The Artist as Dr Frankenstein.

For her first solo exhi­bi­tion in Belgium, Canadian artist Athena Papadopoulos (b. 1988) presents a new body of work specif­i­cal­ly con­ceived for the con­text of Liebaert Projects. Papadopoulos has trans­formed the space into a com­plex nar­ra­tive that inter­min­gles sculp­tures that sing – with sound derived from the artist’s book The Apple Nun — paint­ing and installation.

The cen­tral hall of Liebaert Projects fea­tures the keynote text that informs the exhibition’s nar­ra­tive at large. A hand-writ­ten and sewn, paint­ed and dyed, sculp­tur­al and over­sized book titled The Apple Nun (Book of Hymns) sits atop a kneel­ing church lectern. The text takes as its point of depar­ture the auto­bi­og­ra­phy of the artist’s 94-year old grand­fa­ther. Papadopoulos hones in on the mar­gin­alised sto­ry of her great aunt Magdalina: a beau­ti­ful, young Greek woman, whose small por­traits are inte­grat­ed on the front page of The Apple Nun (Book of Hymns).

Coveted by all the men in the vil­lage, Magdalina fled a life of lust and instead sought soli­tude as a nun. One of her duties at the nun­nery was to pick apples dur­ing the har­vest sea­son. One day her life took an unex­pect­ed turn as she fell from her lad­der while try­ing to pick too many apples. The con­se­quences were dev­as­tat­ing: she was paral­ysed and, no longer being able to ful­fil her duties, was expelled from the monastery. The ten­sion between lust and celiba­cy, fight and flight as well as accep­tance and rejec­tion weaves itself through­out the exhi­bi­tion. Alongside this, the artist lay­ers this nar­ra­tive with ref­er­ences to ear­li­er bod­ies of work: inter­ro­gat­ing the posi­tion­al­i­ty of dif­fer­ent groups of women in soci­ety, the Biblical predica­ment of Adam and Eve as well as the his­to­ry of Liebaert Projects itself.

The Apple Nun (Book of Hymns) takes on a ubiq­ui­tous pres­ence in each room of the exhi­bi­tion. Papadopoulos alters the space with a news­pa­per repro­duc­tion of the text explo­sive­ly scat­tered through­out. Like yesterday’s news — a stand-in for the fall­en woman — the pages con­sti­tute the bind­ing frame­work that unites the rooms of the exhi­bi­tion and the char­ac­ters that inhab­it them. A tor­na­do of autum­nal leaves, at first beau­ti­ful and fun to play in but ulti­mate­ly a nui­sance to get rid of, this abun­dant dis­tri­b­u­tion brings to mind the destruc­tive and tox­ic mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tions of women’s trans­form­ing com­plex­i­ties as poten­tial­ly high-main­te­nance chores. Historically, these women – brand­ed witch­es, lunatics or jezebels – have sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly been swept from society’s view.

In a casu­al con­ver­sa­tion with the artist, she men­tions that, when she was a lit­tle girl, she desired to become a plas­tic sur­geon. Fortunately, Papadopoulos became an artist – oth­er­wise her patients would have birds beaks for noses and pur­ple, pink and green stitched up skin. But it’s a beau­ti­ful metaphor: she cuts through lay­ers of var­i­ous tex­tiles, mak­ing up and dying these bod­ies using hair-dye and oth­er prod­ucts – adding fur­ther mate­r­i­al cues and clues to tell her mul­ti-lay­ered sto­ry. Like a crooked sur­geon, Papadopoulos tends to the wounds (through stitch­ing) that she her­self inflicts upon these anthro­po­mor­phic sculp­tures. They are visu­al­ly sump­tu­ous upon first glance but con­tin­ue to grow in com­plex­i­ty and mean­ing as we explore them through repeat­ed view­ings, there­by assum­ing fur­ther psy­cho­log­i­cal sig­nif­i­cance and visu­al com­plex­i­ty with the pass­ing of time.

The five cen­tral sculp­tures (Leaves that Talk Dirty Making Curlies Stand Straight) are fig­u­ra­tive abstrac­tions, each singing one of five songs from The Apple Nun (Book of Hymns): tree-like, twist­ed instru­ments that take on the char­ac­ter­is­tics of a musi­cal choir. They each have their own unique char­ac­ter and voice. Like Dr. Frankenstein, Papadopoulos cre­ates the skele­tons of the sculp­tures by dis­sect­ing fur­ni­ture and med­ical equip­ment, bend­ing, curl­ing, glu­ing and weld­ing the met­al back togeth­er. The Leaves that Talk Dirty… are then wrapped in Papadopoulos’ own per­son­al cloth­ing. Like a tor­na­do sweep­ing up its casu­al­ties, the artist sat­u­rates these bod­ies in mean­ing by blend­ing object, mate­r­i­al and text. And like bod­ies, the skele­ton and bones find a coun­ter­part in the fur­ni­ture frame­work, with skin made of make­up-stained med­ical gauze. Sitting atop — or rather grow­ing out of — the sculp­tures are small car­toon­ish birds whose eyes have been stolen from stuffed toys and whose beaks are con­sti­tut­ed by gynae­co­log­i­cal specu­lums. This detail is also a trib­ute to the spir­it of gynae­col­o­gist, Gery Van Tendeloo, the for­mer cura­tor and dri­ving force behind Liebaert Projects who passed away last year.

