Gas Station, 2003
Photography
The image of a petrol station is a common reference totally familiar to almost everyone. However, in the eyes of Panos Kokkinias, this mundane image is transmuted into a fantasy world open to the imagination and to the unexpected. This photograph brings together three paradigmatic elements of car culture: automobiles, women and fuel. The seductive power of the atmosphere (the voyeuristic distance of the take, the lighting, the set design) runs parallel to the seduction that the culture of energy expenditure associated with the development of automobiles has exerted on society as a whole. Depicted like this, the petrol station is a mirage, an illusion built on a reality that is infinitely more mundane and problematic.
