“Olympia: Photographs by Polixeni Papapetrou” Exhibition (Melbourne, Australia)

 

"Olympia - Photographs from Polixeni Papapetrou" Exhibit

“Olympia: Photographs by Polixeni Papapetrou” exhibition, the first major museum retrospective of Australian photographer Polixeni Papapetrou’s (1960–2018) work, was curated in collaboration with the artist’s family.  Opened last September 27, 2019 at the  Ian Potter Center: NGV Australia, the show runs until March 29, 2020.

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The Dreamkeepers (2012) at left and Eden (2016) at right

Polixeni Papapetrou has been the recipient of numerous grants from the Australia Council for the Arts and Arts Victoria.  She is also the recipient of the following awards:

• MAMA Art Foundation National Photography Prize (2016)
• Windsor Art Award (2015)
• Josephine Ulrick and Win Shubert Photography Award (2009)
• Albury Regional Art Gallery National Photographic Award (2003)

Melancholia (2014) - Melancholia (left) and Pathos (right)

Her work has featured in over 50 solo exhibitions, and over 100 group exhibitions in Australia, the United States, Asia and Europe. Survey exhibitions were held at the Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne (2013) and the Australian Centre forPhotography, Sydney (2011).  Polixeni Papapetrou has exhibited in major international photography festivals including:

• ‘The European Month of Photography” (Berlin, 2016)
• “Daegu Photo Biennale” (South Korea, 2016)
• “The European Month of Photography” (Athens, 2016)
• “Dong Gang International Photo Festival” (South Korea, 2014)
• “Fotografica Bogota” (Colombia, 2013)
• “Photofestival Noorderlicht” (The Netherlands, 2012)
• “3rd Biennale Photoquai” (Lemusée du quai Branly, Paris, 2011)
• ‘The Month of Photography” (Bratislava, 2010)
• “Pingyao International Photography Festival” (Pingyao, Shanxi, China, 2010)
• “Athens Festival of Photography” (Athens, Greece, 2010)
• “Fotofreo, Fremantle Festival of Photography” (Perth, 2008)
• “Seoul International Photography Festival” (Seoul, 2008)
• “Le Mois de la Photo” (Montreal,  2005)

Games of Consequence (2008)

Polixeni Papapetrou’s work is held in private and institutional collections, including:

• National Gallery ofAustralia (Canberra)
• National Gallery ofVictoria (Melbourne)
• Museum of Contemporary Art (Sydney )
• Bendigo Art Gallery (Victoria)
• Geelong Art Gallery (Victoria)
• Monash Gallery of Art (Melbourne)
• Fotomuseo (Bogotá, Colombia)
• Museum of Fine Arts (St.Petersburg, Florida, USA)
• Landstinget (Gävleborg Kulturutveckling, Sweden)
• Wesfarmers Art Collection (Perth)
• BHP Billiton (Melbourne)
• Artbank

My Heart – Still Full of Her (2018)

The exhibit comprises photographs by Papapetrou (1960–2018) who created fantastical worlds featuring her children Olympia Nelson  and Solomon Nelson, and their friends, set against both real and imagined backdrops, reflecting a limitless world of play acting, imagination and storytelling.  The photo series she has made include Elvis Presley fans, Marilyn Monroe impersonators, drag queens, wrestlers, circus performers and bodybuilders and the recreation of photographs by Lewis Carroll using her daughter Olympia as a model.

 

Phantomwise (2002-03)

The photos cover the period from Olympia’s birth (1997) until the artist’s death from breast cancer on April 11, 2018. Daughter Olympia played a particularly important role in the artist’s image making, assuming the complex roles of model and muse, collaborator and champion. 

The exhibit surveys 20 years of Papapetrou’s practice and includes works from her best-known series, as well as lesser-known images. Her photographs explore the relationship between history, contemporary culture, identity, and the construction of childhood and adolescence.

 

The Photographer (The Dreamkeepers, 2012)

The Holiday Makers (The Dreamkeepers, 2012)

In The Dreamkeepers series, from 2011-12, the children dress as adults and wear strange masks to form an unusual family in the scenic countryside.

 

Wild World (Games of Consequence, 2008)

Miles From Nowhere (Games of Consequence, 2008)

The Games of Consequence series, from 2008, explores themes of childhood, nostalgic memories of play and the idea of “stranger danger.”

 

Grief (Melancholia, 2014)

Sorrow (Melancholia, 2014)

The Melancholia series, from 2014, reflects on the impact of Papapetrou’s breast cancer diagnosis. It explores the theme of death, representations of clowns, and the significance of masks in the artist’s work.

