CHRISTINA DIMITRIADIS Greece / Germany
Auckland Art Gallery - NEW Gallery

Spaziergang (Promenade) - three colour photographs (triptych). On a misty beach. In the second photograph a discernible human figure. My father.

Übungen Um Zu Vergessen (Oblivion's Exercises) - three color photographs. Home interior.

These two photographic projects developed along in a larger thematic unity, which has suggested itself throughout my work. This is the theme of the denial of vulnerability, mortality grief and anguish in everyday life structures. These more recent projects focus on the incapability of articulating grief.

The photographs were taken between the years 2004-5 when I realised that I kept on having to remember to forget all the time. Everyday life was incapable of containing the desirable. Imaginary life became more real than real, everyday life. Space itself became emptiness, loss, deprivation.

How long can this last, I thought, when the impossible leaves no possibilities for the possible? Oblivion's Exercises is the as yet intangible, unsayable answer. In Promenade, with my father, the inevitable fact raises the question of sorrow, dread, fright and pain.

- Christina Dimitriadis

Background

Born in Thessaloniki, Greece in 1967, Christina Dimitriadis is currently based in Berlin. Recent solo exhibitions include Obscure Passages, Eleni Koroneou Gallery, Athens, 2003; I Remember All of You, Eleni Koroneou Gallery, Athens, 2005; and Dystopia, Kanazawa Citizen's Art Center, 2006. This last exhibition arose out of the International Exchange of Contemporary Artist in Residence, Kanazawa, which she held in 2006. Dimitriadis' work has featured in group shows such as Berliner Zimmer, Kodra, Thessaloniki, 2004; Any Place Any, Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art, Thessaloniki, 2004; Breakthrough, Alaca 31, Madrid; Caravanserai: Artistic Exchanges, International Forum of Visual Arts & Events, Contemporary Art Centre, Caucasus, Georgia, 2005; The Gesture: A Visual Library in Progress, Quarter, New Centre of Contemporary Art, Florence and Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art, 2005; The Athens Effect: The Photographic Image in Contemporary Art, Fondazione Mudima, Milan, 2006; Crossing the Borders, State Museum of Contemporary Art, Thessaloniki, 2006 and An Outing: Contemporary Art in Greece in the 21st Century, Beltsios Collection, Matsopoulos Mill, Trikala, 2006. Her work is discussed in the catalogue that accompanied the The Athens Effect.