George Anastasios Magalios
Encyclopedia
George Anastasios Magalios is a contemporary artist
, philosopher, and founder of George Magalios Studios who was born in 1967 in Montreal
, Canada
. George Anastasios Magalios is a multi-disciplinary visual artist who makes work in fields such as painting
, photography
, sculpture
, and performance art
. Magalios is an unusual artist because of his use of unique names and identities for each body of work: George Magalios (The Fall Line painting series), Georges Ducharme (sculpture and installation art), Will Swinburne (performance art), Giorgio Fati (photography), and Jorge Griego (Energy Plan for the Florida Man painting series).
Magalios bases all of his work and thought on the ground palette, a concept and form he has developed from his research into pre-historic cave painting. The ground palette is both a philosophical foundation and an aesthetic way of thinking that attempts to distill language and ideas down to their essences. In articles and various websites Magalios list his influences as Led Zeppelin
, Willie Mays
, Tim Tebow
and his parents, Virginia and Elias Magalios.
He has exhibited in exhibitions in New York, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, and other cities across North America
as well as in Athens and across Europe
and continues his practice today in West Palm Beach, Florida.
George Anastasios Magalios writes art theoretical works and art reviews of contemporary and modern art issues. He is a student of the philosophy of Martin Heidegger, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Jean Baudrillard and he incorporates much of the ideas of these thinkers in both his art and his writings. He has presented papers and the College Art Assocication conference in New York (2007) and at the Subtle Technologies Conference in Toronto (2002).
In addition to Montreal, Magalios has lived in Paris, San Francisco, New York, and Pittsburgh. Though he has lived in the United States for most of his life, the artist considers himself a Montrealer, albeit it an exiled one.
Sometimes referring to himself as a “Site-Specific Philosopher”, George Anastasios Magalios is known for his attempt to fuse an aesthetic practice with a personal one based on virtue, truth, and beauty.
Around the age of 12 the artist is said to have begun a serious study of the music of Led Zeppelin
, a band Magalios often lists as an influence on his work to this day. Soon after George A. Magalios discovered the work of Vincent Van Gogh when his mother bought him his first art book, a retrospective of the painter’s work that the artist is said to still own and refer to for inspiration today.
At Cardinal Newman High School Magalios hovered between athlete and artist and developed a reputation that defied easy classification because of his ability to hit a fastball 400 feet and appreciate the nuances of The Smiths
, The Church
, R.E.M.
and Echo and the Bunnymen.
where he began to study political theory and art history. It was during this time in Gainesville that he began to paint more seriously as he undertook a series of oils on canvas depicting the chromatic tendencies of the human face as it responded to various emotional stimuli. It is believed that only three of theses paintings are extant.
It was at the University of Florida where Magalios first developed a reputation as a womanizer and ardent defender of the sublime in art. His reputation for behaviour that often blurs the line between performance art and machismo theatrics, was solidified when he challenged one of his art history professors to a fistfight in front of an auditorium of 200 students after the professor purportedly called the work of Egon Schiele “over-rated”.
In 1990, Magalios painted the first, of what would continue to be his most important series of Autumn-themed paintings. The work was a red-orange series of “leaves” on multiple 2x4 studs of wood that were individually screwed into a wall to become both a sculptural and painterly work.
In 1991 Magalios began site-specific installations that consisted of assemblages of street trash from his Plateau Mont-Royal neighborhood. The assemblages would take the form of traditional Hindu Siva-Sakti lingam sculptures. This return to sculpture was inspired, in part, by a sense of existential homecoming the artist felt after living away from Montreal for 15 years. It was during the same year that the artist returned to complete his Bachelor’s Degree at Concordia University
. While there he was introduced to the work of Friedrich Nietzsche and Jean Baudrillard, two thinkers who would play a strong role in forming Magalios’s vision of the world that combined a penchant for a critical approach to perception and politics with an affirmation of the light and darkness of living.
and Andy Goldsworthy
. He also continued experimenting with a series of paintings on cardboard and canvas that explored a minimal use of painterly brush strokes in the earth colors of the ground palette.
