Yiorgos Kordakis

Yiorgos Kordakis

M+B GALLERY is pleased to announce the Los Angeles debut exhibition of thirteen shimmering, artfully composed photographs by the exciting, young Greek photographer YIORGOS KORDAKIS in GLOBAL SUMMER, opening December 13 and running through January 24. Like the great Impressionists Monet and Turner, Kordakis captures the haunting atmosphere of sea, clouds and sky in all their entrancing beauty.

Kordakis is intent on seeing the world freshly, tending to see life emptied out and remote. Approaching the human condition from a distance, he reflects on its unyielding mystery and relationship to all encompassing nature. By choosing just the right place and moment to take his photographs, he conveys both the loneliness and hunger to be part of something greater, perhaps more intense now than ever.

Radiant, hazy and seductive, Kordakis’ pictures hover on the borders of obliteration. They have nothing in common with seaside pictures of frolicking children and bikini clad beauties, but rather have an otherworldly quality, as if the scenes existed outside of time. “I am not a reporter,” he says. “I don't want to make a statement or claim that I was present. I prefer to be a distant observer of our natural tendency as human beings to be attracted by the water.”

The inhabitants of his seascapes seem to live in desert-like space, relieved only by touches of blue sky and sea.  Though he includes beaches in countries as diverse as India, Lebanon, Denmark, France, Greece and the United States, their similarities outweigh their differences. With inspired instinct, he recognized that there is something far more than sensual pleasure that draws people to these locales, and he helps us understand that ourselves.

“The water is like a giant magnet,” Kordakis says, “an irresistible attraction. Sometimes I think that maybe there is something even deeper in our relation to water. Maybe it is the fact that in it we feel closer to our nature since we wear as little as possible, being almost like we were on the day nature gave birth to us. Or, maybe, it is the fact that we all spend our first nine months living in a cozy, liquid environment, traveling in our own personal sea.”

It is important to Kordakis that each location supports his concept of Global Summer and, of course, has photographic interest as well. Unusually, he uses a 4x5 camera with a Polaroid back and Polaroid film, taking the images and scanning, enlarging and transforming them into his striking, dream-like compositions. Since this kind of film has since been discontinued, his project might be one of the last done with such film.

Born in Athens in 1973, Yiorgos Kordakis studied automotive design in Turin, Italy and media management in London. He has published four books of photographs and has exhibited in galleries in Greece, Germany and England, as well as his most recent critically acclaimed show at the Karsten Greve Gallery in Paris. This will be Kordakis first exhibition at M+B and in the United States.