Angelos Antonopoulos

Angelos Antonopoulos

May 17, 2008 - June 11, 2008

Poros

Virvili Square
18020 Poros Island
Greece

(+30) 697 9989 684

Opening Hours
Mon-Sun:
11.00-13.00 & 19.00-23.00

Angelos Antonopoulos was born in Tropea (Arkadia, Peloponnese) in 1957. He studied painting at the Athens School of Fine Arts under D. Mytaras, D. Kokkinidis, V. Dimitreas, and stage design with V. Vassiliadis. He presented his first solo painting exhibition in Athens (F gallery, 1986) and in 1990 he created a large-sized decor for the movie theatre Ideal in Athens. Later, he decorated the movie theatre Cineak in Piraeus. His sculptures, whether small or large, are usually made of metal mesh and modeling fabric. However, he also uses various expressive media (painting, photography, objects, etc.) into wall-mounted or three-dimensional compositions, focusing on their relationship with space. The artistic processing of his works highlights the sense of completeness conveyed by his forms, without stressing their static nature. He has taught painting at the Chalkida Art Workshop (1987-98) and since 1989, he teaches at the Painting Studio A of the Athens School of Fine Arts (associate professor since 2009). He has presented solo exhibitions in Greece and Cyprus and has participated in group exhibitions in Greece and abroad (Italy, Spain, Croatia, Germany, United Arab Emirates).

Angelos Antonopoulos creates a personal iconography from diverse sources such as the fragments of ancient Greek sculptures, Duchamp’s found objects, and the mysterious and enigmatic elements in de Chirico’s early works. Forms and their archetypal elements are central to Antonopoulos’s investigation. Objects are taken out of context and are appropriated, neutralised, manipulated, and staged in unexpected and mysterious relations, posing endless possible readings.

The exhibition in Poros includes both freestanding sculptures as well as sculptural reliefs, in which the artist pushes the barrier between painting and sculpture. The main theme underlying the exhibition – and a constant in Antonopoulos’s work – is the definition and redefinition of the symbolism implied by the foot/funnel. In Antonopoulos the body is fragmented; the fragment of the foot is taken out of its bodily context and transformed into a symbol playing on an almost surrealist stage, transforming and metamorphosing continuously.

Finally, the exhibition in Poros presents the latest direction of Antonopoulos’s work, centered on the human figure generalised, deprived of specific gender and individual features. It is characterised by a machinelike iconography. The mechanical aspect is emphasised by his preoccupation with measurements and structure, as indicated by the lines and letters referring to the different points in the work, echoing scientific drawings. The work engages ambiguity on many different levels.