he didn’t know his material, his tools. So they experimented – worked with wood, gypsum, clay, anything.  

Hadji adamos experimented with almost all materials, but his greatest love, bordering on obsession, was wood. He considered wood the warmest of all materials. Indeed, wood in its different varieties are deified in his work: red ivory, wild willow, yellowwood, oak tree, teak, tabut, Brazilian cherry tree, wild olive, African cedar, ironwood, mahogany, imbuia – a kind of summary or physiology of wood, emanating their natural properties, antitheses and particularities. The artist makes ample use of the natural properties and capacities of wood. It follows that the main and most important volume of his body of work revolves around wood.

The work of Andy Hadji Adamos resides between representation and abstraction. The abstract rendering of man in space converses with clear, abstract forms, compositions representing organic lifeforms with a pronounced element of spirituality. (Brancusi contended that what we consider abstract is in reality more realistic because it is not the outer form that’s real, but the idea, the substance). Abstraction and spirituality are undoubtedly the most important elements in the artist’s work. Craftsmanship, dexterity and aesthetic excellence that characterize Hadjiadamos’ work concentrate on the spiritual element: they tend towards the condition to which the spirit should rise. 

In such works as Woman (1985), Mother and child (1960-1979), Woman (1971) and Ossified (1960-1990) the vertical rendering of figures in space alludes to spiritual advancement and elevation. Though different between them, only showing similarities in pairs (Woman-Mother and child) – (Woman-Ossified), the sculptures equilibrate with each other in their spiritual dimension, their substance and inner truth. The same spiritual dimension can be traced in Birdlike (1960-1982), an abstract composition that terminates in the figure of a bird.

Many of the sculptures are vertical rectilinear compositions, such as the works mentioned above, emulating ancient Greek and African art and the xoana tradition. There is in them a shape that is par excellence phallic and bony and terminates either in a human head or in some figure. Phallic (1960-1979), Totem (1960-1988), African head (1971), Head of Kouros (1960-1988), Head of Kore (unfinished work, 1960-1990), Lass (1960-1988). The same phallic and bony shape appears partially or wholly in abstract works: Umtakati (1960-1988), Motion (circa 1973), Umhlali (1960-1972), Amorphous (1960-1979), Amorphous, small (1960-1980).

In other works of complete abstraction, we may interpret the synthesis of volumes and cavities as a long persistent contemplation on matter and form. The quest for a clear style, inscribed on organic, sophisticated forms is of foremost importance to the artist. Lifeform (1960s), Africa (1960-1985), Africa, small (1960-1990), Sculpture (1960-1988), Reclined composition (1960-1988), Large abstract (1981), Synthesis (1960-1990), Abstract forms (1960-1988), Organic (1960-1990), Abstract (1960-1979).

Woodcuts make up the main body of Andy Hadjiadamos’ work. Yet, as mentioned above, the artist experimented with almost all types of materials. Therefore, in his more or less early period, there are two pieces of terracotta and stone that reflect somewhat classicistic perceptions: Bust of African Man (1960) and Two heads (1960s). 

Of special note are four specific sculptures of stone, bronze and copper alloy. Face (1960-1979), Flight (1960-1979), Fall (1960-1979) and Cyprus 1974 (circa 1986). In Face (stone), the disfigurement, at first sight, calls to mind the figures of Francis Bacon and expresses the existential desolation of contemporary man – though more than anything else, the work is an in-depth face study. In Flight (bronze), a three-figure group (one carrying the other on its shoulders) struggles to fly as one, albeit immobilized, their toil and agony strongly pronounced. Fall and Cyprus 1974 are the two most dramatic works of Andy Hadjiadamos because of their obvious symbolic association with the Cyprus tragedy and the Turkish invasion. In Fall (copper alloy), a tall and lean Giacometti-esque figure falls whilst trying to climb a sky ladder. (“Let’s not hide it; we are thirsty for sky”, Miltos Sahtouris wrote). In Cyprus 1974 (bronze), again, two tall and lean figures suspend in the opposite direction (one above, the other below) in the void, unable to either rise to the sky or stand on earth. They are left hanging in mid-air. The symbolism of the separation of the two communities in Cyprus is quite obvious. The artist envisioned Fall in monumental dimensions. He had wished for it to be installed opposite the catacomb of St Solomoni in Pafos. Though he had discussed the fruition of this prospect with the Municipality of Pafos, the project was never completed. The same artwork has been enlarged by sculptor Yiannis Astras to decorate Andy’s grave.

