Nakis Panayotidis (Greek* Νάκης Παναγιωτίδης, born 1947, Athens) is a Greek installation and conceptual artist.
Panayotidis began studying Architecture in the Polytechnic University of Turin in 1966, and in 1967 he moved to Rome, where he would attend film classes to the Fine Arts School. The next year he returned to the Architecture school of Torino, where he then got in touch with artists of the Arte Povera movement, who exhibited their work in the Christine Stein Gallery.
His first works, since 1974, which were characterized by the critique as minimal constructive, quickly put him in the panorama and exhibition spaces of modern art.
In 1971 he met Agnès Häussler, whom he married in 1973 and in 1975 their daughter Anastasia Artemis was born, mother of Melina and Nestor.
In 1977, he worked at the Centro internazionale di sperimentazioni artistiche in Boissano with other artists such as Maurizio Mocchetti, Marisa and Mario Merz. He soon leaves behind him his minimal work and from 1980 he moves to different directions and begins to experiment with various materials such as stones, neon lights, iron, tar etc.
In 1988 he created his first large-scale photo and light installations, which he continues, among other things, until today.
The photos are taken in abandoned factories and quarries and indicate clear socio-political references.
Panayotidis always continues to experiment, avoiding repetition, and he considers himself as “a stranger wherever he is”.
He lives and works in Bern, Switzerland.
German