Athens First Cemetery in English: Giannis Parmakelis, Sculptor

Giannis Parmakelis (Γιάννης Παρμακέλης) Sculptor

Born 1932

“I was born a sculptor”

The Plaza, Number 59

The cross in Section 14/ Number 219

The First Cemetery has been rightly called Athens’ greatest open air museum because of the sculptures and bas reliefs placed over so many graves. But it is also true that many of the great sculptures found there date from the nineteenth century or the early twentieth century, an era when sculptural representation ‘ruled’. Economics, changing tastes and photography have made inroads into the urge to immortalize one’s loved ones in stone. Ceramic photographs have taken the place of marble busts in most instances.

So it was a lovely surprise to find two excellent works of Giannis Parmakelis in the First: a metal cross and angel in Section 14 and the larger than life bronze figure hovering over a Goulandris grave in the Plaza. The presence of these two works gives us the opportunity to write about Parmakelis, a conceptual artist in the true sense of that word, whose brilliant work has altered as he has embraced new techniques and ideas. His most recent works employ geometrical shapes, unusual materials, and a palette of vibrant colours, many honed to perfection by laser rather than the more traditional hammer and chisel!

His Life:

Giannis was born in 1932 in Heraklion, Crete to a family whose roots were in Pergamon in Asia Minor. The family was not well off and, like all children during the German occupation, he had already lived through hardship and hunger before he arrived almost penniless in Athens in 1952 and applied to the School of Fine Arts. His application ‘work’, a bust of the goddess Demeter, won him both a scholarship and an entree to the Greek world of fine art. He had the good fortune to be taught by the well known artists Giannis Moralis (Γιάννης Μόραλης) and Giannis Pappas (Γιάννης Παππάς). Apparently he would habitually walk from his room in Pangrati all the way to Patission where the school was located in order to save the small tram fare and put it towards food. A surprising number of Greece’s greatest sculptures suffered great economic hardship to remain in school and perfect their craft.

From 1961 to 1965 he continued his studies at the Εcole des Beaux-Arts in Paris with a grant from the Greek State Scholarship Foundation. There his teachers included the well known sculptors Ossip Zadkine and Robert Couturier. He reminisced that there were many Greek young people studying in Paris at that time so he did not lack company. Apparently he was with a large group of these friends when they happened to run into the artist Yiannis Tsarouchis (Γιάννης Τσαρούχης) on a boulevard. Tsarouchis took one look at them and joked that there did not seem to be any Parisians left in the capital!

His mentors suggested that Giannis make his career in Paris, but he chose to return to Greece.

During 1966 he taught briefly at the School of Fine Arts in Athens as an assistant to Giannis Pappas. He taught free drawing at the School of Interior Decorating of the Doxiadis Technologica Institute between 1968 and 1976,

Portrait of the artist as a young man

and at the Bakalo College of Art from 1995 to 1999.

In 1974, he had his first solo exhibition at the Athens Art Gallery in Kolonaki entitled Martyrs and Victims (Μάρτυρες και θύματα), just a few months before the fall of the junta. It was a very pointed rebuke to the dictatorship.

His Art

Here I am relying on experts, one of whom wrote: “Parmakelis' art represents one of the most intelligent deviations from traditional sculpture, en route from classical naturalism, through dramatic expressionism, to industrial abstraction”. This involved three phases:

1950 to 1967: a period of classical naturalism, during which he explored the plastic possibilities of the human figure.

1967-1974: a period of dramatic expressionism with his well-known series of Martyrs and Victims (a protest against the military dictatorship) and his First of May sculptures (1973-1978).

1978 until today: a period showing an appetite for industrial abstraction in the period from 1978 with sculptures that have come to be known as 'Mechanic'.

He is a prolific artist with exceptional range in both concept and materials. Many of his works appear in the open, both in Crete and in Attica.

A Picture Gallery

Bust of Stavros Kallergis (1865-1926), one of Greece’s first socialists. In Crete outside of his former residence

The Amiras Memorial in Crete memorializing the worst German massacre in Greece during the occupation. One critic has called this work “anthropocentric, abstract, and expressionistic – all at the same time”.

From his Martyrs and Victims exhibition of 1974 (Herakleion, Crete)

Martyrs and Victims exhibition

Aeschylos in Eleusina 1977

Kosmogony (κοσμογονιά) in Plateia Koumoundouros in Athens,1978

Erotokritos and Aretousa in Plateia Kornarou in Herakleio Crete.

This is not double vision! The sculptor wished to show movement.

Co-existence (Συνύπαρξη) and can be found at the old railway station of Dionysos, north east of Athens half way between Maroussi and Marathon. 2004

Memorial to ‘Ellinismos in Asia Minor’ in Herakleio, Crete, 2014. This sculpture was formed of bronze and aluminium. The sail represents the flight by sea.

His Latest Works

The artist: “Art always takes you somewhere. With every work I create I work more with my brain and less in the doing. Just as I used nature as an inspiration, I continue with ‘industrial’ raw materials, thus bringing my work into the technical present.”

Giannis Parmakelis became a Member of the Athens Academy in November of 2011. The vote was unanimous.

In The First Cemetery

It is very difficult to get a complete picture of the cross and angel grave in section 14 – all the more reason to visit. The angel is very reminiscent of the Amiras memorial in Crete. The date: 1984.