This edition was published on the occasion of the eponymous exhibition organized by the Cultural Foundation of the National Bank of Greece at the exhibition space of the Cultural Center of Thessaloniki of MIET (December 9, 2015 to February 7, 2016).

The automobile and photography are fascinating technologies that soared during the 20th century, symbolizing the peak of metropolises, the innovation of the machine, the peculiar omnipresence, contributing to the conquest of space and the contraction of time, in the strange coupling of the private with the public.

The automobile accelerated, as a powerful engine, the wheel of modernity against the seemingly static tradition. As a commodity, it is mass-produced, carrying national, historical, and social connotations, often representing a work of high aesthetics and technology. Similarly, photography constitutes an eclectic combination of aesthetics and technology that promotes a profuse circulation of images, deeply influencing ideas and behaviors.

Both photography and the automobile have indelibly marked the life of Ari Georgiou. These two, moreover, have been inseparable in his life since adolescence, if not from his tender childhood. At some point, in mature age, he realizes himself that within the countless photographic captures, the automobile holds a special place. Thus, the photographic collection presented with this edition is born.

Georgiou’s photographs do not constitute dazzling advertisements for the automotive industry. On the contrary, they are “autobiographical”: they illuminate the conditions, environment, era, or the machine with which they were captured. The photographer sometimes crafts aesthetically pleasing portraits of cars; at other times, he discerns the contrast with the urban or natural environment where they temporarily park; he captures multiplicities of cars or lets himself be drawn into the subtle or explosive chromatic atmosphere they create.

The dialogue between the style of the cars and that of the public space is constant in the photographs, the osmosis of the old with the contemporary, as the photographer moves from city to city, from country to country or strides across the thresholds of decades. The Auto biograph is used to navigate the inexhaustibly complex urban condition.