Chryssa was born in Athens[7] into the famous
Mavromichalis family from the
Mani Peninsula.[8][9][10] Her family, while not rich, was educated and cultured; one of her sisters, who studied medicine, was a friend of the poet and novelist
Nikos Kazantzakis.[8][10] Shortly before her birth, Chryssa's father passed away, she was raised by her mother and two older sisters.[11][12]
Chryssa grew up in Nazi-occupied Greece, which she later cites as formative to her art practice. The Greek resistance would write messages on the walls at night, which served as both a critical means for communication to citizens and an early lesson on the power of letters and symbols.[13][14] As a child, she was imprisoned on three separate occasions during the German and Italian occupation.[15]
In 1954, at age twenty-one, Chryssa sailed for the United States, arrived in New York, and went to
San Francisco to study at the
California School of Fine Arts.[19][20][21] Returning to New York in 1955, she became a United States citizen and established a studio in the city.[21] April of 1955, Chryssa has her first experience at Times Square, which would become a major influence for her work.[22][23] In the same year, she married fellow artist
Jean Varda and moved to
Sausalito.[24] The couple separated in 1958 and divorced in 1965.[25][24] Although never an official resident of the
Coenties Slip, Chryssa was associated with a group of artists connected by this residence.[26][27] During this time, Chryssa had a relationship with
Agnes Martin.[28][29][30][31]
At the age of 79, Chryssa died of heart-related problems, in Athens, Greece, on December 23, 2013.[33]
Major works and milestones
1957–1969
Chryssa's first major work was The Cycladic Books, a series of plaster reliefs which the French art critic
Pierre Restany described as having produced "the purified and stylized geometric relief which is characteristic of
Cycladic sculpture."[34] According to the American art historian and critic
Barbara Rose,[17]The Cycladic Books preceded American
minimalism by seventeen years.
Arrow: Homage to Times Square is a large 8 ft by 8 ft (2.4 m) work in painted cast aluminum.[35] In a 2005 interview in
Vouliagmeni, Chryssa said: "I only ever kept one work for more than 15 years in my studio, "The Arrow" – it is now in
Albany, in the
Rockefeller Collection."[17]
Chryssa's first solo exhibition was mounted at
The Guggenheim.[8][18]Times Square Sky is a 5 ft × 5 ft (1.5 m) × 9.5 in work in neon, aluminum and steel.[36]
The Gates to Times Square, regarded as "one of the most important American sculptures of all time" and "a thrilling homage to the living American culture of advertising and mass communications",[19][38] is a 10 ft cube installation of two huge letter As through which visitors may walk into "a gleaming block of stainless steel and Plexiglas that seems to quiver in the play of pale blue neon light" which is controlled by programmed timers.[1][8][18][39] First shown in Manhattan's
Pace Gallery, it was given to the
Albright-Knox Art Gallery in
Buffalo, New York in 1972.[1][39]
Chryssa's 70 ft (21 m) Untitled Light Sculpture, six large 'W's connected by cables and programmed electronically to create changing patterns of light through 900 feet of neon tubing, is suspended in the atrium of 33 West Monroe, a
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill design and its former headquarters, in
Chicago, Illinois.[18][45]Mott Street, named for
Mott Street in
Chinatown, Manhattan, is a large work in dark aluminium and red-toned neon light which is installed in the
Evangelismos station of the
Athens Metro.[46][47] Other works by Chryssa in
composite honeycomb aluminum and neon in the 1980s and 1990s include Chinatown, Siren, Urban Traffic, and Flapping Birds.[6]
In 1992, after closing her
SoHo studio, which art dealer
Leo Castelli had described as "one of the loveliest in the world," Chryssa returned to Greece.[48] She found a derelict cinema which had become a storeroom stacked with abandoned school desks and chairs, behind the old
Fix Brewery near the city center in
Neos Kosmos, Athens. Using the desks to construct enormous benches, she converted the space into a studio for working on designs and aluminum composite honeycomb sculptures.[48] The
Athens National Museum of Contemporary Art, which was founded in 2000 and owns Chryssa's Cycladic Books, is in the process of converting the Fix Brewery into its permanent premises.[34][49][50] 'Chryssa & New York' survey was co-organized by the Menil Collection and Dia Art Foundation.[51]
Monographs
A partial listing of
monographs on Chryssa's work:
Although Chryssa always used the
mononym professionally, some fine arts and art auction references nevertheless cite her as Chryssa Vardea, Vardea Chryssa, Chryssa Varda, or Varda Chryssa.
