He was born in Athens in 1903, where he also died in 2004. He studied Sculpture at the Athens School of Fine Arts under Thomas Thomopoulos (1924-1930). In the years 1949 and 1950 he worked with the sculptor Marcel Gimond in Paris on a French government scholarship. From 1952 to 1953, after having been granted a scholarship by the Greek State Scholarships Foundation, he went to Italy where he studied bronze-casting techniques (Fonderia Nicci, Rome and Fonderia Domeniccini, Pistoia). He was an active member of the art groups Techni, the Greek Artists Association, Stathmi, Tomi, and the Group for Communication and Education in Art. Many of his works belong to private collections and foundations in Greece and all over the world, also adorning numerous public spaces and buildings. He received several distinctions throughout his life and had many award winning competition entries and commissions. In February 2004 he established the George Zongolopoulos Foundation, located in his home-studio.
George Zongolopoulos
Works
Solo Exhibitions
2023
Enlightment of Life •
Athens College•
Athens•
2016
Interminable Plenitude in the Vastness of Abstraction •
Museum of Contemporary Art – Basil and Elise Goulandris Foundation •
Andros•
2013
Zoumboulakis Galleries•
Athens•
2013
G. Karydis Cultural Center•
Psychiko•
2008
Honourary Event on the Work of Sculptor George Zongolopoulos •
Athens International Airport "Eleftherios Venizelos"•
Spata•
2008
Retrospective •
Megaron – The Athens Concert Hall•
Athens•
(curated by Efi Andreadi)•
2002
Retrospective •
Astrolavos Art Galleries•
Athens•
1998
Zongolopoulos •
Wittenberg Platz•
Berlin•
1995
Kappatos Gallery •
Venice•
1993
Venice Biennale 1993 •
Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art (MOMus – Museum of Contemporary Art)•
Thessaloniki•
1993
Venice Biennale 1993 •
Venice•
1992
Jean Bernier Gallery (Bernier / Eliades Gallery)•
Basel•
1990
Jean Bernier Gallery (Bernier / Eliades Gallery)•
Basel•
1984
Goethe Institute•
Athens•
1982
Europalia '82 •
Palais des Beaux-Arts•
Brussels•
1979
Zoumboulakis Galleries•
Athens•
1979
Zita-Mi Art Gallery•
Thessaloniki•
1978
Budayari Palota National Museum Budapest•
Budapest•
1977
Warsaw Museum•
Zacheta•
1976
Campo Pisani•
Venice•
1971
Hellenic American Union•
Athens•
1964
Venice Biennale•
Venice•
1962
Doxiadis Schools Athens Technological Institute•
Athens•
1962
"Techni" Macedonian Art Society•
Thessaloniki•
1957
São Paulo Biennale•
São Paulo•
1956
Venice Biennale•
Venice•
1948
Zachariou Gallery•
Athens•
2023
2016
2013
2013
2008
2008
2002
1998
1995
1993
1993
1992
1990
1984
1982
1979
1979
1978
1977
1976
1971
1964
1962
1962
1957
1956
1948
Press
The sculptor’s creative language is now freed of any kind of reference to earlier academic forms; it creates and is created through the self-definition of the materials. Space, water, energy, movement are the fundamental building blocks that transform and transfigure an order of things, liberating the momentum of visible and invisible materials. The static nature and solid masses of the sculptures of the 1950s and 1960s now give way to transparent, ‘immaterial’ masses. The magnifying lens in works such as “The Presents” (1975), “Lens with Nest” (1987) is employed by the artist as a new fantastical space, to establish a parallel relationship between the real and the non-real. The lens, for Zongopoulos, “is a very simple tool, if you like: I mean, I remember, as a kid, we used to pick it up and look through it out of curiosity”, a tool that reveals that magical world that the naked eye cannot see: any given detail. It would be fair to say that through his game with the lens, Zongopoulos has placed us in a prime position for viewing any type of image, which vision passes by, either because it is bombarded by it, or because, as it wonders aimlessly, it loses its way. The super-magnification of the space through the lens, along with the space in its natural dimensions, the recording of one within the other, the void and the space that defines the sculptural object itself, represent, for the artist, the point where architecture and sculpture meet.
Dorothea Konteletzidou