 

Ask Me Again When I'm Drunk (It's All  About Me, 2016)

It's All About Me (2016)

The series It’s All About Me, from 2015-16, was created when Olympia was a teenager and navigating the world of social media. It explores popular culture, the sexualization of youth and feminism. Standing in confident poses, Olympia wears a mask while modeling a range of t-shirts with provocative slogans.

 

She Saw Two Girls and a Boy 1966 # 1 (Haunted Country, 2006)

Whroo 1855 (Haunted Country, 2006)

In the series Haunted Country, from 2006, Olympia, Solomon and their friends pose as both real and fictional children in the Australian landscape. The photo She saw two girls and a boy 1966 #1 (2006) was inspired by three Duff children who disappeared from the beach, presumed to be abducted and murdered in 1867. Other images from the series show children lost in the Australian bush during the nineteenth century.

Jack Tar (Phantomwise, 2002)

Chinese Lady (Phantomwise, 2002)

Phantomwise (the title is drawn from a poem by Lewis Carroll) is a series of collaborative portraits of the five year old Olympia, from 2002-2003, in which the use of half-masks, props and costumes (often as simple as a walking stick or a set of kid’s silk Chinese pyjamas) work together to create an artfully staged Victoria photograph

 

The Immigrant (Lost Psyche, 2014)

The Storyteller (Lost Psyche, 2014)

The series Lost Psyche, a suite of ten photographs, brings to life a lost past of once important emblematic and cultural roles that are at the end of their place in the world and now viewed as relics of the past. The Immigrant, for example, portrays a nineteenth-century immigrant (played by Olympia). Papapetrou’s parents came from Greece to Melbourne. 

The work is also a metaphor for the journey from childhood (a time in which we openly switch between characters, identities and roles) to adulthood. Bringing together painted scenic backdrops, paper masks and costumes, with the children as actors, the work reflects upon the persistence of some historical conditions and the disappearance of others.

 

Olympia as Alice Dreaming by the Riverbank (Dreamchild, 2003)

Olympia as Beatrice Hatch Before White Cliffs (Dreamchild, 2003)

In the series Dreamchild, Papapetrou explores different aspects of childhood and the child’s imagination through the roles, archetypes and performances as acted out by her six-year old daughter, Olympia. Her photographs rework the theatricality and vivid tableaux style of Lewis Carroll’s images of  Alice Liddell, the inspiration for Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and other child subjects such as Xie Kitchin and Irene McDonald who participated in costume dramas before his camera.

 

Blinded (Eden, 2016)

Heart (Eden, 2016)

In the series Eden, the language of flowers is used to explore life itself with girls in the photographs are adorned with floral arrangements to reflect on their metamorphosis from child to adolescent and adolescent to adult, and a oneness with the world, fertility and the cycles of life. The girls are enclosed in a floral embrace that symbolize their unity and acceptance of this miraculous thing we call life.

 

I Once Was (My Heart, Still Full of Her, 2018)

Muse (My Heart, Still Full of Her, 2018)

My Heart, Still Full of Her is a suite of somber yet luminous silkscreen portrait photographs, with their glowing halo of gold and silver, of the artist and her daughter Olympia. Here, mother and daughter are almost interchangeable revealing their profoundly intimate relationship.

 

The Witch's House (Fairy Tales, 2003)

Fairy Tales, from 2004 – 2014, traces the genre of the fairy tale from the mid-19th century to now. Focusing on well-known fairy tales such as Little Red Riding Hood, Snow White, Hanseland Gretel and The Little Mermaid, it provides re-interpretations of classic fairy tales for a contemporary context.

 

The Harvesters (Between Worlds, 2009)

The Loners (Between Worlds, 2009)

Between Worlds, from 2009-2012, is an enigmatic animal mask series which refers to the nature of late childhood – the cusp between innocent babyhood and the adult world.

 

Prize Thimble (Wonderland, 2004)

The series Wonderland recreates scenes from Lewis Carroll’s Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865), specifically the illustrations created by John Tenniel (1820-1914) for the first editions of the book. The photographs are staged and do not involve computer manipulation. Olympia, in the role of Alice, is situated against a painted canvas that sweeps from wall to floor.

 

Pepper Soup (Wonderland, 2004)

Olympia: Photographs by Polixeni Papapetrou: Level 3, The Ian Potter Center: NGV Australia, FederationSquare, Melbourne. Admission is free. Further information is available from the NGV website: NGV.MELBOURNE.