BOOK Collider/μη-τόπος/非地/Sichtfeld Photoworks by Thanos Zakopoulos A

A book project collecting photography by Thanos Zakopoulos between 2004-2009. Collider/μη-τόπος/非地/Sichtfeld is a more ambitious project than a simple photography collection, involving an international team of four people from different disciplines collaborating to make something that more closely resembles a gallery exhibition in a printed format.

Chinese graphic designer Huang Yang curated the selection of photographs for the book and directed its layout, printing and production. New texts inspired by the images were contributed by Swiss film and photography critic Thomas Pfister and by British artist and writer Alistair Gentry. The quadruple, multilingual title reflects the diverse approaches that each person brought to this collaborative publication.

Thanos Zakopoulos lets us have through his photos a view of his vision, his perception, his imagination of the world. On first glance his photos appear realistic, but on a closer look they leave reality behind. He goes about the world around us, with the eye of an archeologist of today and other times with the eye of an extraterrestrial visitor. He captures with his camera, things, places, conditions, analogies, discrepancies that for us are trivial and therefore unnoticeable. His art can be either embraced or dismissed; in any case, we experience a very subjective perception of the world. Accept this invitation to a different view, which widens our field of vision and then you will see the world through different eyes, through the eyes of the artist.
Thomas Pfister

What a tourist Thanos Zakopoulos, isn`t he! -together with Thomas Pfister, Alistair Gentry, and graphic designer Huang Yang- has created a universe that spectacularizes the epiphenomenon of global capitalism, cobbled from elements of the imagined past and the possible (hoped for? dreaded?) future, a place we, in a sense, already know. I think J. G. Ballard would have liked Collider/μη-τόπος/非地/Sichtfeld.
Lewis Baltz

Thanos Zakopoulos likes to think himself a poet (in the greek sense of the word). As an artist he has participated in many exhibitions and projects worldwide. In 2008 he founded together with Katia Meneghini CTRLZAK Art & Design Studio, a multidisciplinary team which balances between art and design.
www.thanoszakopoulos.com



CTRLZAK Art & Design Studio is a multidisciplinary team founded by Thanos Zakopoulos (Greece) and Katia Meneghini (Italy). The studio is based primarily in Milan and operates internationally in the field of contemporary art and design with a creative vision that is not limited by a specific framework. The work developed ranges thus from product and space design to case specific art projects and installations. With the use of semiotic tools within the creative process the studio proposes forms that surpass common aesthetic values working on a cognitive level. The concept behind each project is to inspire a responsible awareness through the `added value` that art has for society with a special attention to issues of environmental impact.
www.ctrlzak.com
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