Reflecting on the public dimension of private experience, exhibiting artist Nikos Pantazopoulos discusses his practice with curator Madé Spencer-Castle. Together they will unpack Dark Rooms 2013 and How to make a monument 2013, two bodies of work that document private spaces in the public domain where ideas of self-reflection, desire, intimacy and hedonism converge.
Nikos Pantazopoulos is an artist exploring LGBTQI+ politics through an immigrant cis-gender gay male lens. His work remediates art history and popular narratives that are influenced by hegemonic culture. Pantazopoulos’ current research is engaged in Ancient Greek legacies and its influences on Modernism, Minimalism, relational, outsider art activities, and on labour and its economic values in our society. His use of materials critiques the classical traditions of the arts to repurpose them through a photographic data and technologically driven lens.
Madé Spencer-Castle is an independent curator based in Naarm/Melbourne, who was the Curator of Exhibitions at the Centre for Contemporary Photography between 2018–20. Prior to this, Madé was Gallery Curator at Bus Projects (2015–18) and was the founder and co-Director of DUDSPACE (2012–15). Recent curatorial projects include ‘Why Take Pictures?’ and ‘Image Reader’, Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne (2019); 'Queer Economies' co-curated with Abbra Kotlarczyck and presented with Midsumma Festival in association with Abbotsford Convent, Bus Projects and Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne (2019); ‘Architecture Makes Us: Cinematic Visions of Sonia Leber and David Chesworth’ co-curated with Naomi Cass and Pippa Milne, Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne (2018) and touring to UNSW Galleries, Sydney (2019) and Griffith University Museum of Art, Brisbane (2019); 'In Bloom', co-curated with Jeremy Eaton, SPRING1883 Art Fair, The Hotel Windsor (2018); ‘Robyn McKinnon: Disappearing into Being’, Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Launceston (2018); 'These Economies', Sydney Contemporary (2015); and the ongoing 'With Compliments' series of exhibitions at Bus Projects (2016–19).
As public galleries throughout Australia remain temporarily closed, Friendship as a Way of Life will open to the public when restrictions lift and will extend to 21 November 2020. This public program will be delivered online. Please register to receive the link to the event.
Join the live event | 5:30 – 6:15pm Thursday 2 July 2020 (AEST)
Image: Nikos Pantazopoulos Untitled (Man on Horse) 2013. Pigment print from negative. Image courtesy: the artists and Kalli Rolfe Contemporary Art, Melbourne