^
abcdRobert Hughes (June 4, 1973).
"Mysteries of Neon". Time. Archived from
the original on December 14, 2008. [Chryssa] went into neon as
fictivearchaeology. The result is a
chimericalamalgam of cultures, as though Chryssa's eye had got ahead of the present and were looking back on
Times Square from a vantage point as remote in time from it as ours is from
ancient Greece. ... at her best—as in That's all or the large and visually splendid Today's Special—she can give her apparently explicit light-sculptures an intense mystery, transforming the gallery space into a small
Delos of the
neon sign.
^White, Michelle; Larigakis, Sophia; Holly Witko, Megan; White, Michelle; Holly Witko, Megan; Nekkia McClodden, Tiona; Cohen, Lisa; Rivers Ryan, Tina; Minioudaki, Kalliopi (2023). Chryssa & New York. New York: Dia Art Foundation and The Menil Collection.
ISBN978-0-300-27198-0.
^Selz, Peter Howard; Valerio, William R.; Queens Museum of Art, eds. (1999). Modern Odysseys: Greek American artists of the 20th century; October 6, 1999 - January 30, 2000. New York, NY: Queens Museum of Art.
ISBN978-1-929641-00-0.
^Witko, Megan Holly; Larigakis, Sophia; White, Michelle (2023). Chryssa & New York: exhibition, Dia Chelsea, New York, March 2-July 23, 2023 ; the Menil Collection, Houston, September 29, 2023-March 10, 2024 ; Wrightwood 659, Chicago, May 1-August 15, 2024. New York, NY Houston, TX: Dia Art Foundation The Menil Collection.
ISBN978-0-300-27198-0.
^Princenthal, Nancy (2018). Agnes Martin: her life and art. A Lyon artbook. New York, New York: Thames & Hudson.
ISBN978-0-500-29455-0.
^Martin, Agnes (2015). Morris, Frances; Bell, Tiffany (eds.). Agnes Martin. Tate Modern, Stiftung Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. New York: D.A.P./Distributed Art Publishers Inc.
ISBN978-1-938922-76-3.
^
abcAlbright-Knox Art Gallery.
"The Gates to Times Square". Sculpture/Construction. Chryssa, 1966. Welded stainless steel, neon, and plexiglass. Overall: 120 × 120 × 120" (304.8 × 304.8 × 304.8 cm.) Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Albert A. List, 1972.
^Bernstock, Judith E. (1993). "Classical Mythology in Twentieth-Century Art: An Overview of a Humanistic Approach". Artibus et Historiae. 14 (27): 153–183.
doi:
10.2307/1483450.
JSTOR1483450.
^
abSims, Lowery S.; Balboul, Ida; Goodman, Cynthia; Leve, Susan; Hunter-Stiebel, Penelope (1975). "Twentieth Century Art". Notable Acquisitions (Metropolitan Museum of Art) (1975/1979): 72–77.
doi:
10.2307/1513633.
JSTOR1513633. That's All is the central panel of a huge
triptych Chryssa worked on for several years and is the culmination of the graphic ideas embodied in The Gates of Times Square (1964-66), the artist's major work of the 1960s. Through her preoccupation with contemporary technology and her fascination with American
systems of communication, the Greek-born artist has expanded our traditional view of sculpture.
^Ilias Bissias (May 12, 2006).
"Contemporary Greek art...underground!". Life in Capital A. Entitled "Mott Street", after
the main street in
Manhattan's Chinatown which inspired it, it is a firm favourite with Athenians. Characteristic of the artist's later work, this large, sinewy, dark aluminium sculpture, lit with fiery pink-red neon lights, brims with energy and is really rather breathtaking.[permanent dead link]
^European Cultural Center of
Delphi (
Council of Europe).
"Leading Artists of the 20th century:[permanent dead link] Chryssa –
Takis" (June 17, 2000 – July 18, 2000). Works by Chryssa included Chinatown, Piccadilly Circus, Athenian Landscape No. 2 and No. 3, Paris Landscape No 2, Marilyn, Times Square, The Newspaper, and (for the first time) the
copperCycladic Books: Green Series. Eighteen works by
Takis included Photovoltaic Energy, Acoustic Chords, and Hommage à Apollon.