Inaugurating a series of shows relevant to memory, Eleftheria Tseliou gallery is happy to present the show ‘Modular modules mode’, dedicated to the sculptress Ioanna Spiteri-Veropoulou. In addition to Ioanna Spiteri-Veropoulou’s works, the show includes works of Antonakis, Kostis Velonis, Ilias Koen, Dora Economou, Nana Sachini, Sofia Simaki, Petros Touloudis, and Marc Charpentier.
Alexios Papazacharias, the curator of the show, states the following:
Ioanna Spiteri-Veropoulou was born, lived and worked in Venice, Paris, and Athens. She was married to Toni Spiteri, one of the most important art critics worldwide. During her uninterrupted artistic career that will last almost fifty years (until her death in 2000 in Athens), Ioanna Spiteri-Veropoulou participated in international events, received high distinctions, such as the one in the Biennale of Sao Paolo, Brasil, in 1963, where her work was honored with the 2nd award of sculpture, and exhibited her works mainly in Europe next to great artists such as Emilio Vedova and Fritz Wotruba.
Her unique artistic writing, in a continuous dialogue with the international artistic trends will be formed through the careful study of abstract expressionism, a trend that she will follow, moving gradually her interest from the expressionist gesture to the substractive logic. Since the 70’s, her sculpture was characterised by simple geometric forms and their dynamic compositions. The importance of the connection between the sculpture and its surroundings has gradually increased: compositions, shapes, volumes, spaces, light, shadows and sizes are organised by Ioanna Spiteri-Veropoulou into works, whose scale varies from something, which almost fits a handful to something which can stand outdoors with monumental dimensions, but is more related to rythme, music, organisation and narration than the monumental; not regarding history but regarding the meaning of modern sculpture and contemporary art.
As far as I know, the eight artists are not well aware of Spiteri’s work. However, they must all know her atelier at Kypselis street, 8, the mythic small building of Aristomenis Proveleggions, in the centre of Athens, a wonderful sample of modern architecture. Spiteri has worked in this atelier as well as other artists, among which Diochanti, who has contributed to the organisation of this show. The exhibition does not intend to research and reveal continuities based on straight lines of historical axes but to feature works and eras as modular modules where questions refer more to the cohexistence, cohabitation, function and functionality and less to origins, influences or meetings.