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Form into Practice

For three decades Nikos Zouboulis and Titsa Grekou have explored

the ways in which the human body fits and moves within delineated spaces.

Partners in life as well as in work since 1976, they went from their early

studies in interior design into the field of visual arts.
Nikos began the endeavor in 1972 with his first Happening

and his investigation into new materials. After joining forces with Titsa Grekou,

the couple went on to create a series of highly innovative projects

that combined sculpture, installation and live action (performance) – relatively
new art genres worldwide and virtually unknown in Greece at the time.

Characteristically, these projects included some form of architectural

environment, such as columns or walls.

To serve their structural and conceptual requirements Zouboulis and Grekou
invented a medium/material – latex sheeting – a pliable, elastic surface that

could adapt itself to and/or record physical movement and shapes. It could

also be stretched and draped to create or cover architectural elements.

The performative act typically took place behind the latex surface,
which was animated and acquired form through the movements

of the participants’ concealed bodies. Influences of classical art are evident

in the columnar forms, the fluted and pleated surfaces, the integration

of sculptural figuration, and the pervasive whiteness.
In their installation-performance projects they observed how the body moved

within the confines of a sculptural construction, how it acted and reacted

within a specific environmental framework and against various surfaces

and materials, and how it displaced and reformed the space around it.
Their extension of this discourse to the parallel realm of interior design

and furnishings seems a virtually organic outgrowth of this quintessentially

anthropocentric enterprise.