Nikos Kessanlis Biography
Nikos Kessanlis (1930, Thessaloniki – 2004, Athens) is a Greek artist. He attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Athens (1950 – 1955). He also attended the School of Art Restoration Conservation in Rome (1955 – 1959) with a scholarship from the Italian Institute of Athens, while simultaneously following lessons in mural painting and engraving at the School of Ornamental Arts of San Giacomo.
In the 1950s, Kessanlis' work reflected the trends of informal art and abstract expressionism. In Paris in the 1960s, he became ideologically close to the Nouveaux Réalistes and, together with his French colleagues, was one of the protagonists in the creation of mec-art. His return to Greece in 1980 as a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Athens, his mandate as rector (1991 – 1995) and the transfer of the school's ateliers to Peiraios Street concretely testify to his social concern for visual art in Greece.
The structure of the image, the meaning of the gesture and the question of multiple reproduction and the implication of the spectator in the final product have been among his constant concerns throughout his career. He has held more than 30 solo exhibitions in Greece and abroad. The MMCA hosted a major retrospective of his work in 1997. He represented Greece at the Venice Biennale in 1988. He also exhibited his work at numerous international events, including Nouvelles aventures de l'objet (Paris, 1961) and Three Proposals for a New Greek Sculpture (Venice, 1964). He is an internationally renowned artist, having received the Modigliani Prize (1959), an honorable mention at the São Paulo Biennial (1961), the Lissone Prize and first prize at the Salon de Montrouge (1997).
