Rena Papaspyrou

Rena Papaspyrou, Collection National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens (EMST), installation view, ANTIDORON. The EMST Collection, Fridericianum, Kassel, photo: Mathias Völzke

“Geographies,” “episodes,” or “images in matter” are different terms that Rena Papaspyrou has used to describe the foci of her practice spanning from the late 1960s to the present day. Sheet metal, doors, planks, pieces of wall, mosaic tiles, dust, and other by-products of urban decay collected from the street are suggestively modified with light pencil or marker, guiding the viewer towards a necessary shift in scale to discover images already ingrained in their material surface by arbitrary wear and tear, corrosion, or simply the passing of time. Following the artist’s gaze, the viewer is transported into a hallucinatory visual microcosm full of random narratives. Stilponos 7 (1979) was completed in front of an invited public: the artist transferred parts of a detached wall from a derelict Athenian house to the Desmos art gallery, indicating the realm of the city as a space of experimentation but also as the material and conceptual origin of her art.

Posted in Public Exhibition