TONY CATANY (SPAIN) SONAR EN DIOSES ORGANIZED BY THE GREEK-SPANISH ASSOCIATION FEDERICO GARCIA LORCA 20/2 - 14/3 1998 ART GALLERY FRENCH INSTITUTE OF THESSALONIKI STRATOU AV 2Á / 855-303 MO - SÁ 11.00-2.00, 18.00-21.00 "L'appel de la beauté est le resort createur par excellence" André Chastel The bodies created by the ancient Greeks represent, for us, the expression of absolute beauty. The elevation of beauty through our bodies demonstrates a powerful will to approach the divine and the universal, since the gods, too, took human form in ancient Greece and for that reason the artist's gaze dwells on the static nakedness of human beings. The body was converted into a temple of the soul, and had to show human perfection. Tony Catany is an artist who leads us to the enjoyment of reality through his gaze. His works go beyond the static statues of the ancient Greeks, for which he has such an admiration. Beauty is full of inner emotions, and the harmony of the pose conveys brushstrokes and approaches the works of Michelangelo in the strength, intensity and energy which it reflects. Thirsty with a "chosen eroticism", as Cavafy put it, the artist brings movement and pose to a halt so that they stand like a sensual spectacle. Catany transcends the representation of the nude as a unit, emphasizing the plastic and unique values of the body in order to create for Beauty a renewed Form. The black-and-white technique he uses elevates the austerity and transigence of the human body. "Ma soif est un ensclave nu...", cried Valéry's Narcissus: a tyrannical Eros emerges from the past and peers at us from behind a shining tree-trunk, telling us, with Rilke, that we have to change our lives. Arnau Pons Tony Catany (Llucmajor, Mallorca, 1942). The self-taught photographer Toni Catany has lived and worked in Barcelona since 1966. In 1968, he published his first photojournalism (shot in Israel and Egypt) in the periodicals Destino and La Vanguardia pictures of the Balearic Islands). In 1979, he produced work using the old calotype method which made him well-known internationally. Since his first exhibition in 1972, he has held more than 100 personal and group exhibitions in Spain and other countries. In 1987, he published an album of colour still lifes (Natures Mortes) which won the prize for the best book of photographs at the 1990 'Photographic Spring'. At the Recontres Internationales de la Photographie held at Arles in France in 1991, he won the Book Prize with his La nueva Mediterranea. The book was published by the Lunwerg publishing company and received an award as the best illustrated book from the Generalitat de Catalunya. In July 1991, the French Ministry of Culture awarded Tony Catany the title of Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. In 1994, Lunwerg published his Somniar deus and Obscura memoria. In 1997, Tony Catany won the European Publishers' Prize and published a book entitled Tony Catany Fotografies in Germany, France, Britain, Italy and Spain.