In 1993 George Magalios enrolled in the Master’s program of the Interdisciplinary Humanities Department at San Francisco State University
. He would write his thesis on the views of art and technology held by Joseph Beuys and Martin Heidegger. The thesis, entitled “Site-Specific Philosophy”, was an attempt to craft a philosophical way of thinking and living using the paradigms of installation-based sculpture. The thesis was well-received and continues to be a foundation for much of the artist’s writings.
New York would also prove to be an important home for George Magalios as he often mentions the importance of seeing so many important exhibitions and works by his heroes first hand. The Robert Rauschenberg
retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum
in 1997 and the Matisse collection at the Museum of Modern art are two examples frequently cited as poignant discoveries.
’s School of Art, upon a recommendation from Arthur Kroker, a former professor at Concordia University. While at Carnegie Mellon he met Bill Kofmehl and began a series of performance and installation works that explored concepts such as hunting, nature, and technology’s influence on perception.
It was in Pittsburgh where the artist further refined The Fall Line series of paintings and completed a separate, yet related, group of works called “Ground Palette Details”, that were pictorial riffs of the ground palette form. The time in Pittsburgh was filled with wild experimentation for George Magalios. It included forays into video art, digital media, and stand-up comedy.
Artist
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...
, philosopher, and founder of George Magalios Studios who was born in 1967 in Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
. George Anastasios Magalios is a multi-disciplinary visual artist who makes work in fields such as painting
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
, photography
Photography
Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...
, sculpture
Sculpture
Sculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials—typically stone such as marble—or metal, glass, or wood. Softer materials can also be used, such as clay, textiles, plastics, polymers and softer metals...
, and performance art
Performance art
In art, performance art is a performance presented to an audience, traditionally interdisciplinary. Performance may be either scripted or unscripted, random or carefully orchestrated; spontaneous or otherwise carefully planned with or without audience participation. The performance can be live or...
. Magalios is an unusual artist because of his use of unique names and identities for each body of work: George Magalios (The Fall Line painting series), Georges Ducharme (sculpture and installation art), Will Swinburne (performance art), Giorgio Fati (photography), and Jorge Griego (Energy Plan for the Florida Man painting series).
Magalios bases all of his work and thought on the ground palette, a concept and form he has developed from his research into pre-historic cave painting. The ground palette is both a philosophical foundation and an aesthetic way of thinking that attempts to distill language and ideas down to their essences. In articles and various websites Magalios list his influences as Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin were an English rock band, active in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s. Formed in 1968, they consisted of guitarist Jimmy Page, singer Robert Plant, bassist/keyboardist John Paul Jones, and drummer John Bonham...
, Willie Mays
Willie Mays
Willie Howard Mays, Jr. is a retired American professional baseball player who played the majority of his major league career with the New York and San Francisco Giants before finishing with the New York Mets. Nicknamed The Say Hey Kid, Mays was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1979, his...
, Tim Tebow
Tim Tebow
Timothy Richard "Tim" Tebow is an American football player who is currently the starting quarterback for the Denver Broncos of the National Football League . He was drafted by the Broncos as the 25th overall pick in the 2010 NFL Draft...
and his parents, Virginia and Elias Magalios.
He has exhibited in exhibitions in New York, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, and other cities across North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
as well as in Athens and across Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
and continues his practice today in West Palm Beach, Florida.
George Anastasios Magalios writes art theoretical works and art reviews of contemporary and modern art issues. He is a student of the philosophy of Martin Heidegger, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Jean Baudrillard and he incorporates much of the ideas of these thinkers in both his art and his writings. He has presented papers and the College Art Assocication conference in New York (2007) and at the Subtle Technologies Conference in Toronto (2002).
In addition to Montreal, Magalios has lived in Paris, San Francisco, New York, and Pittsburgh. Though he has lived in the United States for most of his life, the artist considers himself a Montrealer, albeit it an exiled one.
Sometimes referring to himself as a “Site-Specific Philosopher”, George Anastasios Magalios is known for his attempt to fuse an aesthetic practice with a personal one based on virtue, truth, and beauty.
