journey in light and time

Opening: Saturday 10 November 2018 | 20.00

Duration: 10 November 2018 - 8 February 2019

MUNICIPAL ART GALLERY OF AGRINIO

GEORGIOS PAPANASTASIOU / Mayor of Agrinio

The tour in the Papastratos Tobacco Warehouses, through the lens of Christos Simatos, is a journey in the most vivid memories of our city. Through the cracks of time, dreamy scents of rare blends emerge, along with the aura of an era gone and forgotten.

The history of the Papastratos family is our living heritage. Their works, our sacred legacy, our monumental treasure. If the collective memory of a city is inscribed in its building culture, Agrinio is permeated by the works of our great benefactors. Specifically, the Tobacco Warehouses, an architectural ornament in the center of our city, preserve a powerful and unchangeable presence in time.

CHRISTOS GAROUFALIS / Pictorial Artist, Αrtistic Director of the Municipal Art Gallery of Agrinio

From light to darkness, from today to yesterday, from the commotion of life to the silence of absence. A course run two ways. Sometime ago they were teeming with life, and so? Today they stand there hermetically sealed, with their walls embracing history tightly… Christos Simatos invites us to take a journey into the past…. His goal isn’t to just freeze time, but to imprint the sensation of the moment preserving memory. The visible is just the pretext. Every click of his camera becomes the mark of the time and era he brings to life, images soaked with the sweat of so many people and their agony to get their everyday bread…

CHRISTOS HARPANTIDIS / President and CEO Papastratos CMC S.A.

More than 100 years have passed from the foundation of the PAPASTRATOS CMC S.A. tobacco company in Agrinio. A company that was meant to go a long way in light and time, to become the largest tobacco industry of our country, continuously supporting the financial and social life of Greece. Going on with steady and secure steps,

He was born in Athens in 1977. He has studied at the Athens School of Fine Arts with professors Y. Psychopaidis, M. Spiliopoulos and M. Babousis, with a scholarship from the GSSF (1997-2002). He has attended courses on painting and photography in the UCM Facultad Bellas Artes in Madrid, Spain, with the Erasmus programme (2000). He has completed the Postgraduate Course in Fine Arts of the A.S.F.A. (2005-2007) with professors M. Spiliopoulos and  T. Christakis. He has presented his work in seven solo exhibitions and has participated in numerous group exhibitions. His works can be found in various private collections in Greece and abroad. He specializes in High-Definition and Ultra-High-Definition photography, in multispectral photography (UV, IR), in archeological photography as well as macro photography. He photographs works of art, pictorial installations, architectural sites and portraits. Since 2013  he has been collaborating with the National Hellenic Research Foundation in photographing inscriptions of  the Classical and Hellenistic period in the region of Macedonia. He has photographed findings in several archeological museums and sites, including the National Archaeological Museum, the  Archaeological Museums of Thessaloniki, Pella, Edessa, Kilkis, Argos, Aigai (Vergina), the fresco in Philip II’s tomb etc. He is a member of the Chamber of Fine Arts of Greece, the Hellenic Center for Photography and the Hellenic Copyright Organization. He lives and works in Athens.

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