Apostolos Fanakidis (b. 1945)
Howling, 1986
bronze
148,5 x 71 x 102 cm

Apostolos Fanakidis (b. 1945)
The Step, 1986
bronze
193,5 x 80 x 62 cm

Apostolos Fanakidis (b. 1945)
Human dimension, 2010
bronze
191 x 58 x 29 cm

Apostolos Fanakidis (b. 1945)
Maternity, 1993
bronze
23 x 20 x 28 cm

Roberto Matta (1912 - 2002)
Untitled, 1944 /1980
copperplate etching on ivory tinted Arches wove
15 x 19 cm (image size), 38,1 x 29,85 cm
35/70

Roberto Matta (1912 - 2002)
Untitled, 1944 /1980
copperplate etching on ivory tinted Arches wove
15 x 19,5 cm (image size), 38,1 x 29,85 cm
35/70

Roberto Matta (1912 - 2002)
Untitled, 1944 /1980
copperplate etching on ivory tinted Arches wove
15 x 19 cm (image size), 38,1 x 29,85 cm
35/70

Roberto Matta (1912 - 2002)
Untitled, 1944 /1980
handcoloured copperplate etching on ivory tinted Arches wove
11 x 10 cm (image size), 38,1 x 29,85 cm

Roberto Matta (1912 - 2002)
Untitled, 1944 /1980
copperplate etching on ivory tinted Arches wove
20 x 24 cm (image size), 38,1 x 29,85 cm
35/70

Roberto Matta (1912 - 2002)
Untitled, 1944 /1980
copperplate etching on ivory tinted Arches wove
19,5 x 24,5 cm (image size), 38,1 x 29,85 cm
35/70

Roberto Matta (1912 - 2002)
Untitled, 1944 /1980
copperplate etching on ivory tinted Arches wove
20 x 15 cm (image size), 38,1 x 29,85 cm
35/70

Roberto Matta (1912 - 2002)
Untitled, 1944 /1980
copperplate etching on ivory tinted Arches wove
19,5 x 15 cm (image size), 38,1 x 29,85 cm
35/70

Roberto Matta (1912 - 2002)
Untitled, 1944 /1980
copperplate etching on ivory tinted Arches wove
15 x 19 cm (image size), 38,1 x 29,85 cm
35/70

Roberto Matta (1912 - 2002)
Untitled, 1944 /1980
copperplate etching on ivory tinted Arches wove
20 x 15 cm (image size), 38,1 x 29,85 cm
35/70

Roberto Matta (1912 - 2002)
Untitled, 1944 /1980
copperplate etching on ivory tinted Arches wove
25 x 19,5 cm (image size), 38,1 x 29,85 cm
35/70

Apostolos Fanakidis (b. 1945)
Maternity IΙΙ, 1992
polyester
49 x 30 x 12 cm

Apostolos Fanakidis (b. 1945)
Maternity I White, 1992
polyester
40 x 33 x 30 cm

Apostolos Fanakidis (b. 1945)
Relief, 1992
polyester
60 x 60 cm

Apostolos Fanakidis (b. 1945)
Maternity II, 1992
polyester
185 x 100 x 115 cm

Apostolos Fanakidis (b. 1945)
Relief, 1992
polyester
60 x 60 cm

Apostolos Fanakidis (b. 1945)
Maternity I Pink, 1992
polyester
40 x 33 x 30 cm

Apostolos Fanakidis (b. 1945)
The Little Horse, 2021
iron
44,5 x 37 x 7 cm

Apostolos Fanakidis (b. 1945)
The Step, 1987
bronze
28,5 x 12 x 9,5 cm

About

Within this “savage economy” of the image—where animalism, violence and eroticism function as fundamental syntactic elements—Savage Syntax articulates a composition of forms that invokes Pensée Sauvage and Claude Lévi-Strauss’s structural anthropology. Under the light of Wild Thought, the beastly is recognised as a generative source of form: instinct and unrelenting corporeality inscribe new structures which shatter the confines of rationalism and reveal the possibilities of instinctual expression.

At the heart of Savage Syntax lie the sculptures of Apostolos Fanakidis: totemic figures that fuse human and bestial, organic and inorganic anatomies into an idiosyncratic visual lexicon. Carved and cast with palpable tactility, these works evoke both archaic ritual objects and speculative form, articulating a sensibility that is at once primal and meticulously executed. Fanakidis’s totemic sculptures are complemented by Roberto Matta’s etchings—designed in 1944 during his collaboration with Stanley William Hayter at Atelier 17, in New York. As Matta’s first foray into printmaking, the eleven signed and numbered prints—ten with aquatint and embossing, plus one hand-coloured—mark his shift from abstract cosmic landscapes to figuration charged with corporeal distortion, semi-caricatural wit and erotic violence. In parallel, A.R. Penck’s compositions —defined by schematic reduction—revives both prehistoric cave paintings and cybernetic diagrams. His economy of signifiers forms a raw semiotic network that resonates with the physical force of Fanakidis’s sculptures and the psycho-physical intensity of Matta’s burin-etched bodies, articulating the exhibition’s “savage” visual structure.

