Dániel Kiss | Atlantis

solo show

The exhibition is not primarily about Atlantis as a geographical location, idealised as the cradle of civilisation - although the exhibition also focuses on the influence of different civilisations on each other, the transmission and formation of layers of meaning - but rather about an inner, beyond-appearance core to which we seek to connect. 

In the Neoplatonist interpretation, the soul forms individual objects in matter according to the ideas of the Divine Reason, and Aristotle also saw Form as the union of Soul and Matter. 

The sculptures in the exhibition are also formed as imprints of our innermost soul, our ancestral images, and act as a bridge between bygone cultures and the declining civilisation of our present: 

 "At the origin of every true civilization there is a divine fact (all great civilizations are based on the myth that they were created by gods): no human or natural factor can reverse it... Individualism, chaos, anarchy, the hubris* of humanism, degeneration in all domains appears everywhere...From pre-Antiquity we can trace this "evolution". We shall see: from the distant myth of the divine kingdom, we descend caste by caste until we arrive at the faceless forms of modern civilization, where the mere demos and the demonism of the world of the masses is rapidly and terrifyingly revived in mechanized structures."

Julius Evola, Rebellion against the modern world (p. 86)

* "Hubris" is the Greek term closest to sin. Its most typical manifestation is the insatiable lust for power, which bends the heads of men and nations to unbridled self-glorification, as if possessed by demons. This blind passion likewise oppresses personal liberty, as public laws do; it lures its victim into a mad, destructive self-confidence, creating a sense of worthy rebellion against gods and their fellow-men. The fundamental evil of "hubris" is that man forgets that he is a creature of God. The sin of hubris is that it allows man to forget his humanity and equates himself with God.