Spyros Aggelopoulos
Artist / Athens School of Fine Arts / Shadow Theatre figure maker/ Boxer / Actor / Micro blading cosmetic tattoo artist
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Lives between Athens and Los Angeles
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1979
Amusementorium (2018)
Spyros Aggelopoulos’s practice is off the radar. Shadow theater has a long tradition in Greece and the East. Karagioz, the folk hero, personifies the Ordinary Guy Archetype, a bit naïve, a bit of a rascal, poor and beaten-up, trying to survive against the odds by utilizing folk wisdom and tons of luck. In Aggelopoulos’s shadow theater, a mash-up of politicians, media figures, superheroes, cinema characters, and villains—from Donald Trump and Slavoj Žižek to Rocky and Freddy Kruger—competes in an imaginary arena. The big game of dominance of one hero against the other is no less fearsome than in a trading magic card children’s game. Like a true folk artist, Aggelopoulos creates a cosmogony of epic dimensions with contemporary deities and heroes, which break the boundaries of physics and escape a Media Universe (like Marvel’s) in order to reign in our imaginary in the same way Kruger reigns in the dream-realm. Place your bets on the winner.
#shadowtheatre #heroes #postfolk #figures #tradition #comics #karagioz
photos: Nysos Vasilopoulos, 6th Athens Biennale 2018 ANTI
Shadow theater
Courtesy of the artist
New production for the 6th Athens Biennale
Original score: Themos Skandamis
Music editing: Themos Skandamis, Tonia Ralli
Assistants: Antonis Gounaris, Paschalis Soumpasis, Christos Zenelis
Original scripts: Thalia Portokaloglou, Spyros Aggelopoulos
Graphic design: Sugahtank Roumpanis