A Contemporary Art Intervention
As part of his project Transmundane Economies, the Cypriot contemporary artist Thedoulos Polyviou is developing a virtual re-creation of an iconostasis from the 18th century held in the collection of the Bode-Museum, parts of which are on display in the Berlin Museum, with others in the Ikonenmuseum in Frankfurt.
Image gallery
Ikonostase aus Zypern, 1754, Detail, 1976 von A. A. Bredius, Hernen-Bergharen, NL, erworben; vormals im Besitz des Victoria and Albert Museums, London
In doing so, artist Thedoulos Polyviou enters into a dialogue with this once-sacred object. To do so, he uses immersive media as ceremonial tools for activating the iconostasis. Around it, an ephemeral “holy space” is created, to which the iconostasis once gave access in its role as an architectural portal.
Transmundane Economies is an ongoing project of the artist, in which virtual reality and associated technologies are used to investigate and reconstruct gaps in Cyprus’s cultural heritage. His aim in doing so is not nationalist in nature, but rather to investigate the relationships between queerness, repair and reinvention within the historical entanglements of the island.
A special exhibition by the Skulpturensammlung und Museum für Byzantinische Kunst – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
