Christodoulos Panayiotou

How can death be represented on stage? Christodoulos Panayiotou’s work attempts to answer this question which underscores the history of Western theatre through a piece which combines theatre, a lecture and a performance, archival work and digressive introspection, where a referential network peopled with “ghost images” unfolds, calling upon icons like Pier Paolo Pasolini, Dalida, Molière, Amy Winehouse, Michael Jackson or Rudolf Nureyev. Using a variety of film and musical material, Panayiotou anatomizes the concept of tragic irony to delve into the enigma of the spectacle of death. Evoking urgency, bliss, menace, desire, Christodoulos Panayiotou combines contrasted energies to confront the audience with the many faces of the inevitable. By examining the ballet La Bayadère staged by Rudolf Nureyev a few months before his death, Dying on Stage composes a strange mosaic which unsettles cultural and social norms down to their very foundations – challenging conventions, paying homage to the theatre

Christodoulos Panayiotou's (b. 1978, Limassol, Cyprus) wide-ranging research focuses on the identification and uncovering of hiddennarratives in the visual records of history and time. Solo exhibitions of his work have been held (amongst others) at the 56th VeniceBiennial, The Cyprus Pavilion; Camden Arts Centre, London; Musée d’Orsay, Paris; CCC OD, Tours; Casa Luis Barragán, Mexico City; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Kunsthalle Zürich; Casino Luxembourg; CCA Kitakyushu; Museum of Contemporary Art, St. Louis; Museum of Contemporary Art, Leipzig; Centre d’Art Contemporain de Brétigny; and at Point Center of Contemporary Art, Nicosia. In 2019 he collaborated on the conception of the Emma Kunz - Visionary Drawings exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery. His work and is permanently installed at Centre Pompidou and Moderna Museet, Stockholm and was also shown in a number of group exhibitions including: the 8th  Melle Biennale; the 14th Lyon Biennial; the 13th Sharjah Biennial; dOCUMENTA (13), Kassel; 8th Berlin Biennale; 7th Liverpool Biennial; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Museion, Bolzano; Migros Museum, Zürich; CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco; Joan Miro Foundation, Barcelona; Witte de With, Rotterdam; Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm; Philadelphia Museum of Art; Ashkal Alwan Center for Contemporary Arts, Beirut; Artist Space, New York; MoCA Miami