Dépôt Αrt gallery (Neofitou Vamva str.5, Kolonaki, Athens) is hosting on Tuesday 27th of March (20:00 up 23:30) the art group exhibition " The Art, Myself " Duration of the exhibition: 27 March – 20 April 2018 The exhibition is curated by the art historian and assistant professor at the University of Athens Κonstantinos Vafiadis. Dimitris Lazarou has the responsibility for the concept, organization and communication of the exhibition. 69 contemporary visual artists present art works of painting, sculpture and photography, inspired by the words of the French poet Paul Verlaine: "Art is to be absolutely yourself." Paul Verlaine is characterized as a purely lyric poet who has marked a transition from romance to the symbolism movement, and is distinguished by the musical effect of his writing, through the use of several secrets of French procreation, such as appearances, assertions and imparisyllabic lyrics. Art historian and Assistant Professor at the University of Athens Konstantinos Vafiadis in his text, titled "Commentary on Paul Verlaine's Exclusion: Art is to Be Absolutely Yourself" notes: “Consequently the aphorism of the lyric poet Paul Verlaine (1844 – 1896) “Art is to be absolutely yourself, seems to adopt a view of the same aspect. Nevertheless it reveals ambiguity as it refers to two ancient notions, concerning Representation, absolutely not compatible to each other. According to the first notion Art is considered to be realized to matter, reference to the Self as a materialistic projection to the exteriority of a nonvisible essence, and thus as a way out (exit) from the walls of an individual consciousness. In that case the artistic work constitutes a symbolic parallel to the self having a reference relationship, a point without objective but relevant substance. According to the second – more ancient – notion. Art is the Self in an absolute Sense. In that case the artistic work constitutes a presence, it doesn’t refer to the Self. It is the Self. Thus the artistic work sheds the arbitrary character that is innate in the relationship between phonetics and the meaning and at the same time it establishes itself as objective. Having all these in mind and within the frame of Paul Verlaine’s symbolic thought the latter seems to support the second notion of the artistic representation as a testimony of the art work. It proceeds even further by equating the art work with the self or rather by substituting and converting the self into the ultimate piece of Art fully independent from the recent manipulating collectiveness. In that sense the french poet seems to prepare the path that was destined to lead to the “Death of the Art” and later on to the postmodern Situation, innate to the variations of Conceptual Art – not only to the manipulation of the artistic produce by the “World of Art” since the latter doesn’t do anything else but continuously direct the dominant World of power.”