‘We said everything there was to say. We lived. It’s over now. Let’s eat in silence.’ A couple pictured having dinner in Graz, Austria, in 1986. [Constantinos Pittas]
Sitting across from him today, the resemblance to his self-portraits from the 1980s remains unmistakable. Yet time has left its mark. His once-dark curls are now cropped short and mostly gray, while his penetrating gaze has grown calmer and more contemplative, suggesting a man who has exchanged youthful urgency for a more reflective understanding of life.
“Everything began with the many guided tours I gave in 2016 during my exhibition at the Benaki Museum,” photographer Constantinos (also stylized Constantin) Pittas says of his latest book project. “I shared with visitors the stories behind the photographs – stories from the final years of the Cold War, as well as those of the people depicted in them.”
“Over time I realized I had created something more than simple commentary on the photographs,” he says of the fragments of memory, lived experience, fleeting thoughts and brief narratives he had jotted down.
“A dialogue emerged between text and image, and together these two elements produced something that did not exist when either stood alone.”
