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Installation - Exhibition Hall: Megaron - The Athens Concert Hall, 2005 249
Calypso 1994
The work of Nikos Zouboulis and Titsa Grekou, artits who use their bodies
in art and have been collaborating since 1975, also emphasized process
and the coexistence of planned and random elements.
Zouboulis staged his first interactive performance in 1973 using liquid latex
which, with special processes he developed himself, he transformed into
stable surfaces on which traces of portraits on the audience were captured.
The elastic sheet framed in a crate, an off-shoot of the metamorphosis
of the fluid into a stable but easily-moulded material, was to become the
trade mark of their collective work.
Functioning as a receiver for the action of the body, it became a unique
screen that captured, immobilized and immortalized the movements and
gestures of the key actors.
Despite the predetermined scripts, the music encouraged the performers
to improvise freely, while the play of light and shadow intensified the sense
of the theatrical.
From 1980 on, the static works - body prints in relief - constitute both the
traces the process left behind and testimony to the actions they serve
to document.
Presented in this space is an experimental project by students of interior design at the ATO,
Bia Papadopoulou intended to demonstrate how such diverse elements as photography, industrial products,
Athens, 2005
music and slides can be combined in a harmonious whole with rhythmic order.
The composition presented here suggests various ideas for further development,
hence it was worth pursuing as an experiment.
Adam & Eve 1989 Adam & Eve 1989 Catalogue essay Installation 2005 Happening Doxiades School, Athens 1972
Table and chairs Table and chairs in the woods by Bia Papadopoulou View of Installation Exhibition catalogue
Adam 1989 Table Adam 1989 Table Athens, National Museum Still of Happening
Plate glass top, black and white marble base Plate glass top, MDF frame in black lacquer December 2005 of Contemporary Art with Nikos Zouboulis
200x100 h75 cm and solid beech columns in natural finish Exhibition Hall: Megaron-
Eve 1989 Chair 200x100 h75 cm The Athens Concert Hall,
Solid beech frame in black lacquer, Eve 1989 Chair Athens
seat and backrest upholstered Solid beech frame in natural finish,
in blue and black leather seat and backrest upholstered in fabric
47x47 h116 cm 47x47 h116 cm
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Retroaction Miranda Gallery, Hydra Greece 1981 249 249
Retroaction
Hydra casts a seductive spell that securely ensnares reality, while also Retroaction can mean simply an act that is repeated,
partaking of the myth-making process. The elements that compose Hydra but it can also mean an act that has the power to rouse, to suggest,
have something of the fragmentary quality found in memory associations, to bring forth again. It can mean participation in a common experience,
and something of the glorious gratuitousness of poetry. These elements but also an attempt to recapture an event through the spectator - by urging
pierce the senses and affect the conscious mind in the manner the spectator to seek his own identity through his personal participation
of a catalyst. Their action is immediate, sweeping and liberating. in the repetition of the act.
Hydra is a real place with a specific history; it is a testimony to a past The whole enterprise, ultimately, depends on the public. But the initial
that cannot change; but it is also a living stage for an imagined present, impetus remains the artists'. For them, retroaction is a composite entity
in which all things are subject to chance, possibility, expectation; that includes both the "before" and the "after" of their particular vision.
a stage set for adventures, ventures/ prodigies and dreams; for situations Their work consists of both the idea and its realization at the hands
that cannot be described in world or pretty pictures, but only experienced of the public; thought and action, and memories associations
and absorbed on the spot. aroused by that action/ converge and merge into a whole succession
Present history is not recorded, but lived. of highly individual, self-existent works: works born of the struggle
Nicos Zouboulis and Titsa Grekou are the kind of people who make between man arid matter- works invested with bodily motion, the beating
present history - who shape the times they live in. of the human heart, the heaving of human lungs; actual organic imprints
Their relation to their work is purely existential; through their work of life, not substitutes or reproductions of the human presence;
they channel forth a passionate, insatiable appetite for life, works that plunge the acted moment into the flow of time, turning historical
which leads to the furthermost consequences of the creative act, reminiscence into living history.
brushing aside all restraints and inhibitions. Each time they perform this act They are works that recall murals, reliefs, monuments; contemporary
before us, it embodies an intensity of experience that is new and unique. friezes, funeral steles of this age; fleeting tracings of an act performed
The outcome is always unexpected, open to experiment, with materials of here and now, free of classical associations.
with all the unknown coincidences and unforeseen perspectives The sensitive membrane, the thin plastic fabric frankly state their
that this involves. technological origin; the plaster never pretends to be marble.
