A labyrinth that is not a maze

A labyrinth that is not a maze

By Alina Tortosa
For the Herald

Marina Papadópoulos is obsessed with architectural spaces because she feels that they represent the evolution of civilization and the criteria by which succeeding generations have defined their aspirations and their preoccupations.

When asked specifically about the current installation at the Centro Cultural Recoleta in room 11, the artist answered that she finds difficult to put into words the long creative process that enabled her to understand what she herself wanted to achieve.  It developed originally from a sculpture representing a staircase to a cell and to a series of other pieces still in process.

Papadópoulos labyrinth is not a maze, you will not miss the path or get lost, it leads one inevitably down a dark, narrow, angular, concentric road that will take you to the Holy of Holies, to the Heart of the Matter, to the spiky conscience of a contemporary social and political agenda or to the ever heartrending, naked realities of the human self.

To the artist, who was born in Egypt, the labyrinth represents her adjustment to leaving her country in painful circumstances, her arrival in Argentina and her coming to terms with different cultures, as well as to the violence inherent in the human psyche that has historically devastated generation after generation in different ways.

Aesthetically the installation is an adamant invasion and distortion of an open space well known to all of us. To walk into what we do not expect is part of the weight of the work, as this walking towards what we do not know causes apprehension as well as expectation.  It takes the visitor through an unexpected experience and into a private nook, cell or sanctuary in which he/she is alone with his/her feelings and reactions to the artist’s proposal.

Papadopoulos attended the Buenos Aires University Faculty of Philosophy and Literature, the Prilidiano Pueyrredon School of Fine Arts, as well as numerous workshops on drawing, sculpture, art history, criticism and artwork analysis.  One of her pieces was acquired by the city of Buenos Aires in 1998 and another one was preselected for the Parque de la Memoria.

Marina Papadópoulos, Centro Cultural Recoleta, room 11, Junín 1930. Until today.

Buenos Aires Herald
Sunday, November 9, 2003