Athanasio Celia

Athanasio Celia is a painter, author and art expert.

He is the founder of the "Verticalismus" art theory.

Now will follow excerpts of the manifesto which was signed by supporters of that particular art-theory. This manifesto-proclamation inaugurated a "Verticalismus - Art Exhibition" which was held in a German art museum. Thus,"Verticalismus", as an expression of contemporary art, clarifies that "when we mention the cathetus" (the vertical), we don't necessarily mean any straight line that starts from a 90 degree angle; but the line that follows the thread of the plumb bob (or, plummet). Otherwise, the horizontal line would also be called "cathetus" because it is vertical to the vertical. But cathetus is only that line which connects straight and dynamically two centres of gravity. It uses the force of gravity to be always vertical, though the earth rotates on its axis. Just as the rain that although it drips seemingly always vertical and is falling down towards us, seen from a fixed point outside the Earth - depending on the time -, falls laterally or even in the opposite direction from the down to the up on the soil surface of the earth. Since a point is not dimensionally, the first true dimension is certainly the line....

Coincidentally, perhaps, is the number symbol for "the One" in most arithmetical regulations a vertical line. The "One", for which Parmenides said that "it exists and at the same time does not exist, that it is movable and immovable, that it is the same and different with itself and with all other things"! Just like the small step of a "Kouros statue" is expressing the beginning and at the same time the hesitation of the with common sense vaunted life; in the same way the vertical line that oscillates between existence and nonexistence, symbolizes the related "hesitation of the universe". A few decades ago, the art was dealing systematically with the fact that behind the figure hidden geometry exists, and that the geometry connects the structure of the optical sense with the thought, which then the result of the senses into mind transforms. The "Cubism" aimed at the mind, in a catalytic and unexpected way. It showed more clearly the "being" of things, of the existing, and of the potential beings. But the beings for to exist, have to correlate constantly with "the nothing", "linearly and vertically". Consequently, must an entity with identity, at the same time something "not" to be. The subtraction of "what it is not," define...

According to the Greek press (1998), is Athanasio Celia the most expensive Greek artist of the contemporary art. SAFE ART (fire-prepared & forgery-immune) was established 1991 in the Museum of Modern Art in Munich.

“VERTICALISMUS” stands for LIVE – ART – CIVILIZATION – UNIVERSE. Athanasio Celia's art – “Verticalismus” – is known as "safe art" because of its preparation with fire that makes it immune to forgery. “Vertical lines” express individual uniqueness as signatures or fingerprints and symbolize everything that's "vertical and alive" – like trees and other flora, as well all that lives “vertical on legs”. Human's first artwork was a "trial vertical line" which was pulled with a stone on a rock in the easiest direction up to down. Mankind – the only creatures with "vertical body posture” – they created civilization through mathematics, starting with a “vertical symbol as number one”. The "Verticalismus theory” postulates that “vertical lines” are the cosmogonic gravitational beginning (in the book-title “Logos” by Athanasio Celia).



Publications:
1982 Manifesto of the Verticalismus
2006 Omega – the Logos (Greek version)
2007 The Notebook of Vincent van Gogh
2008 Preface for Vincent van Gogh
2015 Ω - Der Logos - De...