Collection, 2012
The Collection draws on E.J. Bellocq’s photographic archive, formed in the first quarter of the 20th century, yet only discovered and received with international recognition five decades later. Antoniadis’ series consists of a private collection of glass plates where all signs of the subject have been removed and replaced with studio poses and portraits and where the cracks of time have been digitally enhanced. The paper mount and photo corners betray a collector’s care, but the hairstyles broach the contemporary. Another influence was the damaged glass negative plates of the Kastorian photographer Leonidas Papazoglou, whose portraits of unknown sitters represented for Antoniadis both evidential testimony and imaginary fictions. Once again, the insertions are made in a second hand context, devoid of any information except for the acquired traces of time. What obsession drives the formation of a (fictional) collection? What invisible threads weave narratives among people, archives, eras, narratives whose careful excavation refers deliberately in a distant future?