Interview: Magdalena Papanikolopoulou
Luca Curci talks with Magdalena Papanikolopoulou during the 9th edition of ROME INTERNATIONAL ART FAIR 2024, at ITSLIQUID Monti – Rome Art Space.

Magdalena Papanikolopoulou is a visual artist who creates site-specific performance art, paintings and calligraphies that explore language, text and nature through the feminine eye. She has performed and exhibited her work around the world, most recently the piece TH.IS ME / CHI SEI TU with her team at the ITSLIQUID 9th edition of Rome International Art Fair 2024.

Other pieces have been performed in London UK, Germany, Serbia, Texas USA, and Italy, and she has appeared regularly in Athens and around Greece. Following a successful career as a graphic designer (associated with the world-famous Goulandris Museum for many years), she began focusing on painting and has now exhibited her artworks in Greece and internationally.

Her performances have included Performing With God at sunrise above the historic St Nikolas church in Aegina, her work on semiotics The Y and other Letters in central Athens, a “whole-town” outdoor happening Bella Fantasia during her residency in Atina, Italy. Through her art Magdalena experiments with flowers, letters and words, ritual and movement that present both the secret and symbolic female identity in an intimate, delicate and compassionate interaction with her audiences.

Along with her academic work as a University Professor, Magdalena swims almost every day of the year in the sea in Corinth, maintains a colorful balcony garden that inspires her paintings, visits her daughter in Athens and has no pets yet.

Luca Curci – Which artists have somehow influenced your work?
Magdalena Papanikolopoulou – I was inspired by contemporary women artists such as Sophie Calle, Fiona Banner, Gillian Wearing, Paulina Olowska, Mira Schor, Mira Schendel and Mona Hatoum, and the semiotics in their artworks. The work of Ewa Partum, Marina Abramovic and Tino Sehgal expanded the limits of what I had previously known as performance art. I also love Georgia O’Keeffe’s paintings.

LC – How much has the city/country in which you grew up/born affected your work as an artist?
MP – In Greece, my native country, there is a tradition of great symbolic significance attached to letters and numbers but also to any performative recreation. For many years I used text in almost all my communicative works, feeling the need to create a new artistic language which experimented with all possible definitions of the letter-symbol. Now my art is moving more towards performances and paintings, which explore the relationship between nature and the feminine, and their meditative interaction through flowers and butterflies. Patras (the city in Greece where my parents came from) and its famous carnival are an important factor in my becoming a performance artist and to be expressive by using body movement. My training in dance was an additional element that helped me to present my ideas.

LC – What is the most challenging part about creating your artwork?
MP – My artwork always involves two stages – the inward and the outward journey. When these two stages combine in balance, it is the moment that the piece should be presented. This is the most challenging part of the whole process, because it has its own force and timing.

LC – Where did the need to show reality through performance art come from?
MP – It came naturally when Greek painter Niki Kanagini invited me to become the “living statue” in her work during the Argos Art Festival in 1996. This was my very first art performance. The feeling, the experience, and the interaction were so strong that although I had arranged to appear for 10 minutes, it lasted more than two hours. The audience would not let me leave my “throne”, a white construction made from crates used in the farmers’ market to hold fruit.

LC – Do visitors’ suggestions enrich yourself and your art?
MP – Yes they do, and it is very helpful. I need audience feedback, but I would like to ask more questions – which often I do not because the performance is still ‘processing’ for me even when it has finished, and I need time to understand what happened and how it has transformed me. Perhaps I could ask them to answer some questions in writing while they are there – that could be a useful idea.

LC – How is your creative process?
MP – My studio is in Kiato in the Peloponnese region, and I always come back here in order to create. This is where all my creative ideas manifest. Looking at, and diving in, the sea, I first cleanse all the urban stimuli, noises and contacts, and then I get really in touch with myself and what I want to do next – and after that I start painting, or preparing my new projects.

LC – What do you think about ITSLIQUID Platform?
MP – I am very grateful to the platform and its organizers for giving me the chance to participate and to show my artwork. I am definitely looking forward to participating again in another international fair.

LC – What do you think about the organization of our event?
MP – The hosts, staff, the director and the production manager were so warm and responsive and made it all so easy for us. Everything they promised was delivered, the supportive experience and the well-organized space meant that we could deliver our best performance. We are all very grateful to ITSLIQUID for offering us and many artists of different kinds the chance to share their work with audiences around the world, it is a wonderful initiative.