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Deracination / Memory / Endgame: Three artists from Athens in a locale where the remains of antiquity coexist with noisy taxis and Vespas, the visual discourse between past and present seems somehow casual and inevitable. Stunning as it may seem at first to a visitor, the continuity of ostensible anachronisms is part of an ongoing reality among Greek artists, like the spoken language itself that continues through over 3,000 years to find fresh use. A constant reminder of heritage, however, can be a burden if also a wellspring or a backdrop poised to lurch into the foreground. It is something to work through and to wrestle with.
...Halivopoulou's luminous installation, "Interactors II" (1998-99), evokes a cascade wedded to a grid. Its three hanging scrolls flow to the floor and are linked by electric cables to paper-covered blocks and light boxes mounted to the wall. The vellum-like surfaces of both parts contain fragments of ancient Greek letters. In the artist's iconography, the transparent, lit-up membranes evoke the memory of body functions, while the adjacent fields of darker tones indicate language-based memory. These thin and delicate scrolls, made of rice paper coated with acrylic resin or charcoal and graphite, are slightly taller than human scale. Together, they assume a sculptural posture insofar as they are linked to the nearby wall piece and invite the viewer to circulate around and between them. By contrast, the 12 square works are joined together and confronted pictorially. They form a larger block made up of four black and seven light honey-colored segments, as well as an ember-like red one. To Halivopoulou, contrasting areas of light and dark interact to signify discrete elements of memory. If she etches ancient letter-symbols on the tenebrous surfaces to serve as conveyors of collective memory, she also illustrates the neurological apparatus that triggers memory. Blackness evokes memory approached through language (or logos), serving the intellect. The glowing, vellum-like warm-toned surfaces correspond to the memory of sensation, or what is felt through the functions of the body. The bright spheres and squares, illuminated by electric lamps and light boxes, suggest entities in the midst of incubation that are connected to a cerebral faculty. Norman Keyes Jr. Catalogue essay (except), exhibition "Symbols/Objects, Stories & Facts Untold" Foundation for Hellenic Culture, New York, 1999 Norman Keyes Jr. is a writer and painter who lives in Topanga, California. New York (USA)Baltimore (USA)London (UK)Berlin (Germany)Kavala (Greece) |
New York (USA) 
The two catalogues of the exhibition
Press cuttingsARTnews, TimeOut, Sculpture
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