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In all his artistic practice, Spyros Aggelopoulos is resorting to laughter, or rather to the desire for laughter. For his second show at Dio Horia Gallery, Aggelopoulos exhibits his 'dirty laundry' to present every antihero’s secret power: The attack on the smile-less.
The exhibition titled 'Δε Laundry Basket' [The Laundry Basket], includes new paintings, sculptural installations and an experimental silent movie that as a whole construct the artist’s universe as a trooper. Starring in 'Δε Laundry Basket’s' iconography is a table, the Head in a jar, evoking references to old freak shows that invited people to see the head of Joaquin Murrieta or Emiliano Zapata. Out and about are Batman driving a truck filled with watermelons; Wonder Woman; the Siamese Twin Pac-Man and the Ghost; the children’s series heroine Candy Candy, only without legs and titled Half a Candy is still a Candy. Appearing at the same time are performers, actors, amateurs, presenting those acts that used to be called side shows or “fireworks” in older freak shows.
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“Painting comes as a construction. I am presenting a performance, which also includes video. At some point I realized that all of these are essentially one and the same: some strange people with superpowers, or with super-flaws that they’ve turned into powers. And because I was never satisfied with painting alone, simply sitting in front of a framed canvas, I wanted to create a super-universe. Essentially, as I see it now, these superpowers are the super-flaws that freaks possess. That is, the very qualities due to which society pushes you to the margins”.
-Spyros Aggelopoulos, Artist
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SPYROS AGGELOPOULOS
NO NEWS TODAY, 2021 -
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Aggelopoulos’s goal is to create an artistic freak show, through which we can salvage the sort of laughter that functions subversively. The sort of laughter that preserves the memory of the carnival, the country fair, the folk whimsy, the Karagiozis puppeteer, the traveling actors and musicians, the hawkers and peddlers, the town square, the sorcerer, the fortune teller, and all things folk culture. To this end, Aggelopoulos calls on his associates without providing them with any clear directorial guidelines, but simply conveying to them a feeling, an atmosphere, so that they may express themselves freely and creatively, in a celebratory mood. And this attitude is also extended towards the viewer of his works.
Artist Spyros Aggelopoulos brings together the forms of his heroes, presenting the Laundry Basket. With one objective: “To be theatrical without a résumé.” He wants his viewers, the visitors of the exhibition, to see it and embrace their own theatricality. And think to themselves: “Starting tomorrow, I too will be in there, I will be part of what I see.”
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SPYROS AGGELOPOULOS - ΔΕ LAUNDRY BASKET: GALLERY EXHIBITION AT DIO HORIA ATHENS
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