Through their respective engagements with animalism, violence, and eroticism, Matta, Penck, and Fanakidis construct a shared lexicon of affect, one that speaks to a deeper, wilder knowledge. In this context, form itself becomes a site of revelation: the unconscious rendered legible, and the animalistic, the erotic, and the ritualistic granted structural agency in a powerful meditation on expression as pure intuition.

Press

Press Kit

Artists

Apostolos Fanakidis (b. 1945) is a Greek sculptor whose pioneering abstraction and mastery of materiality render him a seminal figure in contemporary Greek sculpture. Born in Evros, Northern Greece, his early life was shaped by displacement—first to Budapest, then Sofia—where he studied Monumental Sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts (1967–1972). Although grounded in a rigorous academic tradition, he immediately defied figurative conventions by installing one of Sofia’s earliest abstract sculptures in a central square, inaugurating a new dialogue between public space and formal innovation. He returned to Athens in 1978.
Several exhibitions and major prizes have followed, in Greece, France, the Netherlands, and the USA. In 1981, he represented Greece at the Biennale of Budapest, where he won one of the 1st prizes. In 1988, he was awarded the first prize at the National Competition of the Greek Ministry of Culture. In 2005, he realised his most ambitious public commission—the Monument to the 200 Patriots in Athens—executed in steel and stone, commemorating those executed by the Nazis in World War II; this work is regarded as Greece’s most significant national monument of the twentieth century.
Fanakidis’s sculptures reside in major museums of Modern Art and public sites across Europe and the United States, underscoring his enduring impact on global sculptural tradition.

Roberto Sebastián Antonio Matta Echaurren (1912–2002) was a Chilean artist distinguished for his contributions to Surrealism and Abstract Expressionism. Born in Santiago, Matta studied architecture at the Universidad Católica de Chile, where his training provided a profound understanding of spatial dynamics that later dominated his canvases. In 1933, he relocated to Paris to work under Le Corbusier, but an encounter with André Breton redirected him towards Surrealism. Under Breton’s tutelage, Matta developed his “psychological morphologies,” biomorphic landscapes that visualised the unconscious.
During the late 1930s, Matta exhibited alongside artists such as Salvador Dalí, Yves Tanguy, and Marcel Duchamp, establishing a personal lexicon of spectral imagery and fluid spatial motifs. Fleeing Europe at the outbreak of World War II, he settled in New York and became central to the New York School. His explorations of space and form evolved, integrating Abstract Expressionist elements without relinquishing his Surrealist heritage.
Beyond painting, Matta produced drawings, prints and sculptures. His work often reflected his deep political convictions, responding to mid-century turmoil and technological developments. He collaborated with poets and philosophers, including Octavio Paz and Roland Barthes. Throughout his six-decade career, his oeuvre has gained international acclaim, with retrospectives held at institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, and the Tate Modern, London. In 2002, he died in Camaïeu, France.

A. R. Penck (Ralf Winkler) (1939–2017) was a German artist widely recognised for his engagement with Neo-Expressionism and post-war visual culture. Born in Dresden, Penck’s formative years were shaped by the devastation of the Second World War and the ideological constraints of the German Democratic Republic. Largely autodidactic, he sustained himself as a stage-set painter, developing a pictorial language inspired by children’s drawings, prehistoric cave art and the austere geometry of his urban environment.
Adopting the pseudonym A.R. Penck—to allude to the geographer Albrecht Penck—he commenced making drawings and paintings in the 1960s characterised by rudimentary stick figures, cryptic ideograms and ambiguous spatial constructs. These forms constituted a universal visual syntax reflecting his interest in semiotics and a veiled critique of state-imposed censorship. Penck emerged as a leading proponent of the “Neue Wilde” (New Wild Ones), alongside contemporaries such as Georg Baselitz and Jörg Immendorff. His practice includes sculpture, ceramics and installation, while his prints are internationally acclaimed.
Throughout his career, Penck exhibited at Documenta (1977, 1982) and the Venice Biennale (1978, 1980), and was the subject of retrospectives at institutions such as the Tate Modern, London, and the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Penck died in Zürich in 2017, leaving a legacy that continues to inform contemporary art scholarship and practice.

