Denys Zacharopoulos is an art historian and theorist. He works as Professor for Art history

Art history

Art history has historically been understood as the academic study of objects of art in their historical development and stylistic contexts, i.e. genre, design, format, and style...

, author and curator, amongst others at the 48th Biennale in Venice and documenta IX in Kassel (Germany).

Biography

Denys Zacharopoulos studied music in Athens and from 1970 in France literature, semantics and philosophy, followed by history and sociology of the arts and in literature. His teachers were Jean Cassou

Jean Cassou

Jean Cassou was a French writer, art critic, poet and member of the French Resistance during World War II.- Biography :Jean Cassou was born at Deusto, near Bilbao,...

, Gaëtan Picon

Gaëtan Picon

Gaëtan Picon was a French essayist and art crtitic. He was director of the Mercure de France and Director-General of Arts and Letters under André Malraux....

, Marin and Roland Barthes

Roland Barthes

Roland Gérard Barthes was a French literary theorist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician. Barthes' ideas explored a diverse range of fields and he influenced the development of schools of theory including structuralism, semiotics, existentialism, social theory, Marxism, anthropology and...

. He lived in France and became a French citizen. Since 2000, he lives in Greece.

In 1975, Denys Zacharopoulos became program coordinator of the Institute of Contemporary Arts

Institute of Contemporary Arts

The Institute of Contemporary Arts is an artistic and cultural centre on The Mall in London, just off Trafalgar Square. It is located within Nash House, part of Carlton House Terrace, near the Duke of York Steps and Admiralty Arch...

 in London. He then spent time in New York and taught as Professor in the Academies of Fine arts in Geneva, Vienna and Amsterdam.

During this period he forged intensive personal contacts to many contemporary artists of his generation, in particular to James Welling, Matt Mullican, Ernst Caramelle, Jean-Marc Bustamante

Jean-Marc Bustamante

Jean-Marc Bustamante is a French artist, sculptor and photographer. He was born in Toulouse. He is noted as a conceptual and installation artist and has incorporated ornamental design and architectural space in his works. He has also worked with film . From 1983 to 1987 he and Bernard Bazile...

, Juan Munoz

Juan Muñoz

Juan Muñoz was a Spanish sculptor, working primarily in paper maché, resin and bronze. He was also interested in the auditory arts and created compositions for the radio. He was a self-described "storyteller"...

, Thomas Schütte

Thomas Schütte

Thomas Schütte is a German contemporary artist. From 1973 to 1981 he studied art at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf alongside Katharina Fritsch under Gerhard Richter and Fritz Schwegler. He lives and works in Düsseldorf.-Work:In the early 1980s Schütte began a series of small sculptural works...

 and Reinhard Mucha.

Professional activities

Denys Zacharopouls' first major works centered on the Arte Povera

Arte Povera

Arte Povera is a modern art movement. The term was introduced in Italy during the period of upheaval at the end of the 1960s, when artists were taking a radical stance. Artists began attacking the values of established institutions of government, industry, and culture, and even questioning whether...

 movement. He curated a long series of exhibitions in major museums in Europe and the US. Since 2001 he published extensively and curated intensively many exhibitions on the artistic production and the issue of Avantgarde in Greece in the 2nd half of the 20th Century.

• Director of the Domaine de Kerguehennec, in France (1992–1999)
• Co-Director with Jan Hoet of documenta
  Documenta
  documenta is an exhibition of modern and contemporary art which takes place every five years in Kassel, Germany. It was founded by artist, teacher and curator Arnold Bode in 1955 as part of the Bundesgartenschau which took place in Kassel at that time...
  
   IX in Kassel, Germany (1992)
• General inspector for contemporary art in the French Ministry for Culture (1999)
• Curator of the French Pavilion at the 48th Biennale
  Venice Biennale
  The Venice Biennale is a major contemporary art exhibition that takes place once every two years in Venice, Italy. The Venice Film Festival is part of it. So too is the Venice Biennale of Architecture, which is held in even years...
  
   in Venice (1999)
• Professor at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunste in Amsterdam, Holland (1996–2005)
• Professor for art history and art theory at the Aegean University in Lesvos, Greece (2000)
• Artistic director of the Macedonian Museums for Contemporary Art, Thessalonica (2006).

Publications

Since 1977 art critiques in Artforum ( N.Y.); Artistes (Paris); Arti (Athens); Parkett (Zurich); Furor (Geneva); Faces (Geneva); Museumjournal (Amsterdam); Art e Dossier (Rome); Artstudio (Paris); Juliett (Trieste); Acrobat Mime Parfait (Bologna); Teuchos and Artime (both Athens).