Montreal, 1967-1974
When Magalios was 6 years-old in 1973 he built a cave out of a mountain of snow in his backyard. This experience is considered by the artist to be a formative one and he has since called the work "Snow Womb" and has listed it in various biographies and lists of exhibitions. The artist remembers Montreal winters as being wombs of white and cold comforted by his mother's cooking and his visits to various Greek relatives. Raised in a Greek household, the artist grew up to speak English, Greek, and French and the cosmopolitan cultural environment proved to be a major influence on the artist's political and cultural outlook.West Palm Beach, 1974-1986
When Magalios was 7 years-old his family moved to West Palm Beach, Florida. The shift from rich and colorful Montreal to provincial South Florida proved to be a dramatic one. The artist's father signed him up for little league baseball as a way to get initiated into American culture and this game would prove to be a formative experience in his relationship to the United States. Around the age of 8 Magalios's mother had him take painting lessons for the first time. The artist was told by the teacher, an established painter of portraits, that he should "stick to baseball" since his art skills were "limited at best". The artist first remembers painting a clown portrait based on a magazine photo. During his youth, the artist developed a reputation for pranks and athletic prowess on the baseball diamond.Around the age of 12 the artist is said to have begun a serious study of the music of Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin were an English rock band, active in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s. Formed in 1968, they consisted of guitarist Jimmy Page, singer Robert Plant, bassist/keyboardist John Paul Jones, and drummer John Bonham...
, a band Magalios often lists as an influence on his work to this day. Soon after George A. Magalios discovered the work of Vincent Van Gogh when his mother bought him his first art book, a retrospective of the painter’s work that the artist is said to still own and refer to for inspiration today.
At Cardinal Newman High School Magalios hovered between athlete and artist and developed a reputation that defied easy classification because of his ability to hit a fastball 400 feet and appreciate the nuances of The Smiths
The Smiths
The Smiths were an English alternative rock band, formed in Manchester in 1982. Based on the song writing partnership of Morrissey and Johnny Marr , the band also included Andy Rourke and Mike Joyce...
, The Church
The Church (band)
The Church is an Australian rock band formed in Sydney in 1980. Initially associated with new wave and the neo-psychedelic sound of the mid 1980s, their music later became more reminiscent of progressive rock, featuring long instrumental jams and complex guitar interplay...
, R.E.M.
R.E.M.
R.E.M. was an American rock band formed in Athens, Georgia, in 1980 by singer Michael Stipe, guitarist Peter Buck, bassist Mike Mills and drummer Bill Berry. One of the first popular alternative rock bands, R.E.M. gained early attention due to Buck's ringing, arpeggiated guitar style and Stipe's...
and Echo and the Bunnymen.
Gainesville, 1986-1989
Upon graduating from high school Magalios attended the University of FloridaUniversity of Florida
The University of Florida is an American public land-grant, sea-grant, and space-grant research university located on a campus in Gainesville, Florida. The university traces its historical origins to 1853, and has operated continuously on its present Gainesville campus since September 1906...
where he began to study political theory and art history. It was during this time in Gainesville that he began to paint more seriously as he undertook a series of oils on canvas depicting the chromatic tendencies of the human face as it responded to various emotional stimuli. It is believed that only three of theses paintings are extant.
It was at the University of Florida where Magalios first developed a reputation as a womanizer and ardent defender of the sublime in art. His reputation for behaviour that often blurs the line between performance art and machismo theatrics, was solidified when he challenged one of his art history professors to a fistfight in front of an auditorium of 200 students after the professor purportedly called the work of Egon Schiele “over-rated”.
Montreal, 1989-1992
In 1988, while still at the University of Florida, Magalios decided to move back to his native Montreal and take a year-long break from studies. Arriving in 1989 Magalios began a series of black and white semi-figurative paintings on masonite panels and ink drawings on paper. None of the paintings are believed to be still in existence as the artist has never mentioned them in any of his lists of works.In 1990, Magalios painted the first, of what would continue to be his most important series of Autumn-themed paintings. The work was a red-orange series of “leaves” on multiple 2x4 studs of wood that were individually screwed into a wall to become both a sculptural and painterly work.
