At Dawn the Mad Hare Gleamed

Sea View is pleased to present At Dawn the Mad Hare Gleamed , the debut solo exhibition of Grigoris Semitecolo (b. Athens 1935, d. 2014) in the US. Grigoris Semitecolo was a multimedia artist whose seminal practice bridged postwar European modernism and the avant garde. Trained under Panos Sarafianos and Yiannis Moralis, his paintings counter surreal geometric forms with atmospheric fields, evoking monumental architecture devoid of human presence. Semitecolo made his debut in 1962 with a solo exhibition at the University of Munich, an important nexus for Greek modernism, before becoming a key figure in Greek experimental art. His close collaborations with composer Jani Christou, including a series of landmark interdisciplinary works that toured internationally, were central to his artistic development and situated his practice within the avant-garde network shaped by figures like John Cage. As a founding member of the Centre for the Visual Arts (KET), he became known for hybrid works that fused painting, performance and sculptural intervention, most notably his mannequin based installations. These culminated in major presentations at the Benaki Museum and the Athens Concert Hall, the 1993 film "The Cosmic Dissecting Room Show" by Vassilis Vafeas, and exhibitions at Nees Morfes, the leading venue for contemporary and avant garde art in postwar Greece. This exhibition of 11 oil paintings, curated by Stamatia Dimitrakopoulos, borrows its title from The Mad Hare (O Trelós Lagós), a poem by Miltos Sachtouris written in Athens during the postwar years and deeply cherished by Semitecolo. The poem accompanies the exhibition as a shared point of sensitivity, opening a space that connects language and visual practice through a persistent wandering across liminal environments, in search of something known to exist nowhere outside, and yet recognized as something that can only be found within.