Anyone who walks in the “Costa Navarino” countryside is dazzled by its incomparable divine beauty…What is it that makes this premier resort stand out in the whole world? I’ll tell you the secret… While walking on this earth, you fall in love with people and this blessed place. The body relaxes, the soul is calmed, the mind travels and the appetite rises…

Japanese artist Ryusuke Kido sets fire to his artwork

Heaven is right here. Vast green fields, small creeks, gold-embroidered beaches, clean air and a breathtaking view. It’s as if you see the hand of God, when the sunset’s golden rays slip along the balcony, painting the landscape before you with differing colors. Every day is different. From absolute opulence (a spa area of 4,000 square meters), to walking along a paved path fragrant with the scent of jasmine and eating a ripe fruit on the sly. Freedom…Discreet luxury, authentic experiences, golf courses and sporting activities harmonize perfectly with the diverse regional environment, creating a luxurious paradise on Messinia! This is the Costa Navarino envisioned by the late Basil COnstantakopoulos, the “captain” as people still refer to him, with the utmost respect. A “church” of Art. Art in every form, in every corner of the complex that “birthed” the secondary contemporary art platform “Engaging Art” which is organized for a second year in the Messinian “Mecca”. Its editor is famous and distinguished artist Dimitris Antonitsis.

The Lego city, before and after.

This year’s exhibition hosts four other artists. German Carsten Fock, Martha Dimitropoulou and Eva Mitala, as well as Japanese Ryusuke Kido, who travelled from Tokyo to Greece to give his own touch to a tree that will remain within Costa Navarino, a big sculpture on the trunk of an olive tree burned by lightning. The final shaped will be one that even he, cannot predict.

Artist Ryusuke Kido with Dimitris Antonitsis.

Last year, the “Engaging Art: 60 picks per minute” included four solo exhibitions and each artist left behind a project to link themselves to the next that would be used to set up their next projects. This year, everything is different. Each artist makes an in situ piece, which they integrate in the exhibition.

The title of this year’s gala is “Mimicry”, which corresponds to the central idea, with the premise that an organism, in order to survive within nature, can either adapt or camouflage itself. Dimitris Antonitsis’ art is authentic printed pictures on silver leather depicting fragments of the tourism campaign of the Greek Tourism Organization (EOT) in the ’60s. In all these pictures, the signifier is supposed to be our ancient cultural heritage, combined with some foreign celebrities such as Yul Brynner and Elizabeth Taylor, photographed in front of our country’s monuments.

Dimitris Antonitsis explains Ryusuke Kido’s art

Who is the famous Japanese artist Ryusuke Kido who travelled to our country from the other side of the globe, and what does he want to tell us? He is an excellent sculptor, based on classic education, even though in this specific exhibition he is involved through a completely different type of work, an installation he calls “Eternal Future”. It consists of colored Lego blocks, which are made of rare incense, mashed together and turned into paste. The artist then molds each piece in a special jenga-style way that he has constructed, creating his own city. The integrated, final work of his artwork is ashes and embers. Incenses in Lego form that act like an allegory to the eternal circle of life, as well as the transmutation of matter. His work burns down before our eyes. As he says, he sets fire to it, but the work is burned, but not lost. It remains in the space it once occupied, in a different form, even in the air, as a memory, as a smell. It is no coincidence that 3 years ago, aged just 27 years of age, he held a solo exhibition at the Modern Art Museum of Tokyo. Ryusuke Kido is an excellent artist. And he proves it through simplicity…

Original photo of Elizabeth Taylor in silver leather – by Dimitris Antonitsis

His strength, as he revealed to us, what inspires him, are his own parents.  “When I studied at the School of Fine Arts of Tokyo, a powerful earthquake took place, which sealed my future career as an artist. The event was the beginning of my transition from the solid, to the more fluid materials illustrating the process of decay. I was unable to ignore the view of an urban landscape, which established my future as an artist. My purpose was that even through the saddening things, to show an optimistic side of things”, were the first words of the Japanese artist when he visited the exhibition.  As a leading sculptor, we wanted to know his opinion, his convincing argument, for the return of the “Elgin” Marbles. Looking to the sea, stealing a quick glance out the window,  he answered: “I think every sculpture must be located where it was “born” and where it deserves to be”.

Martha Dimitropoulou’s art project, made out of pine needles

The group exhibition at Costa Navarino will last until September 14th. On the 30th of June, a parallel program begins, entitled “Become an archaeologist for a day, or a week!”, where, the hotel, cooperating with Professor Petros Themelis and the Company of Messenian Studies, will give visitors the opportunity to participate in the excavation process under the supervision and guidance of a special team of archaeologists.

Martha Dimitropoulou’s art project, made out of pine needles