Venue

KALFAYAN GALLERIES | THESSALONIKI

Press Release

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On Saturday, 17 September 2011, Kalfayan Galleries in Thessaloniki will present the exhibition of the Cypriot artist Maria Loizidou titled “Privileged Access”.

Under the current circumstances and with all that is happening around us and more specifically in the city of Thessaloniki (3rd Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art), Maria Loizidou perceived an exhibition at Kalfayan Galleries as a challenge to create something special and unique at the gallery.

The work consists of a construction situated in a closed room that has been adapted to the dimensions of the gallery in such a way that it becomes a part of the architectural layout and at the same is a landscape and still life. This interaction of the landscape with the space creates conditions that determine the accessibility of the viewer toward the object. The ‘privileged access’ to an otherwise closed space is understood through a hypothetical access of the hermetically sealed openings of the door and window, with the fragile paper brick that, supported by its strict geometrical placement, creates obstacles to the viewer and simultaneously causes him to test the extent of non-disclosure. Together with the small opening, observatory, which allows him to perceive the distant object located inside the closed space conspire to favor this time, the sense of things is an issue open to all.

Maria Loizidou

Maria Loizidou studied visual arts at the School of Fine Arts in Lyon. She has collaborated with institutions, art schools, galleries and museums primarily in Paris but also in New York and Düsseldorf. Since 1991, she has maintained a strong presence in the Greek art world.  Her most recent exhibitions include “Living Small” at the Benaki Museum in Athens (2008) and the 2nd Biennale of Thessaloniki (2009) and “Eucalyptus” and “La Dantellière” at the Byzantine Museum. She represented Cyprus at the 12th Cairo Biennale in 2010 with the work “Digitalis” and at the Venice Biennale in 1986 with the video installation “The Myth of Ariadne in Three Acts”. Her work addresses issues of concern to humans in their everyday lives and isolates moments of the “other”, our other self, and of relationships in general that describe and maintain the strength of fragility.

She has also created outdoor public art projects, such as installing “L’apparition des anges” (2007), in collaboration with the architect Alexandros Tombazis, for the entrance to the Church of the Holy Trinity in Fátima, Portugal.