“The Byzantine World of Tasos Mantzavinou” at the Byzantine and Christian Museum

The temporary exhibition entitled: “The Byzantine World of Tasos Mantzavinou”. In more than 100 drawings, constructions, paintings and works of fabric, the theme of the artist’s dialogue with Byzantine culture, art and Christian worship is presented in full.

The majority of the artist’s drawings and works are presented for the first time.

In the work of Tassos Sp. Manzavinou’s work gradually appears, from the 1990s onwards, with iconographic elements that originate from the Byzantine tradition and which have become increasingly dense in the last decades, in order to become dominant in the artist’s work. The orthodox parish church, tombs, amulets, the dragon-killing Saint George, portable iconostases and the polyphonic universe of Byzantine decoration are important sources of inspiration, which are presented thematically in the exhibition.

In the Byzantine cultural tradition, which reaches back to the popular Byzantine art of modern times, but also in an experiential relationship with Orthodoxy, Tasos Manzavinos discovers an important part of his artistic identity and transforms it into a personal painting vocabulary without elements of copying or sterile imitation. Through the interaction of the Byzantine tradition with the present day, the artistic idiom that bears his signature was born.