A book as a book should be: well designed, well printed and a treasure chest full of jewels of works.

Seeing, interpreting, feeling, and perceiving are the concepts Panayotis is interested in. The foreword by Matthias Frehner and Rugula Berger starts with the words VEDO DOVE DEVO, the core message from Nakis Panayotidis shown on the façade of the Kunstmuseum Bern: I see where I must. This book accompanied his comprehensive retrospective shown at the museum named Seeing the invisible from 21/11/2014 to 15/3/2015. In the chapter The Thief of Light –Nakis Panyotidis, a complete artist, Matthias Ferner, director of the Kunstmuseum Bern, art historian, curator and publicist, explains the works of Nakis Panayotidis, the Arte Povera movement in Switzerland and the themes explored by the artist. “All of the works exhibited at Kunstmuseum Bern are autonomous artworks, yet at the same time they are the building blocks of a superordinate cosmos. The artist abolishes the borders. He creates complex animated relationships between past and present, between myth and civilization, reality and dream. Light is hereby the medium that suspends the contradictions. For Panayotidis light is the energy of life-essence and not mere illumination….”

Full-page photos illustrate the works, well photographed showing all different materials, sculptures, paintings, installations and photos in the museums space in atmospherically green-grayish tones.

In the chapter Nakis Panayotidis: Light, Logos and Liberty Bruno Corà describes the light and architecture, writing and photographs after which some 200 pages follow with the works in the exposition.

The chapter Do I Spy With my Little Eye? Sabine Hahnloser Tschopp starts with a series of texts exploring, the nouns of seeing, light, signs and symbols, followed by a biography on the artist by Petros Markaris.  Followed by pages with pencil sketches of several works, the original text Luce, Logos E Libertà in Italian is printed, finishing the book with pages on exhibited works, Literature and list of solo exhibitions, group expositions and works in public collections.
I would like to make a small remark on the English text: though aesthetical, it is too light to read comfortably.

A book all should read on this unique artist and his works.
Angela van der Burght

See the Agenda> Kunstmuseum Bern