|
Best wishes for the new season, dear friends,
As many of you know, I have decided to take a break from creating new stage works and touring for the next two years. A lot has been created over the past 40 years and this vast archive needs re-contextualizing, editing, printing and sharing. This will be my art project now. I am sharing with you the first outcomes of this archive dive.
BIRTHPLACE
A special edition written, curated and designed by myself was printed by LIFO this summer.
It is a sincere personal chronicle of the creation of the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games Athens 2004, twenty years exactly after that date. The edition disappeared in a blink of an eye and has been reprinted. The online version got record-breaking clicks and I decided to create an extra one in English, for my Νon-Greek friends.
Here it is, full of links, unpublished material and personal stories. This was the biggest show on earth. I hope you will be entertained.
I also attach here, in case you haven't seen it, my conversation with Professor Dimitris Papanikolaou for DUST magazine, featuring 20 pages I created with stage work pics, comics, and paintings in a wild archive-association game. You can read it here, and the translated Greek edition, with even more images, here.
GREEK QUEER HISTORY / Proud to be the first
The first Greek Queer Con featured my work as a landmark of Greek outspoken sexuality.
Published in 1986, my comic ‘Who’s talking’ was the first openly homosexual comic in Greece. Two anarchist boys chased by the cops enter a fantasy/Mad Max-like universe full of challenges and sex, until they discover love and spirituality by the sea.
My 1987 comics ‘The Amazing Mever’ is mentioned as well. A meeting/acid trip of two men as Marvel superheroes.
My performance ‘A Moment's Silence’ was the first Greek performance to deal with the AIDS epidemic, and was featured as well as a landmark of Greek queer history
MY COMICS EXHIBITED
Wow Pow! Bam! was an exhibition of original comics and comic-oriented paintings in the renowned Zoumboulakis Gallery in Athens. It was held between June – July. I participated with a combination of older and recent works. This was my return to a gallery after 35 years.
MY FIRST BOOK
Sketches from Life is a collection of three summers in a book. A graphite diary. I have returned to the old-fashioned art of drawing from life. Nudes and portraits and agave cactus under the strong Cycladic sun.
You can get a glimpse of the spirit of this edition here, and you can order your copy here.
NEW SCULPTURES
A playful creation of three plates, where I added naïf animation to figures of the iconic Moralis’ façade of the Athenian Hilton. Commissioned to celebrate the transformation of the former Hilton Hotel into The Ilisian.
This is how it looked like.
BYE BYE STAGE
On the stage of Théâtre de la Ville – Paris, the INK world tour was finalized, marking my final appearance on stage. INK was presented with a total of 86 performances, in over 20 cities across 18 countries, in Europe, Asia, and North America, in front of more than 60,000 spectators. I could not be more grateful for the enthusiasm, respect, and love I have received. I N K "pushes the limits of theater" – Le Devoir / "an apocalyptic and erotic theatrical UFO" –L’EssentiART / "captivating and perverse" – El País / "violent, ironic, homoerotic, and absurd" – Sleek Magazine / "a genre of performance unlike anything else you will see on stage" – The Guardian / "Papaioannou illuminates the dark sides of desire." – Tagesspiegel / "the audience was nailed to their seats, hardly blinking from start to finish." – El País / "we can only bow to the breathtaking physical performance and endurance" – Causeur / "Perverse, undisciplined, and fascinating." – ABC Sevilla / "A perpetual pursuit of the sublime." – El País / "Dimitris Papaioannou's latest work solidifies his status as a visionary artist" – BNN Breaking / "Papaioannou is one of the great composers of scenic images of our time." – Le Devoir / "As rarely happens in theater, Papaioannou manages to ignite our anxieties, arousing only beauty." – Città Nuova / "In just a few years, the Greek artist has shattered rules, barriers, and borders." – Il Manifesto / "caress and carnage” – London Evening Standard
___
Within the next two years, I am planing to revive two of my most favorite older creations for long Athens-only runs. I will announce early enough for you to plan your travels, and I will be happy to have you in my hometown.
See you soon,
Dimitris
|
