In
recent years, Evangelos Papadopoulos has repeatedly shown spectacular, mostly
large-format space-specific installations, including a highly esteemed work at
the Düsseldorf Kunstpalast Museum during the NRW 2012 exhibition.
From
simple, commercially available building materials such as gypsum boards, roof
tiles, monorails and screws, the artist mounted over-arching structures
extending far into the rooms, which seem to be dominated by complicated
movement tendencies pointing in different directions.
Without
using neither plans of construction nor pre-fabricated sketches, Papadopoulos
intuitively builds his temporary large sculptures by "spinning" them
into the space, spontaneously and in a constant confrontation with the
particular place, its atmosphere, its functions and light conditions.
By
breaking the gypsum plates into irregular pieces, a exciting contrast is created between the smooth surface of the
industrially manufactured material and the irregularly running fracture edges.
Constructive, destructive and subtly organic embellishments already enter into
an inseparable, hybrid connection on this elementary level. Its
curiously scaly surface, the stilted supports made of monorails, the numerous
openings and breakthroughs create a rugged, half-built, semi-natural
large-form, which can not be fully revealed in all its aspects, even when
viewed for a long time.
The
main theme of the artist is form. Where does it come from? What ultimately
determines the final shape in the intuitive, continuous dialogue with the
material? From what subconscious depths, memories, and sources of energy does
the shaping feed?
Papadopoulos
also pursues these questions with his latest concrete sculptures. There, he
uses different textile materials, including ropes and jute fabrics, which he
twists into shapes that resemble the gnarled growth form of wine sticks.
He
combines these elements together, immerses them in concrete, and makes them
rigid into complicated shapes. The object emerges in a hanging state and only
at the end of the process, gains the stability of column - like sculptures,
whereby they repeatedly release latent anthropomorphic associations.
A
form motif that this work has in common with the space installations arises
from the artist's fascination for twisted movements, which in the case of
sculptures arouse surprising reminiscences of Hellenistic sculptures and
sculpture of the Late Renaissance.
This
is also indicated by the exhibition title SERPENTINATA. The figura serpeninata,
the "snake-like" figure turned into space, was regarded as the
ultimate in sculpture art in the 16th century because it gives the sculptures a
difficult movement in space, requiring the observer to view and perceive from
different perspectives.
This
also applies, despite all obvious differences to historical sculpture, to the
work of Evangelos Papadopoulos. They also set the viewers in motion and give
them new and surprising perspectives and partial aspects.