Her second “Dialogue,” Martin, Martin why ever did you take my May away? […] is a private joke, so private that even the addressee needs to be enlightened. Here, the artist dismantles the mechanism of the art world by relying on ambiguity and the curiosity that it arouses. German artist, Martin Kippenberger is represented in Athens by the same gallery that represents Papadimitriou. When her solo show, scheduled for May 1994, had to be postponed so that Kippenberger could curate an exhibition that same month, Papadimitriou made her disappointment public. The poster she created for her participation in the fifth Biennial of New Art in Zielona Gora, Poland shows her person crestfallen asking “Why?” Papadimitriou’s work is post-conceptual and deeply ironic. The irony involved is not one of distance but lack of it. The works do not claim an autonomy; they are not “inand-of-themselves” but offer an art based on dialogue, communication, and art as a starting point.

Helena Papadopoulos

Excerpts from “What is it that Makes Contemporary Artworks so Attractive?” The Art Magazine, 4, February, p. 69.