In one of the side rooms, we encounter Infertility Orchestra Cries in D‑Minor. A small choir of organ­i­cal­ly shaped crea­tures con­gre­gate around a music stand hold­ing the news­pa­per ver­sion of The Apple Nun (Book of Hymns). In anoth­er, the bib­li­cal theme of apple as a moniker of sin makes a reap­pear­ance in The Apple Tree, (Mary Magdalexxxi): a light-bathed sculp­ture sprouts from a janitor’s buck­et, incor­po­rat­ing Hooters wait­ress pins, cheer­lead­ing pom­poms, teenage miniskirts and string-tied chick­en bones. In the details, the hand-paint­ed faces of a cast of fall­en women morph into ani­mals such as bob­cats and long­beaked birds. Next door, a ghost­ly cou­ple, enti­tled Former Selves, recall some of the artist’s ear­li­er anthro­po­mor­phic sculp­tures. Domestic objects and fur­ni­ture fre­quent­ly come to life in Papadopoulos’ prac­tice, embody­ing the qual­i­ties and social sit­u­a­tions in which the artist’s char­ac­ters find them­selves embroiled. The same insev­er­able ten­sion that con­nects the Former Selves, is dou­bled in the work FF&BB (BoomBOOMWoom), where two lovers find them­selves emo­tion­al­ly and mate­ri­al­ly entan­gled. A lyri­cal song sung by a young girl’s voice plays out of a bro­ken tele­phone, set­ting the scene for a rela­tion­ship shift­ing between sym­bio­sis and parasitism.

The edi­tions at the entrance were giv­en the title Hardest Harvest. A head­less chick­en, duck or turkey — or ​“chur­duck­ens,” as the artist refers to them. Here, Papadopoulos has looked back to her child­hood favourites, includ­ing Jim Henson, Tim Burton and fam­i­ly tra­di­tions such as Thanksgiving Day. The artist asso­ciates these famil­iar rit­u­als with the autum­nal hol­i­days and an appre­ci­a­tion of their grotesque rec­i­p­ro­cal car­ni­va­lesque man­i­fes­ta­tions. The edi­tions are dis­played on gas sta­tion shelv­ing and pre­sent­ed as we would encounter them at a car­ni­val fair stall where vis­i­tors shoot at fig­urines to win their prize. Hardest Harvest acts as the exhibition’s minia­ture mas­cot and usu­al­ly a mas­cot has con­no­ta­tions of being rather ridicu­lous, run­ning around like a head­less chick­en, per­haps again play­ful­ly com­ment­ing on the alle­go­ry of the fall of Adam and Eve. Like sit­ting ducks to the evil snake unable to see his tricks, ulti­mate­ly lead­ing them to become self-con­scious beings (unlike any oth­er ani­mal) who there­fore gain sub­jec­tiv­i­ty through their messy lives full of both tumul­tuous con­flict and deep joy and awak­en­ing. The edi­tions are for sale (each €950) in sup­port the artist and the pro­gram of Liebaert Projects. Be sure to take a copy of The Apple Nun (Book of Hymns) news­pa­per home with you on depar­ture to read and please do return to redis­cov­er the mul­ti-lay­ered world of Papadopoulos’ The Apple Nun.

ABOUT ATHENA PAPADOPOULOS

Athena Papadopoulos was born in Toronto, Canada in 1988 and lives and works in Hull, UK. She com­plet­ed her MFA at Goldsmiths, London grad­u­at­ing in 2013. Recent exhi­bi­tions include The Apple Nun, Liebaert Projects, Kortrijk, Belgium, Holy Toledo, Takotsubo!, Kunsthalle Lissabon, Lisbon; A Tittle-Tattle- TellA-Tale Heart, Humber Street Gallery, Hull; The Smurfette, Emalin, London; Belladonna‘s Muse, curat­ed by Samuel Leuenberger, CURA Basement Roma (Rome, IT, 2017); Wolf Whistles, Shoot the Lobster NY (NYC, USA, 2017); Streams of Warm Impermanence, David Roberts Art Foundation (London, UK, 2016); Wild Style, Peres Projects (Berlin, DE, 2016); Bloody Life, Herald St., London, UK, 2016). In 2020 Papadopoulos will have a solo exhi­bi­tion at MOSTYN, Wales, Emalin, London and will be includ­ed in group exhi­bi­tions at the ICA LA (LA, USA) and Galeria Duarte Sequeria, Braga; and Allegra Projects, St. Moritz.