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Nausica PASTRA : Points of Reference by Emmanuel Mavromatis 4 / 6 |
In the 1976 catalog Lamarche-Vadel viewed this
first presentation of the system (the
Synectron) as, "a limit/destruction of
method... which... will serve as a sign point for an
important combination of two basic forms". What
he meant by this observation was that this was not
the simple creation of a form, but the revelation
through means of this "systematic logic" of the total
possible presentation-that is, the general
operating method for every artistic work:
"Consequently, this work is not concerned so
much with the creation of a language, but more
with the presentation of the development of the
conditions of arrangement and hierarchy which
permit the formulation of a language". This is also
why Pastra's art is considered conceptual art,
minimalism in particular, "of which she proved to
be one of the very first protagonists. For it was then,
in late 1968-early 1969, that the parameters of the
present inquiry were set". |
Série Analogiques 1
Synectron -- Square -- Circle, 1968 - 1976
Sculpture / Environment. Stone, 68 sq.m
Mirepoix, France, 1976
Starting with this text by Lamarche-Vadei, one
can note two primary historical points of view
concerning Pastra's work developing over time. In
the first point of view her work appears to have "an
organic connection to minimalism, seen in her
work as early as 1968-a direction that Bernar Veriet's latest
paintings also follow."
This observation by Lamarche-Vadel in the catalog for Pastra's nest exhibition at Galerie Denise René-Beaubourg (1979), also goes on to mention that, "from Daniel Dezeuze's last exhibition (the starting point in this area) to the entirety of her drawing oeuvre there is an unfolding of certain fundamental characteristics that bear witness to an artistic will outside Western convention, based on centrifugal persistence. Thus we see the artists of 'inductive reductions' claiming a place in which Pastra is already working." |
 Série Analogiques 2 N° 9,10,15,16,18, 1979 - 1982 Blue painted wood, each 126 x 110 x 46 cm Alexandria Biennale, 1982 |
 Série Analogiques 3 Synarrtisis VII, n° 1,2,3, 1982 - 1986 Blue painted wood, 270 x 360 x 30 cm Medusa Gallery, Athens 1984 |
Other writers have also observed this minimalist
side of her work. Serge Lemoine, in 1986, referred
to the "minimalist forms of her
sculpture15, " and
Adriano Baccilieri, in the catalog for her 1992 show
in Bologna and Saint-Efienne, notes that, "the work
is realized as the moment of an uninterrupted
conceptual process suspended between the before
and
after of two drawings: the conjunction of the proper
movement and the intuitive feel for the
development of the game as the movement has
already occurred."
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In his text Baccilieri stresses the combinative
quality in Pastra's work: "it is the rapture of varying
repetition. This is also found in chess, where the
same movements can result in a completely
different arrangement of the pawns, and these in
their turn constitute projections of the multiple and
varying strategies in the player's mind." This is a
recognition by the writer of the permanence of the
system, regardless of the various successive and
antithetical developments which the system can
subsequently bring to the fore morphologically.
Pastra herself, however, noted the same thing in
the text she wrote in 1987 for her solo show at the
Vafopouleo Cultural Center in Thessaloniki. She
wrote: "The work refers to way the relationships
function. The relationships are fashioned
analogically by a system of analogies. The interest
lies in having an analogical relationship developed
inductively so its analysis will
form a new proposal within the system of its
analogies."
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Rythms and Relationships
Triptych N° 1, 1988
Oregon pine, each element 284,00 x 121,50 x 20,25 cm
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This position was part and parcel of the drawing and sculptural program of her 1976 Paris show, where the artist presented her first two terminal realizations. The first realization was the Synectron, the result of the application of the circular method analysis-synthesis to the intersections of a square and a circle. The subsequent realization was the Square-Circle-Synectron ensemble, where the same Synectron was broken down into its analytical and synthetic relationships with the square and the circle from which it was derived. So in this instance there arose four exclusive drawing and sculptural ' examples of Square-Circle-Synectron, one of which was symmetrical and the other three asymmetrical. But this same system could have been extended indefinitely as a systematic perspective of analyses and syntheses of the Synectron-Square-Circle by the square and the circle and the Synectron (and starting anew with the Synectron-Square-Circle and with the Synectron) from which it is always derived. This would be indefinite if a potentially marginal accumulation did not perspectively and intellectually emerge16, the complexity of which17 constituted a limit/destruction of the method (in line with Lamarche-Vadel's phrase from the 1976 catalog) and a condition/threshold as Pastra herself expressed it in the same catalog. |
Part I Part II Part III Part IV Part V Part VI
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