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NIKOS PAPADIMITRIOU | Glorious Days

26.03.09 - 16.05.09

"Head Ball", 2008, plastic carpet and oil on plywood, 170 X 195 cm




























On Thursday March 26 the third solo show of Nikos Papadimitriou entitled “Glorious Days” will open at AD Gallery.
At his previous solo show, on May 2007, Papadimitriou presented the installation “Gallery Trophy” addressing the issue of competition in art. The installation featured a half size tennis court, distorted to fit into the gallery space. Next to this strong conceptual form, a powerful emotional element -the trophy- the head of a wild boar was juxtaposed.Two years later, the artist cuts the plastic carpet of the tennis court and converts it into a painting surface. A surface which maintains the traces of its previous function – the footsteps of the visitors from the 2007 show are dispersed on it – although now fragmented, it recalls the concerns of minimalist painting. On this surface Papadimitriou paints – depicts scenes from Goya’s printed work. The detached human head, cut off from a tortured body, looks like a strange ball of an unspeakable game. The painting alludes to a past time. Yet, the footsteps and the plastic carpet define the Present. The untroubled pleasure of sports conflicts with the human passions in an environment of the spectator’s presence – absence.
Another work presents a proud group of hunters in front of a wall where dozens of quarries are hanging. It is the image of a true massacre on which the artist geometrically depicts the plan of a baseball court.
Displayed in the center is the bronze sculpture of a barbarian equestrian warrior who holds his own head as a trophy.
The theme continues the one of the wall painting “Hunt”, which Papadimitriou showed in the exhibition “What Remains is Future”, at the Old Arsakio School in Patras (Fall 2006).
The artist poses timeless questions about survival, preponderance, dominance and their price.
 

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