MARIA PAPADIMITRIOU

MOMAS
Photography;  Dialogues;  

I met Martin Kippenberger in 1992 in Athens. A year later he invited me to Syros on ΚΤΗΜΑ ΚΑΝΝΕ which belongs to his close friends Κaterina and Michel Würthle. In 1990 he lived and worked on the property for great lengths of time in an attempt to recover from the debauchery of the art system. Here in 1993 he built the first subway station.

That same year, he founded MOMAS (Museum of Modern Art Syros). He was inspired by the skeleton of the abandoned slaughterhouse in the port of Syros which reminded him of the Parthenon.

ΜΟΜΑS opened with the exhibition of Hubert Kiecol, and then other shows with <nonart> works, as he called them, featuring artist friends of his such as Ulrich Strothjohann, Christopher Wool, Cosima von Bonin, Stephen Prina, Christopher Williams, Michel Majerus, Johannes Wohnseifer and Heimo Zobernig.

Maria Papadimitriou

Excerpt from “Portrait: Martin Kippenberger (1953–1997),” pablo international magazine, p. 1.