Numerous catalogues and theoretical publications listed in Zacharopoulos' bibliography, with particular emphasis on the following artists: Gerhard Richter

Gerhard Richter

Gerhard Richter is a German visual artist. Richter has simultaneously produced abstract and photorealistic painted works, as well as photographs and glass pieces, thus undermining the concept of the artist’s obligation to maintain a single cohesive style.- Biography :Gerhard Richter was born in...

, Mario Merz

Mario Merz

Mario Merz was an Italian artist, and husband of Marisa Merz.-Life:Born in Milan, Merz started drawing during World War II, when he was imprisoned for his activities with the Giustizia e Libertà antifascist group. He experimented with a continuous graphic stroke–not removing his pencil point from...

, Gilberto Zorio, Iannis Kounellis, Per Kirkeby

Per Kirkeby

Per Kirkeby is a Danish painter, poet, filmmaker and sculptor.-Biography:1962 Studies at the Experimental Art School in Copenhagen; works in the School on painting, graphic arts, 8 millimeter films and performance pieces...

, Eugene Leroy, Michelangelo Pistoletto

Michelangelo Pistoletto

Michelangelo Pistoletto is an Italian painter, action and object artist, and art theorist. Pistoletto is acknowledged as one of the main representatives of the Italian Arte Povera...

, Pat Steir, Carl Andre

Carl Andre

Carl Andre is an American minimalist artist recognized for his ordered linear format and grid format sculptures. His sculptures range from large public artworks to more intimate tile patterns arranged on the floor of an exhibition space Carl Andre (born September 16, 1935) is an American...

, Pierpaolo Calzolari, Jean-Pierre Bertrand, Marina Abramovic

Marina Abramovic

Marina Abramović is a Belgrade-born New York-based Serbian performance artist who began her career in the early 1970s. Active for over three decades, she has recently begun to describe herself as the “grandmother of performance art.” Abramović's work explores the relationship between performer and...

, Lothar Baumgarten

Lothar Baumgarten

Lothar Baumgarten is a German conceptual artist, based in New York and Düsseldorf. His work includes installation and film.-Life and work:...

, Marisa Merz, Jean-Marc Bustamante

Jean-Marc Bustamante

Jean-Marc Bustamante is a French artist, sculptor and photographer. He was born in Toulouse. He is noted as a conceptual and installation artist and has incorporated ornamental design and architectural space in his works. He has also worked with film . From 1983 to 1987 he and Bernard Bazile...

, Matt Mullican, Thomas Schütte

Thomas Schütte

Thomas Schütte is a German contemporary artist. From 1973 to 1981 he studied art at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf alongside Katharina Fritsch under Gerhard Richter and Fritz Schwegler. He lives and works in Düsseldorf.-Work:In the early 1980s Schütte began a series of small sculptural works...

, Jan Vercruysse, Helmut Dorner, Geylan Gerber,[Harald Klingelhöller, Franz West

Franz West

Franz West is an Austrian artist.-Work:His art practice started as a reaction to the Viennese Actionism movement has been exhibited in museums and galleries for more than three decades...

, Jim Lutes, Tadashi Kawamata, Reinhard Mucha, Adrian Schiess, Herbert Brandl, Jimmy Durham, Michel François, Eran Schaerf, Xavier Noiret-Thomé

Xavier Noiret-Thomé

Xavier Noiret-Thomé is a French painter.After completing his study of Fine Arts in Rennes in 1995, Xavier Noiret-Thomé spent some time in the Contemporary Art Centre of Domaine de Kerguehennec. From 1996 to 1997, he lived in the residence of Rijksakademie Van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam...

.

• Denys Zacharopoulos/Ulrich Look, "Gerhard Richter", S.Schreiber, Munich, 1984
• "Reinhard Mucha: Das Figur/Grund Problem in der Architektur des Barocks", Kunstverein, Stuttgart 1985.
• "Per Kirkeby", Musée Saint-Pierre, Lyon, 1987
• "Gerhard Richter", Liliane & Michel Durand-Dessert, Paris 1991.
• "Jean-Marc Bustamante", Kröller-Müller, Otteloo, 1994
• "Per Kirkeby", Arts Club, Chicago, 2007

Awards & Honors

• Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres of the French Republic
• Cross of Honor for the Arts and Sciences of the Republic of Austria