In 2015, Rick Lowe first visited Greece, a country that had long held a fascination for the artist. While thousands of miles away from his adopted hometown of Houston in Texas, where he lives and works, the city of Athens—the birthplace of modern democracy—seemed a befitting setting for Lowe, who frequently explores the social dimensions of space in his work. A 2014 recipient of a MacArthur “genius” Fellowship, Lowe is best known for his “social sculpture,” a practice inspired by Joseph Beuys involving civic engagement and community-centered activism.

Lowe returned to Greece regularly, deepening his relationship to Athens and its people. In 2017, he inaugurated a new work in the Athenian neighborhood of Kypseli for Documenta 14. Made in collaboration with the artist Maria Papadimitriou, the multifaceted Victoria Square Project (2016–23) transformed a public space that had been the center of xenophobic tensions by making it the site of participatory creative endeavors—such as artistic collaborations, publishing projects, and even shared meals.

Responding to the complexities of the Greek refugee crisis around this time, Lowe sought to counter the feelings of displacement through cross-cultural dialogues conducted in the name of art. Intending the Victoria Square Project as an ongoing sociopolitical intervention, Lowe and his collaborators maintained a consistent presence in and around Victoria Square for eight years, specifically encouraging interactions that would have a lasting impact for Athenian residents.

In Cavafy Remains, an intricate entanglement of ribbonlike contours and vibrant linear elements unfurls across Lowe’s 28-foot-long composition. The overall effect is reminiscent of aerial perspectives in maps. Upon close viewing, however, one sees that these bands are composed of discrete rectangular segments, either painted or cut into collage pieces, which are used to create nodes of intersection. These four-sided motifs are a central component in Lowe’s oeuvre; they mark a visual language developed by the artist based on the shared activity of playing dominoes.

Dominoes were an important part of fostering relationships with residents of the Third Ward, the Houston neighborhood that Lowe transformed in his legendary community-building work titled Project Row Houses, which launched in 1993. Maps also figured significantly in Project Row Houses, as Lowe consulted and reimagined such diagrams for land use, real estate holdings, and urban planning while simultaneously critiquing their roles in furthering gentrification, displacement, and historical erasure. Notably, in 2020, Project Row Houses was named one of the “25 Most Influential Works of American Protest Art since World War II” by the New York Times.