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Unicum I
... The 'unique' relationship between artwork and individual.
Their performance of one year later (1978, Galleria Civica, Modena;
also in Venice), stresses the unique relationship they wish
to establish with individuals rather than anonymous viewers.
The UNICUM of communication they seek goes beyond
the mere confirmation of the need to communicate. The nature
of communication must be specified from their own point of view.
This could be watched by one person at a time through a small
hole. The rapport was unique and secret each time and its duration
was unforeseeable, determined not only by the scheduled
performance but also by the viewer's will to communicate.
The motif of the action was an incessant nearing and retreating,
like two conditions independent of the space and size of the image,
whose span could shrink or expand with the aid of a mechanism.
This work posed an essential question. What is more significant
in the method to be adopted today-the reworking of the concepts
of image or space, their reduction or enlargement, their easily
legible or symbolic or conceptual form? The proposal that came out
of that question was their conviction that the problem
may not have rested solely on this question; that the most important
element was the crucial presence of the artist in the real
and the imaginary world in which he acts.
The conclusion from their experience was that the crucial time
of contact with the external world began with their action. Moreover,
this action did not stop at the end of the performance. Still images
from the forms of their action remained engraved in the viewer
because they were things he had experienced. They became
memories of live moments through images he had retained.
In a reverse process, the retrieval of those static images led again
to memories of action. This reciprocating function of their work
is also central to their latest project...
Efi Strousa
Athens, June 1980
SAD '85 Paris 1985 Pegasus 1984 STUDIO METAPLASI Unicum I Unicum I Unicum II Magazzini del Sale, Venice 1978
Le SAD de bronze Table and chairs showroom, Galleria Civica, Essay View of Installation - Performance
Prize awarded to STUDIO METAPLASI Wood structure Maroussi Athens 1984 Modena 1978 by Efi Strousa Tubular iron frame, polyethylene sheeting, rope,
for outstanding quality in creative design covered Interior view View of Installation - Athens, June 1980 wood structure, black fabric, stretched white latex,
in plastic laminate Performance electric light, audio collage
Exhibition view
With Pegasus 1984 Table and chairs and blue lacquered legs With Titsa Grekou
Table 180x90 h75 cm Wood structure,
Chair 45x42 h106 cm stretched white latex,
black fabric,
electric light,
audio collage
Performance was
viewed through hole
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Bold Constructions
The formation of an applied aesthetics through artistic intervention process which can lead to many different paths. The need
is an idea which concerns a great many artists today. Starting to expand their expressive media leads them constantly towards
from the teachings of Bauhaus about an art inextricably tied new solutions as they try materials, techniques and processes
with life and up to the current view of an open process which abolish all barriers. Their passage from the experiential
which extends the limits of creativity beyond the established fields actions in space to the configuration of everyday spaces involves
of art, artistic activity today touches on many areas. a clear focus on renewing our experience of everyday reality.
Their old preoccupation with the two-way relationship between art
Overcoming the inhibitions of an obsolete approach to art
as "complete in itself", many famous artists have long contributed and practicality has now found a new balance. Nikos Zouboulis
to the applied arts and thus expressed their opposition began to explore this dual relationship in his work from as early as
to the alienating uniformity brought about by consumerism. 1972, when he designed a modular sculpture whose parts could
And if most of these proposals by artists such as Dali, Picasso, also function as a seat and a table. The multiple combinations
Calder, Vasarely or Matta never made it to mass production and practical uses of their bold and inventive creations, the use
but remained as quaint industrial designs produced in limited of disparate materials and the multifaceted impressions generated
numbers, it is mostly due to the absence of the appropriate by them are all traits of a non-conformity in tune with the precepts
industrial infrastructure. of post-modern design.
So in 1983 they set up Studio Metaplasis, joining forces with other
Bringing together all these experiences from the past, the attempt
for a harmonious co-operation between art and technology artists with the same ideas, such as architects Thanassis Tzivelos
is now taken up once again, this time on a new basis. Next and Panayotis Hatzinas and ceramist Anneta Mylonoyanni,
to the mainstream industry which is always cautious in adopting all of them working together as a team. What has Studio Metaplasis
new trends, smaller industrial concerns are set up by groups achieved so far? Many important things, which have earned it
of artists and architects whose work promotes an unconventional a well-deserved position in the international movement: it was
aesthetic. It is no accident that the post-modern art movement invited to participate in "Linea '85", the major exhibition of visual
went immediately into the familiar environment of daily life and applied arts in Ghent, Belgium; it has been reported
and found its practical expression in today's furniture, lighting in prestigious foreign magazines; and it was awarded the third prize
in the exhibition "SAD '85" at the Parisian Grand Palais. The team
and utility objects and, most importantly, in a whole new approach
to interior design. It is also no accident that post-modern design of are now preparing for their first transatlantic appearance
emerged almost at the same time in all European countries: at the international exhibition of artistic design in Chicago in May.
in France, Germany, Spain and Italy, with the famous Memphis At the same time there are always plans for new projects
and Nova Alchimia groups, but also in Greece with Studio concerning the purely artistic work of Zouboulis and Grekou,
Metaplasis. The main aim of all these groups, which are organised without any conflicts or incompatibility between the two activities.
on a contemporary industrial basis, is to break down the aesthetic In other words, artistic concerns and applied art are complementary
monopolies and expand the artistic consciousness. elements of their work, constituting the two poles in a two-way
Promoting ideas whose associations lead to bold combinations course which steadfastly declines the security of standardisation.
