Nakis Panayotidis: Seeing the Invisible

Description

The Greek arte povera artist Nakis Panayotidis was born in 1947 in Athens and was educated in architecture in Turin and in visual arts in Rome. Since 1974 he has been living and working both in Bern and Greek island of Serifos. In the tradition of arte povera, Panayotidis employs a great diversity of materials in his art, such as stone, straw, lead, iron, copper and lamps etc. His art combines light and life and is never static. It always revolves around opposites that have found a moment of equilibrium. In his work, Panayotidis aims to emphasise the intrinsically permanent in momentary incidental images. This new book is published to coincide with a major retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Fine Art Bern. It features work by the artist in painting, drawing, sculpture, installation, and photography. Essays are contributed by curators Matthias Frehner and Regula Berger, Italian scholar, curator and art critic Bruno Cora, and also by personal friends of Panayotidis and collectors of his work.

Matthias Frehner, born 1955, has been appointed director of Museum of Fine Arts Bern in 2002. After reading art history, German literature and archaeology at University of Zurich he has been curator of Oskar Reinhart Collection "Am Romerholz" in Winterthur (1988-96) and art editor with major Swiss daily newspaper Neuen Zurcher Zeitung (1996-2002). Regula Berger has been a research assistant at Museum of Fine arts Bern since 2010. Essays by Petros Markaris; Bruno Cora; Sabine Hahnloser; Christoph von Tavel; Donald Hess; Thierry Spitzer; Regula Berger; Matthias Frehner.