User:Corbetti/Pantelis Sabaliotis

Pantelis Sabaliotis (Παντελής Σαμπαλιώτης; * April 10, 1955 in Agiopigi, Karditsa, Thessaly; † October 28, 2011 in Berlin, Germany) was a Greek artist, painter, sculptor and curator.

While in the beginning of his artistic career mainly mythological subjects and smaller formats on canvas or paper primarily in crayon technique were in his focus, he turned soon towards abstract sculptures and object-pictures. The last work years are characterized by large-scale dimensions, where he often used gold leaf and wax, mostly in the form of techniques used since antiquity like encaustic. The art of Pantelis Sabaliotis combines in an impressing way Greek mythology and philosophy with the current zeitgeist.

Life

Childhood and education

Pantelis Sabaliotis was born in a small Greek village in the plains of Thessaly in 1955. His parents were farmers. At the age of 14 he left school; from 1969 to 1971 he served an apprenticeship in Byzantine fresco painting. He worked in a number of Greek-Orthodox churches. When no larger contracts followed due to his very individual interpretation of saints, he set off to Athens at the age of 16 in order to earn money with giant cinema posters which still used to be hand-painted back then. The farmers’ supper was the title of his very first exhibition he displayed in 1971 in Karditsa, shortly before departing to Athens. The happening combined an theater play written by himself with an experimental workshop for art and readings from books which have been prohibited by the military junta. An attempt to protest for a free educational policy.

In 1972 he was one of the co-founders of the gallery Diamartiria (protest) in Athens to organize system-critical exhibitions and events against the military dictatorship. Together with other young painters, poets and publishers a series of lyric and poems from the resistance was realized.

Artistic development

In 1977 following his military service and the fall of the Junta Pantelis Sabaliotis founded one of the first private art schools in Thessaly, the “school for experimental painting” in Sofades, Karditsa. Starting at realistic painting – which mainly reflects rural life – Sabaliotis very rapidly found through surrealism to his very own personal style. Common motives like women, boats, horses, birds and ancient monuments in his pastel paintings often go along with mythological content as e.g. series like Caryatids or women of Troy. From the 1970s and 1980s by and by the motives consolidate into increasingly bodiless shapes. In Cordes-sur-Ciel, a French medieval artists‘ town, some of his primal key abstract works emerged from 1978 to 1982.

As from 1989 the artist primarily lived in Greece again: from 1989 to 1993 on the artists’ island Hydra off the Peloponnese, where he started to experiment with natural materials and developed first objects; after Hydra several years in Athens followed until the departure for Berlin.

Work and life in Berlin

The artist moved to Berlin in 1997 with his family. From 2000–2010 he worked as a lecturer for Youth in Museum at the Kulturforum at Potsdamer Platz and at Pergamon Museum. He was active in art projects in several schools.

From March 2009 until his death he worked for the Berlin District Office in Mitte. Following the call as curator for the newly opened municipal gallery of Wedding „Art & Interculture“ at the old town hall on Müllerstraße, which profile he shaped decisively. Yet he did not forget his descent. In 2000 he designed the logo of the Greek Air Ambulance, and in 2004 the logo for a contest based on the famous Greek author Antonis Samarakis, whom he was closely connected to in his last years until his death.

Disease and death

In summer 2010 Pantelis Sabaliotis was diagnosed with lung cancer and died on October 28, 2011.

Awards

He was honored with the Dimitra by the community of Karditsa in 1986, and in 2004 by the community of Plastiras/Thessaly for his outstanding merits in art and culture. The symbol of his studio – and his far too early death – became the trademark of his hometown. Since December 2018 relief sculptures of the Winged cyclist mark the central entrance roads of the prefecture capital Karditsa in the plains of Thessaly.

Exhibitions

Solo exhibitions (selection)

• 1981: Poetic Awakening, Chateau du Bosc (Musée d'Enfance de Toulouse Lautrec), Aveyron, FR
• 2001: Diachrona, Pinakothek Karditsa, GR
• 2004: Liturgie, Historical Archive-Museum, Hydra, GR
• 2006: Metaplaseis, Maison Fonpeyrouge, Cordes-sur-Ciel, FR
• 2008: Metaplaseis, Galerie im Körnerpark, Berlin
• 2009: Kypseles, Galerie Wedding, Berlin
• 2014: Retrospektive, Théâtre d'Esch, Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg

Group exhibitions (selection)

• 1981: Women of Troy, Galerie au Roi Soleil, works from Pantelis Sabaliotis and Salvador Dalí
• 1991: European Lifestyle, Tokio
• 2000: Museum of Byzantine Art, Ioannina, GR; Allegories of material, Willy-Brandt-Haus, Berlin
• 2001: Greek artists, Greek culture ministry, Technopolis, Gazi, Athens
• 2013: Under the skin. Encaustic in contemporary art, Galerie Wedding, Berlin

Workshops (selection)

• 2002: Long night of museums, Kulturforum Berlin
• 2003: Performance All Floats, culture night, Winckelmann-Haus, Stendal; Literary culture festival, Podewil, Berlin; fairytale days, Kulturforum Berlin
• 2007: Winged cyclist – Inside/Outside, Old Agora, Karditsa, GR

Works in public collections

• Municipal Art Gallery/ Pinakothek Karditsa, GR;
• Historical Archive-Museum Hydra, GR;
• Maison Fonpeyrouse, Cordes-sur-Ciel, FR

Literature

• Fotis Vogiatzis, Die Thessalische Malerei (1500–1980), S. 313–314, Athen 1980 (German)
• Dromologio I, Larissa Contemporary Art Centre, 1997 (Greek)
• Baedeker: Griechenlandreiseführer, Specialreihe: „Griechenlands Moderne“, S. 90–91, 1997, ISBN 3-87504-505-X (German)
• Allegorien der Materie, Katalog 1999, S. 58–63, Larissa Contemporary Art Centre (Greek-German)
• Zeitschrift Selides, Interview von Frosso Pavlou, S. 45–50, 1999 (Greek)
• Zeitschrift Kunst Aktuell, Nr. 6, 2000 (German)
• Lexikon Ellinon Kallitechnon 16.–20. Jh., Band 4, S. 137–38, Verlag Melissa, Athen 2000, ISBN 960-204-226-5 (Greek)
• Karditsiotes Zografoi, Hg: Nomarchiaki Autodioikisi Karditsas, S. 136–139, Karditsa 2006; Exantas, Griechisch-Deutsche Zeitschrift Berlin, Ausgabe Nr. 4, S. 46–59, Dezember 2006 (Greek-German)
• Antipoden 2009, 2010, 2011, Katalog Galerie Wedding, Hg. Bezirksamt Mitte von Berlin (German)
• Dimitrios Kalantzis, Antipoden/Antipodes, griechisch-deutsch, Verlag Monumentum, Athen 2015, ISBN 978-960-9796-48-4 (Greek-German)