I know Antonakis’s work from his degree show in the summer of 2003 in Rena Papaspyrou’s workshop, from an exhibition with other students of the Athens School of Fine Arts two years ago organised by Manolis Baboussis and one or two folders that have reached my hands. Therefore, before moving onto his ‘20 Rooms 2003’ work, in a show organised by Gerasimos Kappatos, perhaps I should explain to you what it is that attracts me to his work. It is his love for one type of narrative with immense theatricality and his perse-verance with myths. The innocence with which he hooks into the myths he chooses does not come from naivety or simplicity. On the contrary, Antonakis, knows all there is to know about the period of his ‘myths’, its cultural per-sistence, fetishes, literature and music. Therefore, in his favour he already has the method with which to assiduously approach his ‘theme’, an achievement that should free him from potential troubles in the future.
At the moment, he loves Electra, the hero of the work he’s presenting, with a passion: but not Electra the daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, rather Dalianidi’s child. Antonakis does not stick to the idea of the ‘Electra Complex’ and the Freudian findings about the personality of the daughter who worships her father and hates her mother; rather, he knows how it con-cerns her and precedes her tears in old Greek cinema. The whole family of Finos Films, the good grandfathers of Vasileiadou’ and Aulonitis’ generation, the music of the time, the fashion world of the decades of the 1950’s, 60’s and 70’s – all that background – Antonakis makes his own, in directed narratives using media that express him best: computers, D.V.D.s and photog-raphy.
The room in which Electra finds herself has blood, screams and love that drives one to murder. With his friend, he replays, photographs, observes and creates an exploratory, vital space, transforming the old cinematic shows into intimate delight, with humour and respect for the unfolding of events. A smile for Electra and the Atridae of the golden decades of Greek cinema and for a beginning that I hope will continue well.

Maria Maragou