Megapolis: at the limit | Nikos Markou / Yiorgis Yerolymbos

Nitra Gallery presents photographers Yiorgis Yerolymbos and Nikos Markou.Mega-polis is a thematic they have been working together; each one of them through his own lens. The two photographers present the phenomenon of urban expansion; cities constantly getting bigger, surpassing natural and artificial frontiers and hiding its abused central area in a sea of perpetual expansion of constructions of reinforced concrete. 

“As things stand, (Greek) cities don’t nurture human communities and don’t protect either the historic tradition or nature. To survive, they need to grow, leaving back as a childhood disease the automatic pilot of private speculation that destabilizes them and undermines their productive potential”. (Kafkoula, Urban Planning Professor, Aristoteleion University of Thessaloniki)

Athens is a case study. The photographs ofMega-polis depict the face of the capital; that of the ancient but contemporary at the same time, city, while making an effort to narrate its story as it evolves, avoiding to prettify or cover its imperfections. On the contrary, observing it from a discreet distance they testify their point of view on ithe expansion of the urban progress of the city and its results.

Yiorgis Yerolymbos (Paris, France 1973) is a photographer and architect. He studied photography at the Technological Institute of Athens and architecture at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. He subsequently pursued a graduate degree at Goldsmith’s College, University of London, and completed his Ph.D. at the School of Art and Design of the University of Derby, UK. In addition to his academic work, he exhibits his work in solo and group art exhibitions in Greece and abroad. His photographic work has been published in a number of books on landscape and architectural photography. He was also a lecturer in photography at the School of Architecture, University of Thessaly from 2008 to 2011. His work focuses on the interface of nature and culture as it can be exemplified in contemporary topography. He photographs landscapes under transition, places that have sustained changes in the face of modernisation and optimisation of land exploitation. Yerolymbos is merely interested in the dynamics of change. He chooses to photograph the human-altered landscape not only because it illustrates the rapid socio-political changes that have been punctuating the landscape and habitat in the past years, but also because this type of representation as a genre coincides with a significant change in the photographic imagery itself. His research interests include the process of beautification of landscape in contemporary photography, the construction of identity through lived-in space. In 2008, supported by a Fulbright scholarship, he travelled the US by car from East to West and back focusing on the American landscape and how its visitor-user perceives it. In 2012 he participated in the Venice Biennale of Architecture with large scale works of the city of Athens and since 2007, he is the official photographer of the construction of the Stavros Niarchos foundation Cultural Center. In September 2013 his work was exhibited in the central exhibition Everywhere but Now of the 4^thThessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art.

Nikos Markou

He studied Mathematics. His photographic work has been awarded with several awards and distinctions (1^st prize, Fuji Hellas Competition (1993), 3^rd prize, Paneuropean Fuji Competition, 1^st prize Kodak Competition (1990), distinction, competition for Young European Photographers (1987). He has presented more than 15 solo exhibitions in Greece and abroad. His exhibition ‘Nuances of Space’ was presented in the Museum of Photography of Thessaloniki (2010) and in PHotoEspaña, Cuenca (2009). He haw participated in group exhibitions abroad (Germany, France, Belgium, Spain, Italy, England). In 2012 he took part in the exhibition ‘Sense of Place’: European Landscape Photography, Liz Wells in BOZAR-Center of Fine Arts in Brussels. His work has twice been published in ‘COSMOS’, Tetarto Publications (2004) and ‘Geometries’, Adam Publications (2000).