Fragments

The Panayotis & Effie Michelis Foundation was established in 1979 by Effie Michelis with the aim of studying and researching Philosophical Aesthetics - both at a theoretical level and in its applications - while simultaneously expanding its boundaries. In this context, it organized the exhibition of Socrates Mavrommatis, aiming to raise questions and reflections in the dialogue that unfolds between Photography, Archaeology, Art, and Aesthetics. The exhibition presents a small part of the work of the internationally renowned photographer Sokrate Maurommate, who has dedicated his life to "applied" archaeological photography. The selection of photos was made by the photographer himself and includes both black and white and color photographs. The works depicted come from museums and archaeological sites in Greece, as well as from the documentation of restoration works on the Acropolis. Maurommate's photos are not just evidence for archaeologist researchers, revealing details often invisible to the naked eye, but also unveil his personal emotion. His gaze is present and distinctive, projecting significant elements of monuments and archaeological findings. "Aesthetics in applied archaeological photography was shaped in the first hundred or so years of photographic presentation of monuments and objects of archaeological interest. From the 1850s to the early 1960s, the transformation of color reality into black and white established the reading of the ancient world in an abstract way and consequently accepted the artistic status of its representation. In the following years, as color representation overcame its weaknesses in terms of reliability and durability, photographed antiquities lost somewhat aesthetically but gained in documentation. In the already formed aesthetics of black and white rendering, color forced photographers and the audience to accept a 'truth' closer to reality, adding a new parameter that sought new forms, abstract shapes, and details of an unexpected microcosm, an indistinct piece of information in a small excerpt. The connecting elements summarizing the content of this presentation are the fragmentary representation of monuments and objects reaching the detail of an almost invisible point, where documentation and artistic intention coexist. All images fall within applied archaeological photography and have been created for the needs of recording restoration works on the Acropolis and illustrating archaeological books and catalogs.