40 |
Greek, born 1930
Bar
poster paper construction, on wood, framed in a plexiglas box
signed and dated 2007 on the reverse
50 x 65 x 20 cm
PROVENANCE
private collection, Athens
15 000 / 20 000 € | |
Pavlos was born in Filiatra, Peloponnese in 1930.
In 1947 he moved to Athens, and in 1949 he enrolled at the School of Fine Arts, Athens, where he studied under Yiannis Moralis.
A year after his graduation, in 1954, on a French State scholarship he spent a year in Paris studying at the Academie de la Grande Chaumiere. During this period, he was acquainted with western art in the museums and galleries of Europe.
Between 1955 and 1958 he returned briefly in Athens and worked in the fields of advertising and theatre. In 1958, on a scholarship from the State Scholarships Foundation of Greece, he returned to Paris where he settled permanently.
His artistic identity was influenced mainly by the innovative atmosphere of the 1960s and especially by the New Realists and Pierre Restany, characterised mainly by his switch from the conventional canvas to the use of cheap everyday materials of modern civilisation.
Printed paper was his primary material of choice: posters machine cut into fine strips (affiches massicotes). The arrangement of strips forms undulating surfaces, where colours and material unite. These early works were in abstract form; however, when he fully developed his technique, he began to create figurative images or objects, three-dimensionally, to the point of visual illusion. Occasionally he used other materials too, such as steel wool or ribbons, but always with the same high-quality craftsmanship and inventiveness.
He has created environments, spatial installations (Curtains, Columns, Forest, Flags) and visual art events where the public interacted. His elaborate and imaginative images often negate the material aspect of their construction, subjecting a metaphysical sensation.
He represented Greece at the 1980 Venice Biennale, while in 1997 a large scale retrospective exhibition was organised by the Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art.
His work can be found in: The National Gallery of Greece, the Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art, the Centre George Pompidou, Paris, the Musée d’Art Moderne, Paris, the Neue National-Gallerie Berlin, the Museum of Modern Art, New York and many other public and private collections.