The opening of the “Street Sonnets” exhibition of the photographs of Nisos Vasilopoulos took place on Saturday, March 13, 2010 at the Thessaloniki Museum of Photography, in a particularly warm atmosphere. Present were Dimitri Eipides, Artistic Director of the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival, and the Museum Director Vangelis Ioakimidis. The Exhibition is a collaboration between the 12th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival and the Thessaloniki Museum of Photography.
Vangelis Ioakimidis, Director of the Museum, welcomed photographer Nysos Vasilopoulos and spoke about his work and the relationship between photography and cinema. “Nysos Vasilopoulos uses the photo camera in much the same way that a director would use his camera to record a narrative or a diary, something very important to both forms of art”, Mr. Ioakimidis said.
Then Dimitri Eipides spoke about the excellent collaboration between the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival and the city’s Museum of Photography. Speaking on Nysos Vassilopoulos, he stressed: “I am proud of the artist we are presenting at this year’s edition. He is a young artist whose work is characterized by a particular quality, and I hope that this exhibition will provide him with a boost towards his further development. As you know, the Festival is in fact dedicated to the discovery of new talent, and Nysos Vasilopoulos is grand proof of that”.
Nysos Vasilopoulos on his part thanked those responsible for the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival and the Thessaloniki Museum of Photography for the opportunity they have given him to exhibit his work. Speaking to the students present, he noted: “Love what you do and take it to the end. Then everything will happen”.
During the tour that followed the exhibition opening, Nysos Vasilopoulos spoke about the way in which he photographs. Among other things, he noted: “I work on the street, and this gives me a greater opportunity to express myself and to find images that excite my imagination. The faces I photograph can be found in any city. In my opinion, it’s not the places that make the people, but the people that make the places”.
Nysos Vasilopoulos’ exhibition “Street Sonnets” includes 57 black and white photographs which “narrate” in a theatrical way the stories hidden in the streets of Berlin, where the photographer lives, and other European cities. In his work Nysos Vasilopoulos poetically searches for the deformities brought on by the needs of development and progress of western civilization on human beings. The exhibition is coordinated by Anna Milossi and Thanos Stavropoulos.
At the same time, the opening of the exhibition “Searching for the Lost Homeland” was held at the Thessaloniki Museum of Photography. This exhibit of the work of Pavlos Kozalidis is a production of the Benaki Museum and is curated by Georgia Imsiridou. Both exhibitions are part of the “Photography and Cinema” cycle of exhibitions of the Thessaloniki Museum of Photography.