NIKOS LAGOS
Everyday life mnemonics Sotirios Bahtsetzis The question of memory -and thus the means of social and individual communication with our immediate environment- was partly resolved in the past through mnemonics; memory aids, which sought to inscribe in the human brain’s tabula rasa the various cultural representations through symbols and emblematic images. In the ‘art of memory’ of the Romans, of the Christian medieval orators as well as of the Renaissance artists, spatial metaphors (such as palaces, theatres and temples) were predominant, the key issue being the placement of vivid images in coordinated positions inside an imaginary edifice. This mental walking through the edifice was a mechanism of a fictitious depiction, which has assisted in the orator’s or the artist’s retention of information. However, along with the spread of writing through printing and the ‘gradual external expression of memory with the aid of peripheral devices (books, the computer)’, memory theatres have lost their main importance as the prevailing models of organizing knowledge, becoming mere subjective microcosms of memories. The most contemporary version of these technologies (the Internet) constitutes an example of such an intentional storage of memory as well as a deposition of our thinking in a technical device. Indeed, the criticism exercised by Plato against the written word (as the first technique to externalize memory) which, unlike oral speech, commits the living being in an unalterable text, acquires particular importance, in an age where the touch of a key on our PC corresponds to what one knows or not, what one remembers or has already forgotten. Nevertheless, microcosms of memories, these personal “atlases of images” which often also constitute the raw material of artistic creation, continue to have an important social function. And this happens precisely because these microcosms strongly resist the understanding of the world through technologies which organize social and collective memory via specific criteria of rationalisation, imposed on the world by those who rule it. To refer, therefore, to the work of an artist who emphatically uses in his painting key-words, symbols, pictograms and word games, as mere labyrinths in personal cartographies of memories, presents only half of the truth. The verbal cartographies in Nikos Lagos’s most mature work (paintings with acrylic on canvas and drawings with charcoal on paper), in which the graphical chromatic depiction gives precedence to semiotic writing, function more as a contemporary ‘biblia pauperum’ and as resistance against a superficial society, a society of pseudo-culture due to information overload. In juxtaposition to the spectacular deluge of images, and the allure of these images, the semiotics of the artist invoke a faith in our own associations, our personal mnemonic, the modern imagination (imaginatio) and invention (inventio). The linguistic bricolage of everyday experience creates new global atlases intended as our in tandem directives. Together with works that employ figural cybernetics, such as those by A.R. Penck, and production mechanisms of image-meaning such as the works by Jean-Michel Basquiat (just to mention two of the artists Nikos Lagos pits himself against), the artist tries to subvert the narcissism of a contemporary world that doesn’t want to change. There’s no childlike innocence or adolescent rebellion a la graffiti in Lagos’ works, but instead a politically-rooted criticism against acquired and media-constructed images, meanings and values.
Nikos Lagos (Athens 1970) is one of the most prominent Greek painters of his generation. Using both written and symbolic language, he creates his own visual microcosm. Obsessive but playful, auto referential, but socially sensitive, his work functions like poetry. The more you engage with it, the more meaning you can derive.
