Art Curator Paris Kapralos together with 30 visual artists from Greece and abroad, they invite you to visit the exhibition “The Gesture Before Words” and honour its opening with your presence on Thursday 15 October, from 19:00 to 22:00.
The exhibition, taking place physically in Athens at Chili Art Gallery (13-15 Dimofontos Street, Thissio, Athens) and simultaneously online in collaboration with ARTgrID ([https://artgrid.gr](https://artgrid.gr?utm_source=chatgpt.com)), explores the prelinguistic dimension of human communication, which remains active throughout life, and extends this exploration into the field of Art.
Visitors will encounter works of painting, sculpture, photography, digital art, installations and video art.
The curatorial text states, among other things:
“What can be said without words? When does a gesture become meaningful? Can silence constitute a dialogue? And how much of what we call communication continues to take place where language cannot reach? Long before acquiring language, human beings communicate through gazes, gestures, expressions, movements, distances, pauses and rhythms. Communication, therefore, begins before speech; language develops upon an already active field of relationships and meanings.
Taking Colwyn Trevarthen’s theory of protocommunication and the concept of primary intersubjectivity as its starting point, the exhibition ‘The Gesture Before the Word’ approaches the human being as someone whose existence is shaped from the very beginning through responsiveness and coordination with others. At the same time, drawing on the phenomenology of the body and silence, it examines gesture as an autonomous bearer of meaning in its own right.
Prelinguistic communication does not disappear when we learn to speak. It remains active beneath and often beyond words: in bodily tension, the direction of a gaze, the distance between two people, breathing, anticipation or the refusal to respond. Similarly, silence may express intimacy, awkwardness, resistance, desire, loss or an inability to articulate something.
The ‘before’ of the title is more than a temporal reference. It exists within every human encounter: in that almost imperceptible moment when we perceive and influence one another before we have even spoken. A similar encounter can take place through art. An artwork does not need to articulate a message in order to communicate; it may address us through a gesture, a trace, a form, an intensity, a rhythm, a material quality or a silence. Gesture in art preserves something of the act that produced it, while simultaneously becoming independent of that act and emerging as a sign open to interpretation. The viewer thus encounters a presence that, without speaking, invites a response: to recognize, associate, feel or attribute meaning.”
The visual artists contributing their works to the exhibition are: Katerina Stergiopoulou, Kostis Daras, Revekka Gkiozi, Maria Sfiniadaki (Sfinia), Poly Kanistra, Antonia Perakaki, Nikos Arzoumanidis, Efrosyni Katsoura, Maro Vasiliadou, Maria Giannopoulou, Teresa Pappa, Natasa Meskou, Fotini Angelopoulou, Monika Themou, Martha Kotsona, Fadumo, Anastasios Argyropoulos, Emmanouil Kokolakis, Michail Ninos, Maria Delikosta, Maria Niarchou, Eleni Lapantzi, Adamantios Bobas, Malvina Tsiora, Nikolas Kolokotronis (NiKo), Maria Sideri, Margot Canzian Abuathera, Dora Rizou, Ioannis Stamoulis, Evi Daska, Zoe Siani.
A bilingual commemorative catalogue-book, in Greek and English, has been published for the exhibition and is available free of charge to all visitors.
Opening Days and Hours: Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, 17:00-21:00. Free Admission.
The exhibition in Athens runs from Thursday 15 to Sunday 25 October 2026.
Instagram #gesturebeforewords
Facebook @artgrid.gr
