COSTAS COLOKYTHAS (HELLAS) SPATA 2000 26/2 - 21/3 1998 TERRAKOTTA GALLERY CRISOSTOMOY SMYRNIS 13 / 235-689 MO, WE, SA 10.00 - 14.30 TU, TH, FRI 10.00 - 14.30, 18.00 - 20.30 For Spata in Attica, the transition into the new millennium will mark the beginning of a different era, since the new international airport serving Athens will open just the first year of the twenty-first century. Construction of the airport began in 1996, twenty years after the Greek state first decided that it was necessary, and already Spata has been transformed and the landscape is constantly changing. The colour photographs of Kostas Kolokythas, forming part of his first unit of work under the title Spata 2000, track that development. Based on a photographic tradition which takes its methodology from the aspect of the photograph as pure record and from classic documentary photography, they also succeed in conveying questions about the capacity of the medium itself to reconstruct a state of reality and in marking out the significant and insignificant aspects of a piece of history in the making. The sense of objectivity in the survey produced, the significance which the subject photographed can gain from the use of large format, and the way in which the photographs are inscribed in a system of spatial co-ordinates, all create an impression of planning and systematic work –as would befit the finds of an important archaeological research. We can be confident that this is the way these photographs will function in the future, serving as the memory of a landscape which will have changed forever. Kostas Kolokythas was born in Patra in 1961. His involvement in photography dates from 1979, when he was living in Thessaloniki - where he grew up. In 1983, Kostas Kolokythas graduated from the School of Graphic Arts of Athens Technical College (KATEE) and went on to further studies in the United States. In 1986, he was awarded a BFA degree in Photography from the San Francisco Art Institute, and in 1989 he completed his postgraduate studies with an MFA degree from the Academy of Art College. In 1990 he returned to Athens, where he has lived since, working as a photographer and teacher of photography.