Alice. Mixed media on canvas 180X180cm. 2007
Viders. Mixed media on canvas 200x200cm. 2005
Untitled. Mixed media on canvas 300x200cm. 2008
Drive. Mixed media on canvas, 70x150cm. 2007
FishFry(Sun+Moon). Acrylic and oilpastel on canvas 200x200cm. 2005
OH!. Mixed media on canvas, 300x200cm. 2007
Playmobil. Mixed media on canvas, 40x30cm. 2007
Slime. Mixed media on canvas, 40x50cm. 2007
Three bullets. Mixed media on canvas 400x200cm. 2005
Some Bullets. Mixed media on wood board 110X130cm. 2005
Woof. Mixed media on canvas, 250x200cm. 2007
Tin Can. Mixed media on canvas, 200x200cm. 2013
Oh, No! The Potatohead! Mixed media on canvas, 300x200cm. 2013
Red Pyjamas. Mixed media on canvas, 200x200cm. 2012
Clouds. Oil on canvas 100X70cm. 2014
Untitled (Dream). Oil on canvas 70X70cm. 2014
Untitled. Oil on canvas 50x50cm. 2014
Untitled. Oil on canvas, 100X100cm. 2014
Fool. Oil on canvas 120x60cm. 2014
Things to do. Oil on canvas 70x70cm. 2014
Tik Tak. Oil on canvas 100x100cm. 2014
Pigs. Oil on canvas 50x50cm. 2014
Lela. Oil on canvas 50x50cm. 2014
Untitled. Oil and Charcoal on paper mounted on canvas 150X150cm. 2014
I was asked to choose a painting and write my thoughts. An Indian of the Amazon is wandering around in a big city, inside a limo. Do I prefer the city or nature? Animals are innocent. We are animals as well, but evolved ones. All the rest is mere visions that just suit our needs. Would the Indian succumb to the temptations? Why should he look like Iggy Pop? (Not that I ever particularly enjoyed Iggy Pop.) All we are is just memories and experiences. Perhaps history and the things we have been taught. Many of the animals are symbols. The elephant, the memory, the huge innocent pachyderm. The beautiful giraffe, no matter how high she has stretched, still holds her elegance. The dog, the friend. Memories from travels up in the Alps, black years full of anxiousness, agony and drugs. The city nevertheless remains the same. Family, my son, home. Home as a new symbol. Like a cross for the believers. Breaking Bad said it best: ‘Family, what else is out there?’ Notes from summers full of anarchy and conversation. In the park of Attica I once saw a big box full of holes saying: ‘contains live animals.’ 
 What could have been in there? Such a joyful sight! Felt like listening to the sounds of the jungle, the tweets, the moans, the howls. All is random. Tic Tac Toe is random, in death you always lose, only if you’re out of the game you forget about it all. The ladder is a symbol of a dream, good or bad, might be black and going down, might be beautiful and going up. The bricks of which the city was built. Of which we were all built. The cartoons that never die. Coyote is falling from a 100m cliff and comes back pissed, just with a head bump. TNT explodes on his face and he comes back pissed, just black from all the smoke. Is ambition real or just a form of desperation? The chauffer in the painting is me again, together with me, the Indian. Distant memories, full of voices and mistreatment in the fucking family. Is this painting happy in the end? Is this what we’re looking for? I used to love Basquiat, now he doesn’t move me so much. Not his paintings, just his position in life. The hard part is to survive, to adapt, to go on. There we go with Darwin again! The black cloud seems nice, the clouds are part of this world, they water and feed the earth, the sky becomes clear again and so the story goes. A shoal of fish is swimming lazily in the total quiet of the depth of the sea. Just looking at them with a mask makes me feel as if I was a part of the water, the mother of us all. I’m a rookie Buddhist. The clock is going tic, tac, tic, tac, all the time, time counts backwards. The Stones said it: ‘Time is on my side.’ Oh!if only! Tenderness. The ABC can tell us everything. What’s in the little box? Out pops a fist from a cartoon. Or a present. In a wall I read once ‘Our only hometown is our childhood’ It’s a roll of dice thrown by someone else, a deck of cards that was just handed to you. You play along. Many have lost with two aces, other have won with a three and a two. But what is ambition really? What I make in a year, others make in the stock market in a single day. Will anyone remember that law on the banks and the immunity that went hand in hand with it? Fuck it. The stupid little tags on products flashing ‘NEW’ are not anymore depressing, ever since my son arrived. They are euphoric, beautiful! The overlayering of paint on the canvas makes me wary, I’m tired of it. It’s useless. I found my joy in oil paint, the colors take their time to dry and they respect one another. Color is emotion. I make utopic worlds now, without erasing anything. And little iron sculptures that spurt out of the paintings as entities of their own. Evolution and adaptability is everything. Everything changes. And one should be optimistic.
Nikos Lagos