Paean No. 5, 1978

The seated female figure constitutes the basic subject in the sculpture of Giorgos Georgiadis. After a period in which he was involved with subjects taken from everyday life rendered in a highly generalized fashion, without any emphasis placed on detail, he adopted an expressionistic style, radically distorted, which has come to characterize his work since the end of the Sixties. The main subject now is a ponderous, fleshy female figure, usually headless and armless, with a broad lap and thick legs with large cracks in them, without feet, and wrapped very tightly in a piece of fabric leaving the breasts naked. This figure, whether seen in isolation or in combination with other figures, is transformed into a symbol and means of expressing criticism or protest regarding current social or political situations. The series “Paean”, which employs the well-known female figure, repeated in a variety of laudatory attitudes, as expressed through the figures’ uplifted arms, the lute and the drum, comes as a retort, meant to express an optimistic outlook and to send a message of hope.