In 1991 Magalios began site-specific installations that consisted of assemblages of street trash from his Plateau Mont-Royal neighborhood. The assemblages would take the form of traditional Hindu Siva-Sakti lingam sculptures. This return to sculpture was inspired, in part, by a sense of existential homecoming the artist felt after living away from Montreal for 15 years. It was during the same year that the artist returned to complete his Bachelor’s Degree at Concordia University
Concordia University
Concordia University is a comprehensive Canadian public university located in Montreal, Quebec, one of the two universities in the city where English is the primary language of instruction...
. While there he was introduced to the work of Friedrich Nietzsche and Jean Baudrillard, two thinkers who would play a strong role in forming Magalios’s vision of the world that combined a penchant for a critical approach to perception and politics with an affirmation of the light and darkness of living.
San Francisco, 1992-1997
In 1992 Magalios moved to San Francisco and was instantly influenced by the dramatic landscapes of the Pacific Coast and the Sierra Nevada, as well as by the atmosphere of kindness, friendship, and creativity in the Bay area. During this period he devoted himself almost exclusively to a series of guerilla site-specific installation works in both rural and urban settings. The works were often ephemeral in nature and largely influenced by artists such as Richard LongRichard Long (artist)
Richard Long is an English sculptor, photographer and painter, one of the best known British land artists. Long is the only artist to be shortlisted for the Turner Prize four times, and he is reputed to have refused the prize in 1984...
and Andy Goldsworthy
Andy Goldsworthy
Andy Goldsworthy, OBE is a British sculptor, photographer and environmentalist producing site-specific sculpture and land art situated in natural and urban settings. He lives and works in Scotland.-Life and career:The son of F...
. He also continued experimenting with a series of paintings on cardboard and canvas that explored a minimal use of painterly brush strokes in the earth colors of the ground palette.
In 1993 George Magalios enrolled in the Master’s program of the Interdisciplinary Humanities Department at San Francisco State University
San Francisco State University
San Francisco State University is a public university located in San Francisco, California. As part of the 23-campus California State University system, the university offers over 100 areas of study from nine academic colleges...
. He would write his thesis on the views of art and technology held by Joseph Beuys and Martin Heidegger. The thesis, entitled “Site-Specific Philosophy”, was an attempt to craft a philosophical way of thinking and living using the paradigms of installation-based sculpture. The thesis was well-received and continues to be a foundation for much of the artist’s writings.
New York, 1997-1998
After receiving his Master’s Degree Magalios moved to New York in 1998 to pursue a PhD in cultural theory at the New School for Social Research. He dropped out during the first day of classes after experiencing an epiphany on the streets of Greenwich Village. The vision was one of a life of art-making instead of a life of teaching and writing about art. It would prove to be a life-altering moment that allowed Magalios to fully embrace the art practice fully as a way of life rather than a way of theory.New York would also prove to be an important home for George Magalios as he often mentions the importance of seeing so many important exhibitions and works by his heroes first hand. The Robert Rauschenberg
Robert Rauschenberg
Robert Rauschenberg was an American artist who came to prominence in the 1950s transition from Abstract Expressionism to Pop Art. Rauschenberg is well-known for his "Combines" of the 1950s, in which non-traditional materials and objects were employed in innovative combinations...
retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum is a well-known museum located on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City, United States. It is the permanent home to a renowned collection of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, early Modern, and contemporary art and also features special exhibitions...
in 1997 and the Matisse collection at the Museum of Modern art are two examples frequently cited as poignant discoveries.
Pittsburgh, 1998-2005
In 1998 George A. Magalios began studies in the MFA program at Carnegie Mellon UniversityCarnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States....
’s School of Art, upon a recommendation from Arthur Kroker, a former professor at Concordia University. While at Carnegie Mellon he met Bill Kofmehl and began a series of performance and installation works that explored concepts such as hunting, nature, and technology’s influence on perception.
It was in Pittsburgh where the artist further refined The Fall Line series of paintings and completed a separate, yet related, group of works called “Ground Palette Details”, that were pictorial riffs of the ground palette form. The time in Pittsburgh was filled with wild experimentation for George Magalios. It included forays into video art, digital media, and stand-up comedy.