Yorgos Sapountzis
dal 3/2/2006 al 9/3/2006
Segnalato da
3/2/2006
Yorgos Sapountzis
Isabella Bortolozzi Galerie, Berlin
Forgotten Tactics. The artist's performances and videos show interventions in which he clashes historic monuments with the myths and the formal language of Modern Art. Sapountzis assumes an ironic revision of the ponderous heritage of Greek culture: he coloures his videos images in cool shades of neon, and their soundtrack is a fast electronic beat created by psycho mafia
Forgotten Tactics
Galerie Isabella Bortolozzi is very pleased to present Yorgos
Sapountzis in the artist's first solo exhibition in Germany.
Yorgos Sapountzis works with a particular kind of objets trouve's; he
explores sculptures in urban contexts. Sapountzis' performances and
videos show interventions in which he clashes historic monuments with
the myths and the formal language of Modern Art.
The artist's obsessive experimentation with sculptures and their impact
on public spaces originates in Athens, his natal city, and its infinite
abundance of monuments. In his video piece “Green Night" 2005, for
example, he approaches publicly displayed replicas of classic
sculptures. He undresses besides them and and thus relates the statues
to his body. In “Yukka" 2004, he uses wooden sticks to construct a
parasitic monument in front of a large statue of Athenae. The artist
then adorns himself with a head-dress made of a yucca plant and slips
underneath the massive lion guarding below the deity's feet.
Sapountzis assumes an ironic revision of the ponderous heritage of
Greek culture: he coloures his videos images in cool shades of neon,
and their soundtrack is a fast electronic beat created by psycho mafia
(Ovind Torvund und Sindre Andersen).
At Galerie Isabella Bortolozzi, Sapountzis presents two recent works he
produced in Berlin. One video installation displays how Rheinhold
Begas’ "Bismarckdenkmal" (1901) and Sol LeWitt's "Structure" (1994) are
literally brought togehther. Carrying his model of LeWitt's "Structure"
made of fine white wooden sticks, Sapountzis paces along the way the
Bismarck monument was taken almost 80 years ago: When 1938 Albert Speer
took his first measures to realise Hitler's plans for a „Welthauptstadt
(world capital) Germania“, the statue of the former Reichskanzler had
to yield its original place in front of the Reichstag building.
Sapountzis starts on todays Platz der Republik where the "Bismarck" was
inaugurated in 1901, then he proceeds up to the northern part of the
Grober Stern intersection, adjoining the park of Schloss Bellevue. By
the time Sapountzis arrives there to meet "Bismarck", his fragile copy
of "Structure" has fallen apart.
Sapountzis references the spatial and thus also symbolic displacement
of the "Bismarck" statue. Besides of re-installing it on a garden site,
"Bismarck's" monumental impact was further diminished by a pedestal of
remarkably smaller size than the original one. At the same time,
Sapountzis' action deprives the "Structure" of its self-referentiality
as intended by LeWitt: not only does the three-dimensional cubic piece
lose its form, the object is also incorporated in a wider context.
Yeti-Lines, the title of Sapountzis' latest work, quotes from Durs
Grunbein's poem "Yeti". The video piece incorporates a web cam
installed at the north-western corner of the historic building of
Deutsches Historisches Museum in central Berlin. The camera's shots of
the space in front of the newly built Pei Exhibition Hall are
constantly exposed via internet. Sapountzis abuses this medium to have
it record the geometrical drawings he created with black tape in the
snow there, one night.
Born 1976 in Athens, Yorgos Sapountzis lives and works in Berlin.
Opening reception: February 4th. 2006, 7.00 - 9 .00 pm
Isabella Bortolozzi Galerie
Schillingstrasse 31 - Berlin
Opening Hours: Tuesday-Saturday, 12-6pm