Mâkhi Xenakis

“Grand Triptyque aux 3 vides n°1.” © Mâkhi Xenakis

Name:  Mâkhi Xenakis

URL:  http://www.makhi-xenakis.com/

Bio: Mâkhi Xenakis, daughter of Greek composer and architect Iannis Xenakis, was born in Paris in 1956, where she lives and works. Drawing has always been part of her life. She studied architecture with Paul Virilio and create sets and costumes for theater, especially with Claude Regy. In 1987, she moved to New York to paint until 1989. There she had a damascene meeting with Louise Bourgeois. In 1998, she published a book with her, Louise Bourgeois, the blind leading the blind, published by Actes Sud. In 1999, she had her first sculpture exhibition along with the book Parfois seule (Actes Sud). In 2001, she exhibited her drawings and sculptures and published Laisser venir les fantômes (Actes Sud). In 2004, invited to exhibit sculptures at the Salpêtrière, she discovered in the public archives the hell experienced by thousands of women incarcerated there since Louis XIV and published Les folles d’enfer de la Salpêtrière that presented a parallel set of 260 sculptures in the Salpêtrière chapel. 

(The Salpêtrière was originally a gunpowder factory ("saltpetre or saltpeter" being a constituent of gunpowder), but in 1656, Louis XIV had a hospital built a on the site, founding the Hospice de la Salpêtrière. This became a dumping ground for the poor of Paris, serving as a prison for prostitutes, and a holding place for the mentally disabled, criminally insane, epileptics, and the poor; it was also notable for its population of rats. By the eve of the 1789 Revolution, it had become the world's largest hospital, with a capacity of 10,000 patients plus 300 prisoners, mainly prostitutes. From La Salpêtrière they were paired with convicts and forcibly expatriated to New France (Louisiana). This was the fate of Manon Lescaut—immortalized in the novel of Abbé Prévost and by the opera of Puccini.)

In 2010, she chaired a film festival on ceramics and glass at Montpellier.  In 2012, an exhibition from the archives of her father Iannis Xenakis, is planned, on the theme: "the dawn of work" in MUBa of Tourcoing. 

Xenakis’ work is in private and public collections, including those of FNAC, the Centre Pompidou, the National Sèvres Factory, the Bibliothèque Nationale of Paris and Bibliothèque municipale of Lyon, Musée Zadkine, Artothèque, and the Musée des beaux-arts de Brest.

Xenakis has been exhibiting since 1993.

Medium: Pastel. Oil, Acrylic, Sculpture

Subjects: Organic, but scarcely representational.

Style: Not easily categorized. See for yourself!
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Gallery: Œuvres – Peintures – Dessins ; subgalleries too numerous to list.

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