Lena Athanasopoulou, Extended Memory #4, inkjet print on archival paper, 68 x 68c m, courtesy of the artist 2017.
Lena Athanasopoulou, Untitled, paper collage manipulated digitally, variable dimensions, courtesy of the artist 2012.
Lena Athanasopoulou, Totem, collage digitally manipulated, archival print, 136 x 110 cm, courtesy of the artist 2017.
Born Thessaloniki, Greece (1979)
Extended Memory #4 2017
inkjet print on archival paper
68 x 68 cm
Untitled 2012
paper collage manipulated digitally
variable dimensions
Totem 2017
collage digitally manipulated, archival print
136 x 110 cm
Courtesy of the artist
Statement of Marina Athanasiadou, Art historian-museologist
Lena Athanasopoulou’s Art: A Commentary on the Reciprocal Relationship Between Art and Mass Culture.
Art is communication. That phrase could be the artist’s motto.
Lena Athanasopoulou is an unconventional, poetic spirit. The dominant questions with which she engages are: Can art survive in the era of mass media and, if so, how? Can art save the world or at least awaken it? What has been the response of artists to the existence of the mass media and is there any vital social role left for fine art to play? Faithful to the concept that the role of the artist remains the creation of artworks of aesthetic pleasure and intellectual stimulation, Lena Athanasopoulou creatively uses contemporary methods and materials. Besides, according to her theoretical position, she strongly believes that human needs (survival, sustainability, love, social recognition) have remained the same throughout the centuries. Only artistic language and the tools through which it is expressed have changed.
By using new media of artistic expression, photography, video, computers and printing, through her art, she approaches mass media culture, while analyzing the constant stream of information in our contemporary pluralistic world. Modern society is inundated by mass media and not by fine art. All sorts of machines have played a crucial role in this social and technological transformation. Until the advent of color photography and printing, artists enjoyed a virtual monopoly in creation. Nowadays, art’s role is not only to represent, but to raise questions and stimulate discussion.
Athanasopoulou is an example of an artist who manifests a positive attitude towards mass culture. She tries to approach and communicate with audiences by using familiar, every day images from mass media. In order to produce her artwork, she uses details from advertisements and incorporates them into a single composition. Thus, she constructs new forms and new images that tell stories. Although it is often maintained that analysis of art destroys its mystery, nevertheless, it is crucial to focus on the collages that the artist produces and search for the symbols that she successfully uses in order to communicate with the viewer.
The spirit of allegory and parables is intensely present in her artwork. Her collages are constructed by cutting up pictures of human bodies which compose new images. These images tell stories and raise questions that speak directly to the viewer. Gloomy reality, relationships between men and women, our relationship with time, the interpretation of political incidents and their presentation by mass media are amongst subjects with which the artist is most preoccupied. The abstract urban landscapes she creates stand still, suspended, waiting for the viewer’s reaction. The artist composes a hymn dedicated to mankind, to the ideal of equality and of the freedom of the individual in today’s society.
“The project that I am proposing for the Lagos Biennale moves between three conceptual axes / ideas: responsibility, authority, hope.
The work Extended Memory, is a photograph of an unreal landscape that depicts the ideal, the desired, in the form of an idyllic landscape. This photograph seems to reflect everyone’s “unfulfilled desire”, which is transformed into a place where the incomplete becomes whole.
The work Untitled refers to public space and violence, rules and the tendency to break them, the persistent stare that we often meet in our personal relationships, through a newscast or in the press. It is this stare, this look, that sparks a series of personal questions that are related to the way in which we exist and act as social and political creatures.
In the work Totem, through an explicit “destruction” of form, an attempt is made to create a scary male superhero. The form of authority in the western world is male. The work attempts to comment on this standard, while raising questions regarding the reasons of masculine dominance in political life.
Can art recreate paradise? This seems to be the question the artist is asking.
Through the artist’s work an aspect of the individual is presented, which is dominated by selfish tendencies and manias of control over and enforcement on the weak, the powerless, thus feeding one’s own insatiable vanity. The individual is trapped in a ruthless power struggle, at times playing the victim, at others the perpetrator. The search for the lost utopia seems to occupy them.
No solutions or answers are provided. The artist’s view is that art does not provide answers but merely opens a path for critical discourse and bridges, unites and provides common ground for interaction and critical thought.
Athens, September 2017
