Denys Zacharopoulos


Denys Zacharopoulos is an art historian and theorist. He works as Professor of Art History, author, and curator, amongst others at the 48th Biennale in Venice and documenta IX in Kassel.

Biography

Denys Zacharopoulos studied music in Athens and from 1970 in France literature, semantics and philosophy, followed by history and sociology of the arts and in literature. His teachers were Jean Cassou, Gaëtan Picon, :fr:Louis Marin |Louis Marin and Roland Barthes. He lived in France and became a French citizen. Since 2000, he has lived in Greece.
In 1975, Denys Zacharopoulos became program coordinator of the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, England. He then spent time in New York and taught as Professor in the Academies of Fine Arts in Geneva, Vienna, and Amsterdam.
During this period he forged intensive personal contacts to many contemporary artists of his generation, in particular to James Welling, Matt Mullican, Ernst Caramelle, Jean-Marc Bustamante, Juan Muñoz, Thomas Schütte and Reinhard Mucha.

Professional activities

Denys Zacharopouls' first major works centered on the Arte Povera movement. He curated a long series of exhibitions in major museums in Europe and the United States. Since 2001, he has published extensively and curated intensively many exhibitions on the artistic production and the issue of Avantgarde in Greece in the second half of the 20th Century.
Since 1977, Zacharopoulos has produced art critiques in: Artforum ; Artistes ; Arti ; Parkett ; Furor ; Faces ; Museumjournal ; Art e Dossier ; Artstudio ; Juliett ; Acrobat Mime Parfait ; Teuchos and Artime.
Numerous catalogues and theoretical publications listed in Zacharopoulos' bibliography, with particular emphasis on the following artists: Gerhard Richter, Mario Merz, Gilberto Zorio, Iannis Kounellis, Per Kirkeby, Eugene Leroy, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Pat Steir, Carl Andre, Pierpaolo Calzolari, Jean-Pierre Bertrand, Marina Abramović, Lothar Baumgarten, Marisa Merz, Jean-Marc Bustamante, Matt Mullican, Thomas Schütte, Jan Vercruysse, Helmut Dorner, Geylan Gerber,Harald Klingelhöller, [Franz West, Jim Lutes, Tadashi Kawamata, Reinhard Mucha, Adrian Schiess, Herbert Brandl, Jimmy Durham, Michel François, Eran Schaerf, Xavier Noiret-Thomé.

Awards and honors