EXHIBITIONS: TASOS PAVLOPOULOS

TÜóïò Ðáõëüðïõëïò: The Extras
KALFAYAN Gallery
22 November - 3 December

When clothes' pegs were still wooden, I saw my first film: Tom Sawyer turned backwards! The church courtyard was packed, and I had to squeeze behind the makeshift screen of the traveling municipal cinema. One Sunday morning in a neighborhood movie theater, Mascista, the freer of slaves had already caught a whale while fishing on a “Cinecitta” beach, even before the opening credits! Perhaps it was that image that led me, subconsciously, to the design of this year's poster for the Thessaloniki International Film Festival. The “fisherman” in a suit has just fished a piece of film, or is he just using the film as bait to catch “whales”? In any event, we, the audience, can safely mutter “Feast your eyes on this!” Then I began cutting school and watching two movies a day, tricking the grocer into paying me for the empty bottles of beer that I had just stolen from his crates! The usher would walk by every so often and spray us with insecticide. Next came X-rated movies at open-air theaters which I watched from neighboring buildings under construction or friends' balconies. In the summer, in a seaside village, in the yard of a house which was occasionally converted into a cinema, we would watch the films announced earlier by a Òtown-crier” with a megaphone, together with the “cinŽphile” chickens in the nearby chicken coop! Time went by and, after many years abroad as a college student, I came home to Greece. The first job I got was as an extra! The film's English costume-designer insisted I dress up as a priest because I'd grown a beard! In the end, I dressed as a worker “of the period”. The extras dressed as “aristocrats” were puffed up with pride and jostled each other for a close-up. I would clock-in, disappear, and then come back at the end of the day to collect my dayÕs wages. Eventually, I got caught, and despite the fact that the gay costume-designer had taken a liking to me, I was fired. And thus my career in the movies came to an inglorious end. All these incidents and many others recently passed before my eyes like a movie and became the “driving force” behind my work. I combimed a little Picasso with a little Almüdovar and a little Karaghiozi, and settled back in my seat to hiss at the “bad guys””!

Tassos Pavlopoulos