(Hadjiadamos was receptive to the times. His agony did not pertain only to the Cyprus question that perturbed and ached him, but to humanity as a whole. A proponent of freedom, peace, social justice, equality, he would never get over his sadness for the evil transpiring around him. A citizen of the world, he pondered over the gloom he saw descending upon humanity; and he was disheartened for it. His perception was governed by humanism and by the ecumenical element that emanates from it: faith in life and man. Andy would never forsake his vision for a just, brightly lit world. In fact, he appeared to fully abide by Andre Breton’s “Whatever the question, man is the answer”.)

It would be extremely difficult to speak of specific periods in Andy Hadjiadamos’ work – with the exception of the artist’s early period during his studies and the next few years – as this is a body of work that preserves its homogeneity on the basis of a common aesthetic perception. Moreover, many of the works remain without date which suggests they had been completed during a span of several years. A careful look at the dates of the aforementioned works points to this assumption. There are several pieces the artist might had pondered long over – which makes any dating a precarious task. 

Andy Hadjiadamos issued forth in quest of a clear style. The need for a form that could include elements of the ancient Greek and African art by gently swaying between modernism and the roots, volumetric simplicity and abstraction is conjured up by a longing for substantial, profound spirituality. It is precisely this longing that guides the artist from early on to all the more abstract forms.

“The more abstract is form”, Wassily Kandinsky writes in Concerning the Spiritual in Art (1911), “the more clear and primitive its appeal. Therefore, in a composition where the material side may be more or less omitted, one can also more or less omit the material and replace it with pure abstractions, or utterly dematerialized forms. In each case of such dematerialization or outward composition of a purely abstract form, feeling must be the only judge, guide and regulator. And, of course, the more the artist uses these abstract forms, the more familiar will he become with their kingdom and the deeper will he advance into this space”.

There is no way of knowing how Andy Hadji adamos would have advanced had death not cut the thread of his life prematurely. There is no doubt he was then at his most mature period, set on working with even greater intensity. In an interview he have in 1988, before being diagnosed with cancer, he said: “I want to take over the world with my work”. Everything shows he would venture deeper into what he had begun, bound to open up to new territories. Therefore, we must consider with near certainty that his work would evolve; indeed, everything he had done foreshadowed a significant evolution.

Each sculpture is a probe into what is sculpture. Each piece of sculpture attempts to answer this question by invoking new facts and principles in terms of both the intellectual and social function of art – which, of course, are placed within the specific conditions of the times, as each work of art is a fruit and product of its era. Andy Hadjiadamos would approach the question through the nature of his materials. The unquestionable power of his sculpture, beyond its aesthetic value, stems from a principle hidden within the material itself. In this sense, it carries a primeval substance that cannot but contain us. 

Bâki Boğaç – living at the crossroads of modernism and spirituality.

by

Dr. Kostas Prapoglou, archaeologist-architect, contemporary art critic, and curator. 

“..for me, sculpture is the tool for reaching new philosophies”.

For Bâki Boğaç, art and life are part of an esoteric process evoking an indispensable equilibrium. Seeking throughout his career those ultimate segments that will compose a harmonious co-existence with his surrounding world, the artist gradually reached an unrivaled state of consciousness. 

Boğaç was born in Larnaca in 1951, his family moved to Famagusta in 1963 and then he went to Istanbul to study architecture at the Faculty of Architecture of Istanbul Technical University. He graduated in 1976 and although he was offered a position in Istanbul to work as an architect, he chose to return to Famagusta, especially after the political troubles of 1974. This was when the known events took place at the northern territory of Cyprus as a response to the Greek-led coup d'état and resulting in the division of the island followed by the displacement of thousands of Cypriots and the subsequent emergence of the Turkish Federated State of Cyprus (1975), now known in its present form as the Northern Cyprus (1983).  

