Venia Dimitrakopoulou

Sculptor Venia Dimitrakopoulou (*1965 in Athens) works with a wide variety of materials and media. She became well known for her works on paper and archetypical heads made from volcanic stone from the island of Aegina, the artist’s second home. Her most recent work, Promahones, on which this volume focuses, also makes reference to her immediate surroundings: Dimitrakopoulou developed the monumental metal sculpture consisting of three iron plates for the atrium of what is probably Greece’s most important museum, the Benaki Museum in the heart of Athens. The translation of the name of the imposing installation, Bastions, suggests that what we are encountering here is a fortification for the protection of cultural artifacts. The enormous objects balance precariously, cast dark shadows, and threaten to topple. The wind blowing through them produces spherical sounds composed by Pablo Ortiz, which allows a synaesthetic reflection on the work of art.