Description
Artist/Maker: Kostis Georgiou (b. 1956)
Object/Materials and Techniques: Painted Aluminum
Dimensions: L. 230 cm. x W. 65 cm. x H. 70 cm.
Art style: Sculpture / Abstract Expressionism / Symbolism / Contemporary Mannerism
Current Location: Artist’s collection
Curator’s note: Although paintings and sculptures deploy in parallel within Kostis Georgiou oeuvre, it is his sculpture that was right from the beginning of his artistic career so distinctive as to be rendered indelible and recognizable to the viewer’s visual memory.
Minimalist forms of animal sculptures, including bulls, in different postures, polished surfaces, by bronze, aluminum, with bright colours like red, and rather large scale of stature in which the creator has proved that moves with comfort and expertise, impose their own set design on the surrounding space where situated. Over the years, within the field of public art in which the artists is greatly involved, and more specifically in public venues all around the world like parks, squares, gardens, foyers, hotels, museums, galleries etc., Kostis Georgiou’s sculptural works, immersive, playful, pop but at the same time impactful as far as social commentary and hidden semiology is concerned, inevitably thrust themselves into attention, magnetizing the viewer at once.
In the same way to the entirety of Kostis Georgiou’s total output, so too the bull sculpture, Taurus (Latin for bull, derived from the Hellenic word Ταῦρος), audacious in size and form transliterates into a context that is both elegant and dynamic.
Taurus constitutes part of the artist’s wider unity ‘Taurus and Dancers’.
Through its aggressive vivid red colour, strong pulsating morphological plasticity and contemporary media it celebrates the artist’s Abstract Expressionism signature while, at the same time, encapsulating the spirit and aesthetics of Ancient Hellenic culture, associated to his roots.
The bull sculpture is mainly inspired from the renowned and insuperable Prehistoric Minoan civilization on the Hellenic island of Crete which is considered to be the first advanced and most important Bronze Age Aegean civilization in whole Europe. Bull was a central theme in the Minoan civilization, with bull heads and bull horns being used as prime symbols in the Knossos Palace. Minoan frescos and ceramics depict bull-leaping, known as taurokathapsia, an Ancient Hellenic ritual of non–violent bull fighting involving acrobats of both sexes vaulted over the back of charging bulls by grasping their horns.
Furthermore, bulls epitomize masculinity within the animal kingdom, and give rise to feelings of astonishment when seen in nature because of their dominating features. Their delicate physical characteristics along with their bold character, and their timeless link with strength and power in both their physical and spiritual presence, all contribute to their potent symbolism, nearly equal to a king, across many cultures, warranting praise and worship.
Respectively, thoughtfully designed, Kostis Georgiou’s Taurus conveys a compensating largeness of effect and a sense of welcome vigour upscaling any space where placed or exhibited.
The graceful outlines of the corpus accurately display its dynamic silhouette giving the impression of both potential movement and sculptural equilibrium whilst the red colour reflects the intensity in its eventual kinesis. All together as a whole act out the moment of stasis just before the action.
On the whole, deceptively astounding in form and dominant in shape, Kostis Georgiou’s bull monumental statue definitely sets the grace standard. It carries both timeless ancient appeal and modern classiness, all in one-of-a-kind object of desire which occupies that tenuous space between monument and fine art.
Place now into your space the iconic Taurus sculpture to signify force and dynamism, and truly enhance the art collecting experience that bares the aesthetic signature of such a celebrated artist like world-renowned Kostis Georgiou.
