Leda Papaconstantinou
3 Papaconstantinou,
Theodore, Litsa, Leda
April 2–May 15, 2016
Opening: Saturday, April 2, noon–9pm
Artist talk: April 2, 6:30pm
Fougaro The Gallery Nafplion
Asklipiou 98
21100 Nafplion
Greece
Hours: Wednesday–Friday 11am–3pm & 5–9pm,
Saturday–Sunday 11am–9pm
info [at] fougaro-gallery.gr
www.fougaro.gr
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On Saturday, April 2, Fougaro The Gallery Nafplion will be opening a major exhibition by the well known artist Leda Papaconstantinou, entitled 3 Papaconstantinou, Theodore, Litsa, Leda.
Τhe work itself is a large scale installation, which will be completed in situ by the artist.
Made up of fragments of her parents’ lives and artefacts, the installation is a unique historical testimony of a family’s life course through the tumultuous 20th century.
Works large and small, wood carvings, tools, memorabilia, paintings, small-scale sculptures, artefacts and fragments of the lives of Theodore and Litsa Papaconstantinou will be interwoven into a vast and unique mosaic of lives transformed by the ebbs and flows of Greek history.
Living and crafting on the island of Spetses from 1966 for almost half a century, Theodore and Litsa Papaconstantinou exchanged one life for another in the wake of the Greek Civil War. They successfully turned the impasses of the era into an opportunity for renewal which they imbued with their inimitable spirit.
The artist has this to say of them: “Two wars in a row, World War II and the Civil War, had practically wiped out the life they had known and their plans. They had to build a new life in its place. And so they did, and managed through hard work, persistence and intelligence to live ultimately with joy. The years of peace were sustained by creativity.”
Leda Papaconstantinou interweaves her own works—old and new—into this large canvas, building a personal narrative out of three lives, shedding light on the relationships, forces and influences that ultimately shaped her too.
With this show, a daughter honours the life, work and memory of her parents, who lived with wit, grace and inspiration and succeeded in finally turning their own lives into art.
Curated by Florica P. Kyriacopoulos
Lighting: Filippos Koutsaftis
The exhibition is taking place courtesy of a.antonopoulou.art gallery
On the day of the opening, Saturday, April 2, at 6:30pm Leda Papaconstantinou talks with the art historian and critic, Denys Zacharopoulos.
Leda Papaconstantinou
Leda Papaconstantinou was born in Ambelonas, Larissa, Greece, in 1945. She studied Graphic Art at the Doxiadis School, Painting at the Athens School of Fine Art, and Fine Arts at the Maidstone School of Arts, Kent University, UK. Having completed her studies in the UK, she settled on Spetses, Greece, where she lived with her family from 1966 on.
She is among the first of very few artists in Greece who have used performance as an expressive tool. Her work was part of the daring and ground-breaking European avant-garde of the 1960s and ’70s which sought to radicalize the means of artistic expression—its epicentre performance, its sphere of action the human body.
Thematically, her work primarily references the human body and gendered identity with a tendency to record sensory and mental stimuli relating to memory and time. She uses a range of expressive media including natural materials, objects, three-dimensional constructions, collages and sculpture, movement, sound and the spoken/written word. On occasion, she includes her own physical presence in her work.
The show’s ritualistic nature and autobiographical references reinforce the multivalent communicational force of her actions. The freedom with which she selects materials, which are determined by the subject of a given work, underscores the multi-dimensionality of her work and explains why the show is divided into sections devoted to painting, sculpture, the moving image, etc.
The following stand out from her many one-woman shows and actions: Untitled, painting and sculpture, São Paulo Biennale, 1989—Genet’s Toaster, installation, House of Cyprus, Athens 1998—Witness, a.antonopoulou gallery, Athens 2004—Performance, film, video 1969–2004, Benaki Museum, Athens & Bey Hamam, Thessaloniki 2006—Yes-No at the Baths of the Winds, Athens 2011—4th Athens Biennale 2013.
Works of hers are held by the National Art Gallery, Athens; the State Museum of Contemporary Art, Thessaloniki; the Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art, Thessaloniki; and by private collectors.
Press contact: Antonis Kontroyiannis, antonis [at] fougaro.gr / T +30 210 7400 140
