NICOSIA, CYPRUS.- The Nicosia Municipal Arts Center
together with the Pierides Museum of Contemporary Art presents Accidental Meetings, on view through July 31, 2005. The exhibition attempts an approach to the contemporary reality of Cypriot Visual Arts. At the same time, it aspires to act as a meeting platform for 65 significant Greek-Cypriot and Turkish-Cypriot artists, both older but mainly younger, who, in the thirty years which have elapsed, have managed through their work to create a multifaceted mosaic constituting the identity of cypriot Contemporary Art.

The Accidental Meetings exhibition is essentially the first chance to self-analyse and self-delineate contemporary cypriot Art, as well as a challenge to our artists to determine for themselves our contemporary Visual Arts appearance at a time when our country is acquiring greater and greater geo-political significance and interest, and is becoming a nodal point for East-West dialogue. It also aspires at forming a meeting-point for trends and perceptions and ideas and mentalities, but mainly a space where energy can be released and new matter created.

It is a fact that in the thirty years which have elapsed since 1974, Cypriot artists have managed, through many adversities, to articulate their own distinctive utterances in a region which faced and continues to face a serious problem.

It’s quite often the case that the realization of a problem such as the Cyprus Issue is expressed as a purely internal process. The continued existence of the Green Line, the absence of a solution and the insurmountable problems which still exist are all elements which significantly influenced the course of the island’s Visual Arts as well.

One could say that it’s almost the fashion in this day and age for artists to observe and comment on socio-political and other phenomena of our times, and set themselves at the frontline of “difficult” problems and in the vanguard of critical regions.

On the other hand, one should appreciate in Cypriot Art of recent years the fact that it tried to create a unique and contemporary character, searching desperately (and often extrovertly) in an attempt to redefine itself.

The overpowering fact, however, is that today, Cyprus stands at an ideological crossroads which will determine its future in the years to come. It is for this reason that introspection and an analysis of its hitherto Visual Arts course has such significance.