Wrangle over valuable art uncovered in nightclub of Cypriot ghost town
A valuable artwork by Cyprus's most avant-garde artist of the 1960s has been rediscovered after lying hidden in the underground recesses of a nightclub.
The rare concrete relief by Christoforos Savva features abstract figures of naked women gyrating to the rhythms of a five-piece band and shocked many people almost 60 years ago when they saw it for the first time on the walls of the Perroquet nightclub.
The club is in the abandoned ghost town of Varosha, which has been under Turkish military control since a 1974 war ethnically split the island nation. But with Varosha's controversial partial opening last November, the artwork has come to light following a report by local newspaper Politis.
Now the man who says he commissioned the art from Savva is asking authorities for help to have it removed and taken to the country's national gallery for all to see.
Former Perroquet owner Avgerinos Nikitas, 93, a Greek Cypriot, has appealed to a committee composed of Greek and Turkish Cypriots that is tasked with protecting Cyprus's cultural treasures to help remove the 13 sections.
"In return, I pledge to cede these pieces to the National Collection as a small contribution to Christoforos Savva's huge body of work," Nikitas said in a letter to the committee.
But the venture could be derailed as the Greek Cypriot family that owns the Esperia Tower hotel that hosted the Perroquet insist that the artwork belongs to them.
They say they will not allow their "private property" to be removed.
Speaking on behalf of his family, Panayiotis Constantinou said their lawyer has advised them that the hotel, the club and everything inside it belongs to them.
"We respect and value culture, but this is private property about which we haven't been asked anything about removing it, and on top of that, someone else lays claim to it," Mr Constantinou said.
Art historians credit Savva as one of the most influential artists of the time who brought the country's inward-looking, traditionalist art world into modernity in the years immediately after Cyprus gained independence from British rule in 1960.
A painter and sculptor, Savva shifted away from the established, representational art styles by encompassing influences such as cubism, which he picked up during his stays in London and Paris through the 1950s, into his voluminous artwork.
He died in 1968. "Savva was an innovator who always sought to break new ground and challenge the conservative times in which he lived," said Andre Zivanari, director of the Point Centre for Contemporary Art.
Savva's work reflected the joie de vivre of Varosha, which at the time was Cyprus's most progressive, popular tourist resort, a favourite with visitors from Europe and beyond, said Yiannis Toumazis, an art history professor and a Greek Cypriot member of the committee on culture.
That all changed in the summer of 1974 when Turkey invaded following a coup by supporters of union with Greece.