Upon his return to his homeland after his graduation in 1976, Boğaç was appointed by the Famagusta Housing Authority and the North Cyprus Turkish Administration to document all possessions left behind by Greek Cypriots in the area of Varosha (the southern quarter of Famagusta and once a thriving tourist area), who were forced to leave after July 20, 1974. Unaware of Andy Adamos’s career or, even his existence, Boğaç came across a place which was extremely different from any other that he had encountered up until that point. An enormous assortment of artworks, etching plates, paintings and drawings, sketch books, photographs, slides, and exhibition catalogues was all left behind by Adamos in his studio at the Ai Yannis area. And while he fled to South Africa in search of a better life, back on the island Boğaç began the process of what turned out to be one of the most extraordinary events that took place in the Adamos family history. Despite the ongoing obstacles that Boğaç came across while he was unsuccessfully trying to convince local authorities to save the new found artistic treasure, he decided to take action and secretly salvaged everything he had found. He kept it in his very own house for years without getting noticed. His aim was to find the owner and return everything back to him when the political situation altered. 

Seventeen years later, in 1993, Boğaç decided to trust the story and his decision to rescue and repatriate Adamos’s artworks to a member of the American Bureau of Cultural Affairs during the exhibition series Brushworks Across Cultures which was held by the Embassy of the United States aiming to bring Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot artists together. The same year all artworks were finally returned and delivered to their eligible owner by an employee of the American Cultural Department without giving the family any prior notice. Sadly, Andy had already died in 1990 but his family were deeply thankful for this astonishing gift from a fellow artist who none of them had never seen or met before.  

The return of Adamos’s art and Boğaç’s involvement in this exhilarating story still had to be kept under wraps and remain unpublicised due to the political sensitivity of the case and the fact that Boğaç was an active and well-established artist based in Northern Cyprus. It was not until 2003 when the secret story was openly revealed to the public for the first time in articles featured in the Cypriot newspapers of Fileleftheros and Sunday Mail.

During this same period of time and more particularly in 2001, Boğaç officially launched Pygmalion Sculpture Studio (Pygmalion Heykel Atölyesi) in Famagusta. This is situated in the city’s historical district, in a building which is part of the palace complex (Palazzo del Proveditore) built by the Lusignan rule most likely in the 14th century and later modified by the Venetians in the mid-16th century. In 1998, Boğaç rented the space that once used to be the palace chapel (previously restored between 1930 and 1950 and used as a museum until 1974) and after receiving state funding he restored it respecting its distinctive architectural features bringing to life what is known today as Pygmalion Sculpture Studio.  

Risky Travels | Traversing Histories through the Path of Life

Risky Travels brings together the works of the two men who never actually met in person but whose lives, due to fate and circumstance, were so very heavily intertwined. Having lived in the same geographical locus but never having been able to exchange ideas, the two men are now meeting in different terms through their artistic production under the same roof, on the other side of Cyprus.

Boğaç’s works engage for the first time in an active dialogue with those of Adamos at the building of Palia Elektriki (Old Powerhouse) in the old town of Pafos. Twenty one sculptures highlight different periods in his artistic vocabulary reflecting his inspirations alongside his inner and spiritual explorations. Employing a wide range of diverse materials –from plaster, brick and limestone to wood and iron– he assembles a fleet of entities each of them narrating a different story. These beings come to life before the viewer’s eyes triggering their curiosity and imagination. 

All works on view negotiate the acuity and awareness of space permeated through the understanding of our reality while this progressively evolves and unfolds through the authenticity of the quotidian. As American artist, landscape architect and modernist, Isamu Noguchi (1904-1988) put it, “The essence of sculpture is for me the perception of space, the continuum of our existence” but for Boğaç sculpture also means building life again and again with the works moulded with philosophy.

The perception and negotiation of space through notions of surveying the rural and urban habitats, new material experimentation, formulaic modifications and aesthetic change were part of a modernist avant-garde that emerged in Turkey from the 1930s and more intensely after the Second World War in the 1950s. The influx of foreign architects from Germany, Switzerland, Austria, and France to work on the new capital Ankara’s but also Istanbul’s construction of public and state buildings in combination with paradigms of modernist architecture from all over the world, inspired Turkish architects of the time. This is when architectural movements such as International Style, Functionalism, and Rationalism became common points of reference for young emerging architects who worked for the development of urban topographies as a result of the country’s social change and economic growth. Boğaç witnessed as a young boy this transformation but as a university student, he experienced the country’s socio-political and economic turbulence of the 1970s which deeply affected Turkey’s building construction industry before it flourished again in the 1980s during the reformation program of the Süleyman Demirel government. 