The words of Camus come to my mind: "I have the loftiest idea,
of different art codes, post-modern design represents today
the most advanced approach to decoration, linking the history and the most passionate one, of art. Much too lofty to agree
of yesterday and the visions of tomorrow in imaginative to subject it to anything. Much too passionate to want to divorce it
constructions. One might well wonder how Greece, with from anything". This comes close, I think, to what these two young
its non-existent infrastructure in contemporary design, finds itself people must feel about art.
abreast of countries with a huge tradition in this area.
The answer comes from the two founders of Studio Metaplasis, Maria Kotzamani
Nikos Zouboulis and Titsa Grekou, whose artistic work had always
involved space, constructions and the technological exploration Athens, 19 March 1986
of various materials.
Artists with a long track record in the fields of sculpture,
performance and experimental research, Nikos Zouboulis
and Titsa Grekou have always treated their work as an open
Unicum II Magazzini del Sale, Venice 1978 Unicum II Magazzini del Sale, Venice 1978 Bold Constructions Athens 1989
Titsa Grekou in performance Spectators watching performance through hole Article Bookcase with adjustable shelves, cabinet,
by Maria Kotzamani drawers
Spectators watching performance through hole Preparing the Installation - Performance
EIKONES magazine, no 72, Athens, 19 March 1986 MDF frame in natural finish and black lacquer
226x38 h216 cm
53 55 57 59
Athens 1989 Bookcase Athens 1989 Athens 1994 Manhattan 1986
Computer generated drawings Bookcase with adjustable shelves, cabinet, Bookcase with desk, cabinets, drawers Storage unit with glass cases, cabinets, drawers
Interior and exterior views of men's clothing store, drawers MDF frame in white and pink lacquer MDF frame in black lacquer, glass, mirrors
Athens 1992 MDF frame in natural finish and grey lacquer 230x60 h216 cm 400x45 h240 cm
226x38 h216 cm Limited edition
Athens 1989 Bookcase
Detail Athens 1989
Bookcase with adjustable shelves, cabinet,
drawers
MDF frame veneered in bubinga
and black lacquer
45x38 h216 cm
61 63 65 67
In the Language of Performance
Last week we watched an advanced form In the third space these forms are buried
of the work of Nikos Zouboulis and Titsa Grekou in the sand of the bottom beneath a membrane
as part of the Goethe Institut's programme which suggests a water surface, while all this
of modern music. As always, the performance material participates in the dramatic act, abiding
of the two artists included music as a major, by the discipline imposed by the sound of music.
dynamic element, composed by Gunther Becker. The clear references to ancient Greek culture
The roots of performance go back to the early are reflected in the shapes of the columns,
20th century -long before the Dada the folds formed on the fabric by the moving
and its subversion of the disciplines of art- bodies, the slides from Delos, the symbolism
in the Russian cubists/futurists of 1913. of the glorious civilisation which lies buried
Mayakovsky, Larionov, Goncharova and the wish for - and acceptance of - (through
and Burliuk,magical names in Russian poetry the intensity of the music) a new era.
and painting in the years of that great Spring We must say that the ambitious project of the two
artists has arrived at a plastic language capable
of the arts, paraded in the streets of Moscow
with painted faces. In the 1920s Kurt Schwitters of expressing fundamental concepts
gave 'lectures' which escalated from a mumbling in a clear way.
to loud barks and the screeching of a siren. In comparison with earlier performances we had
In 1947 Artaud introduced the theatre of cruelty; seen, this time they expand in space and add
"in the theatre we do not play, we act. the images from colour slides. The spectacle thus
The theatre is the genesis of creation". becomes more complex and acquires a more
Of course, already since the Renaissance artists descriptive-analytical emphasis instead
were the protagonists of public life, and the of becoming simpler and more basic, as the work
of the same artists attempted in the spring of 1980.
imaginative events they organised are not at all
far from today's performance, as for example Moreover, the three phases which open like
the "Car of Death" presented by Piero di Cosimo theatre stages in three different spaces and times
at the Florentine carnival of 1511. The early confuse the viewers who cannot follow everything
origins of all these contemporary ideas can be at once - a not very happy situation
traced back to primitive societies, to the very in a performance whose functioning requires
sources of art, to religious and magical rites. and encourages the viewers' attention
The work "Reciprocalness III" by Zouboulis and participation.
and Grekou builds on the artists' views on time
and history, the concept of the everlasting Beatrice Spiliadis
and the changeable, the contrast between Athens, 15 November 1982
inactivity and action. Using as main material
their 'trademark' elastic fabric they form three
distinct spaces which open up to the audience
at three different times. On this occasion, music
and lighting are aided by slides projected
on reliefs made with the elastic cloth using
the casting technique.
The forms of these reliefs capture one movement
of the live body behind the flexible material.
In the Language Palindrome II Palindrome II Goethe Institut, Athens 1982 Palindrome II Goethe Institut, Athens 1982 Palindrome II Goethe Institut, Athens 1982
of Performance Goethe Institut, Views and stills from Installation - Performance Stills of Installation - Performance rehearsal View of Installation - Performance
Review Athens 1982 With Nikos Zouboulis and Titsa Grekou Nikos Zouboulis and Titsa Grekou Detail
by Beatrice Spiliadis Still Wood structure, stretched and pleated white latex Titsa Grekou in performance On wall slide projection on fiberglass sculpture
ELEFTHEROTYPIA from Installation - columns and surfaces, fiberglass sculpture, Spectators at Installation - Performance On floor horizontal surface of stretched
newspaper, Performance white lacquer, slide projection, electric light polyethylene on wood frame over three plaster
Athens, With Titsa Grekou Music, Gunther Becker Participation of sculptures wrapped in white latex sheeting
15 November 1982 and covered with sand
Kostas Daskalakis and George Karkas
Generator blew sand and revealed sculptures