Aristeidis Lappas
Seven Days in New Crete

The Breeder is pleased to present Seven Days in New Crete, Aristeidis Lappas’ new solo exhibition.

Named after a seminal future-utopian speculative fiction novel by the poet and critic Robert Graves, the exhibition, like the book, explores how mythological personalities and personal mythologies intertwine in narrative forms that span the past, present and future. The exhibition has particular characteristics that are inspired by Graves’ novel and his broader writings on Greek Mythology. The ground floor presents a series of large format paintings revisiting mythological figures that have already appeared in Lappas’ work. The Minotaur in particular, looms large as a presence in this Sacred Grove where each painting is flanked with lush foliage that create triptychs which envelop and unfold around each scene. In the same way that Graves uses the novel form to explore how he can place himself as a character in an experiential version of his more critical writings, Lappas is asking what his relationship is to Greek culture, history and notions of belonging – by painting it.

The second part of the exhibition is hosted in the intimate space of The Breeder Feeder. It moves further East, further back in time, and deeper into the human psyche and questions of civilisation. In the Mesopotamian poem Gilgamesh, one of the oldest and richest poems of all time, we encounter one of the first epic heroes (after which the poem is named), but also one of the first supporting characters in storytelling, in his beloved friend Enkidu.

Like the Minotaur, Enkidu exudes an animal energy that requires taming and the sacred prostitute Shamhat is sent from the temple to ‘civilise’ him. Over seven days and seven nights they make love and through this alchemical process Enkidu becomes detached from the animal world and becomes human. But like many ancient texts that arrive to us only in fragments, what happens in those seven days and seven nights is not known. And here Lappas inhabits the blank left by history and loss and imagines this intertwining, this education, this sacred alchemical journey from beast to tragic companion worthy of Gilgamesh.

A cycle of dozens of erotic scenes adorns the walls, creating a circular narration that resembles  the cycle of life and death that Epic mythology speaks. And from here we complete the cycle and return to the Scared Grove on the ground floor, and understand that Lappas himself is on this journey and search for selfhood, and wants to share it with us, through form, colour and light.

Aristeidis Lappas (b. Athens, 1993) lives and works in Athens. He studied for a BA in the University of West England, Bristol, UK, during which time he did an exchange program with Academia De Belle Art, Bologna, Italy. His work has been the subject of numerous exhibitions like: The Portent Passage of Teras, T.A.R, Molyvos, Lesbos (2021, solo); Tenderness of a Cutting Sword, The Breeder, Athens, (2020, solo); Laughing to the Joke of the Sour Oranges, curated by Hugo Wheeler, Zoodochou Pigis 91, Athens, Greece (2017, solo); Angelus Novus, HVW8 Gallery, Berlin (2022, group); Theorimata 2, National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens (2020, group); Part II, The Breeder, Athens (2019, group); Break Time Contemplations, Transformer, Washington D.C. (2018, group); In 2022 he created She Who Protects, a mural at Omonoia Square,  produced by Onassis Stegi. He has participated in many residencies like St.A.I.R., Graz, Austria, Tryfon Art Residency, Lesvos, Greece,  Thermia Project, Kythnos, Greece, among others.  His work was part on the 7th Athens Biennale Eclipse (2021).