Vryaxidos 11 & Aspasias: The Unknown Side

Through a creative reconnaissance of the micro-elements of material structure and a perception of the surface as a medium for states and events, Rena Papaspyrou (Athens, 1938) produces images to be activated by the viewer’s own associations. From the mid-nineteen sixties to the present day, the materiality of architectural and urban space has been at the heart of the artist’s practice. Papaspyrou produces abstract mosaics of stone and glass; draws on a variety of mediums (ready-made wood, wall panel, asphalt, mosaic tile); compiles samplers of materials salvaged from the streets; moulds staircases in paper; removes sections of wall from abandoned houses, probing into their secrets. The city is her studio. In Papaspyrou’s practice, the creative act manifests itself in a variety of mediums—painting, sculpture, installation, drawing, performance, video, photography.The publication “Vryaxidos 11 & Aspasias: The Unknown Side” accompanies the eponymous installation by Rena Papaspyrou, presented at the Onassis Stegi from December 2021 to February 2022. The artist has mounted, on a corner wall of her own design, a number of panels—wall sections detached from an abandoned house in Pangrati area, in the center of Athens. These fragments reveal the unseen sides of these exterior walls; several show traces of graffiti, stratification, and marks accumulated over time. Realized during the lockdown, this project is a journal—the reconstruction of a wall that never was.