Attending painting and sculpture classes as part of his university studies, Boğaç found himself at the epicentre of these new influences which activated a profound impact on his visual lexicon. All for you (1993), a 59cm tall sculpture made of limestone, firstly exhibited at Pygmalion Sculpture Studio, Famagusta, 2001, is an example of the artist’s cognizance of some of the 20th century most prominent painting and sculpture movements. This piece concentrates echoes of cubist elements from 20th century artists such as Jacques Lipchitz (1891-1973) but it simultaneously renders all chosen forms in a new sphere where they effortlessly dissolve into each other engendering a terrain of abstract anthropomorphism, a conglomeration of what might also seem as a surreal biomorphic formation. To Eternal Love (1994), previously shown at the 9th State Art and Sculpture Exhibition, North Nicosia, 1994, and at HP Gallery, North Nicosia, 1996, is a one metre tall totemic sculpture worked on patinated palm wood embracing an assemblage of interlocking forms in an eclectic modernist style.

The fluidity and motion of Boğaç’s curvilinear forms are evocative of the Organic Abstraction of the mid-20th century and, more specifically, the artistic output of Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944), Constantin Brancusi (1876-1957), Jean Arp (1886-1966), Joan Miro (1893-1983), Yves Tanguy (1900-55), British sculptors Barbara Hepworth (1903-75) and Henry Moore (1898-1986) as well as Argentine Alicia Penalba (1918-2009).  

A great number of these artists found common grounds in their practice during the early and mid-20th century after receiving clear influences from the work of French philosopher Henri-Louis Bergson (1859-1941), Creative Evolution (L'Évolution Créatrice) written in 1907. Seeking for an alternative model of evolution mechanism to that of Darwin’s, Bergson poetically suggested that a ‘vital impetus’ or a ‘vital force’ (élan vital) explains the evolution of organisms and are linked with humanity’s creative natural impulses. He also expanded on the conception of time in a more abstract and subjective sense; a discourse that had a major effect on artists, thinkers and writers such as Marcel Proust. All this was of course associated with the contemporary global political situation and its impact on the morale of the population worldwide and, consequently, the expression mode of the international artistic communities. The end of the disastrous World Wars and the time of the machines that in turn gave way to the enervation of movements such as Cubism, Futurism and Constructivism, marked the beginning of new perceptions of reality; this time with nature and its forces as principal protagonists.   

Nature Comes to Life Again I (After The Fire) (1996), (also presented at the State Art and Sculpture Exhibition, North Nicosia, 1996, at Pygmalion Sculpture Studio, Famagusta, 2001, and at A Section From Turkish Cypriot Artists, Eastern Mediterranean University, Famagusta, 2003), Nature Comes to Life Again II (After The Fire) (1996) and Nature Comes to Life Again III (After The Fire) (1996), (both shown at Pygmalion Sculpture Studio, Famagusta, 2001, and at the 9th Güzelyurt Orange Fest, Morphou, 2006), all cast in plaster, incorporate a smaller series of works that were made shortly after Boğaç’s visit to the Kyrenia Mountains following the devastating forest fire in July 1995 that wiped out some 16,000 acres of forest land. These works come to life, accentuating a broader amalgamation of echoes of traumatic experiences deriving from the annihilating ethos of the World Wars. Although Boğaç did not experience the two wars, he sustained the memories of his parents and teachers and projected them into his work. Studying the world’s recent history, he was clearly affected by all those incidents that changed the course of mankind and its progress while he concurrently experienced similar events related to his immediate environment of Northern Cyprus. 

Inevitably, war and peace are two recurring themes in Boğaç’s iconography that continue to surface in later works too. Everyone Against Each Other (2001) and To Be Able to Open to Peace (2002), both shown at Pygmalion Sculpture Studio, Famagusta, 2003, as well as It Become Knotted (2002), exhibited in Pygmalion Sculpture Studio, Famagusta, 2003, and at Inscriptions in the Sand: an Arts and Culture Festival and Conference (The Seventh International Literature and Humanities Conference), Eastern Mediterranean University, Famagusta, 2004, are three sculptures of comparable dimensions which are all cut in limestone and pursue the aesthetics of his older works and reconcile organic abstraction with sophisticated modernist methodology.