This explains why these two artists have found in Hydra such a powerful The action that grows out of this modern material unfolds continuously,
stimulus, such a challenge: an incitement to action and commitment, bringing into the gallery the reverberation of live art in the making.
a summons to grapple with the problems of space and time, Seven large elastic screens standing outside the gallery forcefully confirm
history and tradition. that this is the present, but a present which has not rejected the traditional.
Their new experimental work is based precisely on this twofold dimension Behind the elastic surfaces, human existence struggles in search
of history (the moment as opposed to continuity; present and past; of a meaning within the time continuum. This dialectical relationship
destruction and preservation) which shapes and defines the traditional between anguished present and idealized past is the central idea
culture the morals, the metaphysics of this country at all levels. dominating the whole articulated work, while the music
The artists start from the strict methodological organization of an idea; of Theodor Antoniou, composed especially for this performance,
this forms the groundwork, the basic pre-supposition of their work; generates multiple new stimuli in a total experience which finally reaches
they then go on to explore the extent of the feasible: how far the idea fulfillment by transcending temporal limitation and reaching the point
can be carried. These are the limits determined by the artists themselves where the intensity of the initial impulse is fully recuperated
(they are the ones who stage the action and the memories evoked by it). in endless retroaction.
Beyond this, the extension into the field of the non-feasible is left wide
open: it depends on the participants, on their cohesion, Maria Kotzamani
the shared emotional experience of people gathered in a common
meeting-place. This may result in privileged moments of communication Hydra, July 1981
and communion, running through the participants like an electrical current.
The artists' concern has always centered on real situations:
but in the present instance, they have attempted something bolder:
a retroaction.
Happening Doxiades School, Athens 1972 Retroaction Retroaction Miranda Gallery, Hydra Greece 1981 Retroaction Miranda Gallery, Hydra Greece 1981
Stills of Happening Catalogue essay Preparing the Installation - Performance Inside the gallery
Corrugated cardboard, wire, photograph, by Maria Kotzamani outside the gallery
slide projections, electric light for solo exhibition, Miranda Gallery, Nikos Zouboulis and Titsa Grekou
Participation of Hydra Greece, July 1981 Wood structure, stretched white latex, electric light
Phaidon Paraskevas, Yannis Simiriotis, Participation of
Christos Tzivelos and students from Costas Daskalakis, George Karkas,
Doxiades School Tea Mitrophani and Makis Pagoulatos
Music, Stefanos Vassiliadis Music, Theodor Antoniou
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249
Retroaction Miranda Gallery, Hydra Greece 1981 Retroaction Miranda Gallery, Hydra Greece 1981 Retroaction Miranda Gallery, Hydra Greece 1981 Untitled 1972 Doric 1989 -1993
Untitled 1980 View of Installation View of Installation in gallery garden Sculpture-Modular STUDIO METAPLASI
Sculpture diptych Wood frame with pleated white latex, electric light at conclusion of Performance furniture system catalogue
Plaster, white lacquer, pleated white latex, On floor plaster sculpture with stretched Wood structure
fiberglass white latex, fiberglass sculpture with white lacquer in grey acrylic paint
110x200 cm 50x40 h260 cm
Doric 1989
Bar
Gemini 1984
Coffee table
With Nikos Zouboulis
Photomontage
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Doric 1989 Doric 1989 Miami model 1987 Broadway 1984 Broadway 1984
Bookcase with adjustable shelves, Bookcase and bar on slopes of Mt. Parnes Bar with cabinets, Bar Bar with adjustable shelves
transportable cabinet on wheels Doric 1989 drawers With Titsa Grekou Solid wood frame in white, grey, black and red
Black painted steel frame, MDF in black lacquer Bookcase Cardboard at STUDIO METAPLASI lacquer, mirror, red neon 70x28 h177 cm
100x47 h183 cm Black painted steel frame, MDF veneered in ash with colored paper stand Atreus 1989
100x32 h183 cm and wire in exhibition AT HOME
Doric 1989 Bar with adjustable shelves, drawers
Bookcase with adjustable shelves Doric 1989 Diatryto 1984 WITH THE WORLD MDF frame in natural finish and grey lacquer,
Black painted steel frame, MDF veneered Bar Transportable bar Chicago 1986 mirror, white neon 61x24 h177 cm
in bubinga Black painted steel frame, MDF veneered in ash, Solid wood frame Mexico 1984
100x32 h183 cm mirror in blue, yellow Bar with adjustable shelves
80x42 h183 cm and red lacquer, Solid wood frame in grey, blue, yellow, pink
rubber handles and purple lacquer, mirror 61x24 h177 cm
77x26 h40 cm