NATASSA MARKIDOU (HELLAS) DIARY 1991-1997 26/2 - 18/3 1998 EPSILON GALLERY ALEXANDROY SBOLOY 7 / 277-784 MO, WE, SA, 10:00-14:30 TU, TH, FRI 10:00-14:00, 18:00-20:30 A photograph, as a rule, presupposes the existence of a photographer at the moment and place of its creation. This idiosyncrasy of the photographic medium frequently lends the photographic image an autobiographical character. The "poses" on the film succeed one another from left to right (like words), following ineluctably the chronology of their recording. On the contact shiets this succession of photographic images creates a kind of writing that describes the photographer's progress among things, places and people. The double panoramic images of Natassa Markidou, whose edges sometimes touch and sometimes overlap, reveal a personal narrative, a kind of diary composed of successive photographs. With an eye turned first to one area and then to another, we follow the photographer as she moves around, as she shifts her attention, participating actively in the formation of the view of the places she is photographing. The locations she chooses to record offer nothing special from the point of view of natural beauty or natural grandeur. The choice, indeed, of the panoramic spread precludes elevation, since all natural features are necessarily concentrated on the level of a single horizon. The image spreads out, unidimensional, attenuated, like a brief optical notation, similar to the text the photographer appends to her photographs, a fragmentary narration of the impressions of the moment of photography, the colours, the scents and the sounds that fill out the images. Costis Antoniadis