Maria Loizidou, who was among the finalists of the 2014 Curate Award of the Fondazione Prada and the Qatar Museum Authorities, visits Athens once again with a daring project that perceives the socio-geographical space of the gallery as a challenge to create a subversive order of things.

In expanding and evolving the concepts inherent in such works as “Collective Autobiography” (presented at the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Athens, 2013), as well as her recent large-scale solo exhibition titled “Curating Body/The Cached Space” held at the Cyprus Museum in Nicosia (2014), Loizidou attempts to permit the viewer to “perceive that which appears possible or not, in an ‘ambiguous space’ which is re-defined”.

Loizidou experiments by bringing into a dialogue the history of the Kalfayan family, which consists of three generations of art dealers, and the animated disorder that prevails in her studio in Nicosia, to a part of Athens that is in upheaval. This reflects, for her, “the philosophical question, ‘Why should something occur and not nothing?’” 

The re-appropriation of an entire series of media, themes and techniques which the artist employs in her work, such as printing, sculpting or even the simple gesture of smudging, channels and introduces a new perception of reality and comprehension of the essence of “cropping up”.  At the same time, the structure of the exhibition, the appropriation of the architecture and the arrangement of the space through the artworks, re-negotiates the perception of the individual regarding that which is revealed through the relationship of things at a precise moment in time and the way by which the viewer interacts and identifies himself in relationship to the space.

Short bio:

Maria Loizidou studied sculpture at the École Nationale des Beaux-Arts de Lyon and lived in Paris until 1987 when she moved to Nicosia. In 1981, she received the ‘Prix de Paris’ award, which secured her a residency at the Villa Pezyeux, Paris. She was subsequently offered a studio at the Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris. In 2014 she was short-listed for the Curate Award of the Fondazione Prada and the Qatar Museum Authorities. The artist has collaborated with institutions, art schools, galleries and museums primarily in Paris but also in New York and Düsseldorf. Her most recent exhibitions include the Yeosu International Art Festival 2014; A NEW NECESSITY- Community & Territory; “Curating Body, The Cached Space” (solo), Cyprus Museum, Nicosia (2014); “Collective Autobiography” (solo), National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens (2013); 4th and 2nd Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art; “Privileged Access” (solo), Kalfayan Galleries, Thessaloniki (2011); “Living Small” (solo), Benaki Museum, Athens (2008). She participated at the Venice Biennale of Art and Architecture (2004 – 2006) where she represented Cyprus in 1986. 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. Her collaboration with AA & U For Architecture, Art and Urbanism allows her to focus on related topics on a multi-disciplinary level.