Installation Shots

Roma Gallery is pleased to announce Savage Syntax: Roberto Matta, A.R. Penck, Apostolos Fanakidis, curated by the art historian Alia Tsagkari. Bringing together etchings and large-scale sculptures, the exhibition advances a rigorous theoretical and aesthetic proposition that constructs a visual language rooted not in rational order, but in instinct, affect and primaeval drives.Within this “savage economy” of the image—where animalism, violence and eroticism function as fundamental syntactic elements—Savage Syntax articulates a composition of forms that invokes Pensée Sauvage and Claude Lévi-Strauss’s structural anthropology. Under the light of Wild Thought, the beastly is recognised as a generative source of form: instinct and unrelenting corporeality inscribe new structures which shatter the confines of rationalism and reveal the possibilities of instinctual expression….

Apostolos Fanakidis (b. 1945) is a Greek sculptor whose pioneering abstraction and mastery of materiality render him a seminal figure in contemporary Greek sculpture. Born in Evros, Northern Greece, his early life was shaped by displacement—first to Budapest, then Sofia—where he studied Monumental Sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts (1967–1972). Although grounded in a rigorous academic tradition, he immediately defied figurative conventions by installing one of Sofia’s earliest abstract sculptures in a central square, inaugurating a new dialogue between public space and formal innovation. He returned to Athens in 1978. Several exhibitions and major prizes have followed, in Greece, France, the Netherlands, and the USA. In 1981, he represented Greece at the Biennale of Budapest, where he won one of the 1st prizes. In 1988, he was awarded the first prize at the National Competition of the Greek Ministry of Culture. In 2005, he realised his most ambitious public commission—the Monument to the 200 Patriots in Athens—executed in steel and stone, commemorating those executed by the Nazis in World War II; this work is regarded as Greece’s most significant national monument of the twentieth century. Fanakidis’s sculptures reside in major museums of Modern Art and public sites across Europe and the United States, underscoring his enduring impact on global sculptural tradition.

Roberto Sebastián Antonio Matta Echaurren (1912–2002) was a Chilean artist distinguished for his contributions to Surrealism and Abstract Expressionism. Born in Santiago, Matta studied architecture at the Universidad Católica de Chile, where his training provided a profound understanding of spatial dynamics that later dominated his canvases. In 1933, he relocated to Paris to work under Le Corbusier, but an encounter with André Breton redirected him towards Surrealism. Under Breton’s tutelage, Matta developed his “psychological morphologies,” biomorphic landscapes that visualised the unconscious. During the late 1930s, Matta exhibited alongside artists such as Salvador Dalí, Yves Tanguy, and Marcel Duchamp, establishing a personal lexicon of spectral imagery and fluid spatial motifs. Fleeing Europe at the outbreak of World War II, he settled in New York and became central to the New York School. His explorations of space and form evolved, integrating Abstract Expressionist elements without relinquishing his Surrealist heritage. Beyond painting, Matta produced drawings, prints and sculptures. His work often reflected his deep political convictions, responding to mid-century turmoil and technological developments. He collaborated with poets and philosophers, including Octavio Paz and Roland Barthes. Throughout his six-decade career, his oeuvre has gained international acclaim, with retrospectives held at institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, and the Tate Modern, London. In 2002, he died in Camaïeu, France.

A. R. Penck (Ralf Winkler) (1939–2017) was a German artist widely recognised for his engagement with Neo-Expressionism and post-war visual culture. Born in Dresden, Penck’s formative years were shaped by the devastation of the Second World War and the ideological constraints of the German Democratic Republic. Largely autodidactic, he sustained himself as a stage-set painter, developing a pictorial language inspired by children’s drawings, prehistoric cave art and the austere geometry of his urban environment. Adopting the pseudonym A.R. Penck—to allude to the geographer Albrecht Penck—he commenced making drawings and paintings in the 1960s characterised by rudimentary stick figures, cryptic ideograms and ambiguous spatial constructs. These forms constituted a universal visual syntax reflecting his interest in semiotics and a veiled critique of state-imposed censorship. Penck emerged as a leading proponent of the “Neue Wilde” (New Wild Ones), alongside contemporaries such as Georg Baselitz and Jörg Immendorff. His practice includes sculpture, ceramics and installation, while his prints are internationally acclaimed. Throughout his career, Penck exhibited at Documenta (1977, 1982) and the Venice Biennale (1978, 1980), and was the subject of retrospectives at institutions such as the Tate Modern, London, and the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Penck died in Zürich in 2017, leaving a legacy that continues to inform contemporary art scholarship and practice.

➡ PRESS KIT

Roberto Matta, A. R. Penck and Apostolos Fanakidis
Savage Syntax

Duration:
12.6.25 – 12.7.2025

Apostolos Fanakidis (b. 1945)
The Step, 1986
bronze
193,5 x 80 x 62 cm