Mirrors of the mind: Nikolas Calas through the looking-glass (Regarding Nicolas Calas, Athens, 21-22 Oct 2016) (original) (raw)

In 1929 Nikolas Calas photographed himself in a mirror of a wardrobe, in a room in Tinos with a hand-held camera (ΕΛΙΑ L003.124). The camera is not visible at first sight, as Calas tries to ‘hide’ it, positioning it in front of his tie. This self- portrait is a manifestation of early self- portraying in photography and can be compared to other modernist self-portraits of the time, especially the ones, where the camera is not visible but somehow hidden in the shadow (for e.g. Lotte Jacobi, ‘Autoportrait’, 1937). When examining Calas’ poetry and prose texts it is noticeable, that mirrors are a constant motive, as I will try to show. Especially interesting is the connection between mirrors and translation, for example in the correspondence with Williams Carlos Williams, regarding the translations of Calas’ french poems ‘Wrested from Mirrors’, ‘The Agony Among the Crowd’, ‘Narcissus in the Desert’ and ‘To Regain the Day Again’ into American. Williams is borrowing the metaphor of the mirror from Calas thematizing the translator as the other, as a reflection of the original. By analyzing the metaphor of the mirror it is possible as well to reconsider the use of the Pseudonyms of Nikolas Calamaris as a reflection of himself. After this considerations I will end my talk with the portfolio of prints and objects by eleven artists (Vincenzo Agnetti, Arakawa, Joseph Beuys, Marcel Broodthaers, Richard Hamilton, Roy Lichtenstein, Bruce Nauman, Meret Oppenheim, Robert Rauschenberg, Man Ray, James Rosenquist) introduced by Nikolas Calas and edited in 1975 with the title Mirros of the mind.