Another unique characteristic in Boğaç’s practice is the multidimensional element of his sculptures. Paying attention to more than one observation points, he carefully initiates a different perspective for the viewer to realise each work thus fabricating a number of viewpoints upon rotating each sculpture by 15-20 degrees. With this playful and meaningful praxis the viewer becomes an active participant; we are invited to explore each piece and discover their concealed story. 

Another group of works embrace a number of abstract sculptures, all created between 2001 and 2005 utilising metal for the first time alongside other found, recycled or, as the artist states “trash materials” such as stone, wood and brick. Entitled Insects (which are part of Boğaç’s former Light and Insects exhibition), these sculptures are reminiscent of widely known architectural forms such as bridges, some of them appearing with complicated and others with less complicated anatomy. 

For Boğaç people are made of their very own light and energy. This was the starting point of his Light and Insects concept, which led to an exhibition in 2009 canvassing the percipience of human light. Having acquired a considerable amount of knowledge about light and energy in physical and metaphysical terms by painstakingly and passionately studying Islamic, Eastern and Western philosophies he started searching for the darkness which gives way to the existence of light. This criss-crossing between human energy, mental state shifts, inner conflicts and heterogeneous behavioural patterns orchestrates and animates a realm of new agency and the categorisation of people into three different groups (Light People, Reflectors and Insects). By challenging the different energy levels reflected by individuals, the artist successively created this series, part of which is on show at Risky Travels.

Having their descriptive elements muted but with a pronounced expressive manner, Boğaç introduces us to a series of works that undoubtedly reference our relationship with “perfect organic forms which look like machines at first sight”. Back in 1934, the Machine Art Exhibition held in MoMA New York determined the moment when everybody had falsely believed in machines and instigated an enthusiasm and optimism for their role in humanity. Here, Boğaç investigates to what degree these metaphoric entities which represent three different groups of humanity have an impact on human idiosyncrasy and its society. Redolent of the practice of Catalan sculptor Julio González (1876-1942), Boğaç’s modus operandi considers parallel constraints that are related to the role of “robotic people” (a statement by the artist referring to the influence and manipulation of mass media over humans causing a robot-like behavioural reaction void of further thinking and analysing) in our life and their impact on our hypostasis. During the second half of the 1950s Swiss artist Jean Tinguely (1925-1991) began the production of a series of kinetic sculptures titled Métamatics with which he criticised the interface between machines and humans. But Boğaç goes a step further by introducing natural materials into his sculptures; metal parts appear to be in conversation with stone and brick, however blurring the boundaries of what came first, of what succeeds the other.  

Insects impersonate fragments of memory, representing a vicious circle that people fall into and a lost humanity. Insects are also the witnesses of a process of metamorphosis, where materials of no use suddenly evolve into new unchangeable characters; a recycling process that brings inactive objects into life, it turns them into a stimulating art form. Their translucent hypnotic colours that are activated in the dark are clear reminders of real life insect organisms that can be found everywhere in this world, dominating every aspect of our life. His kinetic sculptures – a practice that Boğaç engaged with during the last ten years – place the viewer deeper into the philosophy of each artwork and each individual subject matter. 

The visual language of Bâki Boğaç is a synthesis of a multi-layered practice that expands across the domain of personal experiences. These closely correspond with the socio-economic and political fluctuations of the environment he grew up in and works in and lives in, and a spirituality that he has been working on throughout the years. Boğaç learnt about and appreciated the value of energy and light that bind the soul and the body in a both corporeal and metaphysical sense and his practice reflects all those spiritual conquests that he has achieved. This translates into the respect he demonstrates in the use of materials and the ability to consciously balance their inner oscillations. 

The manifold work on view is not just a small survey of Boğaç’s oeuvre, it embodies an emotional journey that touches everybody’s heart, mind and soul. It is an homage to the personal and interpersonal experiences of a highly skilled, charismatic and altruistic individual who is tuned with the broader sense of artistic expression, manifests a continuous respect for and connection with his fellow humans, feels the pulse of his surrounding environment and has masterfully captured in his work the quintessence of life.