Author: gourgourini

“Maybe shame is what you feel when you start to truly get to know someone. When perfection makes room for our human side—what you love with all the mistakes they have made or will make. Because it’s the human part we seek. Perfection is for strangers, for celebrities on TV. For those who are never really part of our lives.” — Excerpt from the novel Dad, I Want You to Be Ashamed of Me.

An evening full of surprises, celebrating the release of Dad, I Want You to Be Ashamed of Me. The central theme of the book is the diary of the protagonist, who shares his secrets without shame, in an attempt to finally connect with his family.

In the spirit of the book, the audience will be invited to anonymously share a secret to be read on that day.

ROMANTSO, Anaxagora 3-5, Athens
Wednesday, November 6
Arrival Time: 20:00
Free Admission

* Sam Albatros is SNF ARTWORKS Fellow (2021)

Thodoris Trampas (SNF ARTWORKS Fellow 2020) joins the OSTEN Biennial Skopje 2024 and receives the Special Recognition Award by the OSTEN BIENNIAL Skopje 2024. This award is given to artists distinguished for their innovation, creativity, and the impact of their work on the contemporary art scene.

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/YoWpxVwAcFxGTkaB/

https://www.osten.mk/en/awards-2024/?fbclid=IwY2xjawGIj-5leHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHUnwG0urM4vhJAfkSFnbZXvyjSNlM2AnpgYlUDaQo9MBSbBLKY2anaKupg_aem_alZgSRo66TgayPayqsa3Ng

Weaving Worlds is an exhibition about processes of world-building or re-worlding as depicted, discussed or enhanced through art. The experience of the pandemic allowed us to reflect upon what is lost in a condition of continuous acceleration, and what is yet to be gained in order to find ways of living with each other in a period of a generalized crisis. Weaving Worlds addresses the need to reimagine forms of co-existence on an environmental, social or political level. It questions the idea of a one-world world acknowledging the existence and interdependence of different realities, needs and possibilities.

Participating artists: Margarita Athanasiou, Campus Novel, Sofia Dona, Maro Fasouli, Dimitris Gavalas, Effie Halivopoulou / Tim Ward / Nikos Falagas, Zoe Hatziyannaki & Constantinos Hadzinikolaou, Charles Hustwick, Andreas Ragnar Kassapis, Chrysanthi Koumianaki, Anna Lascari, Michael Lekakis, Stefanos Levidis, MAENADS (Eleni Ikoniadou, Afroditi Psarra, Anne Duffau), Alexia Celia Peza / Petros Tatsiopoulos / Nori Tsouloucha, Dimitra Skandali, Lina Theodorou, Μaria Varela, WordMord {Onlania tentacle}.

*Margarita Athanasiou, Sofia Dona, Maro Fasouli, Andreas Ragnar Kassapis, Chrysanthi Koumianaki, Stefanos Levidis, Μaria Varela are SNF ARTWORKS Fellows

Weaving Worlds
An exhibition curated by Daphne Dragona at Deree – The American College of Greece
Friday, May 20 – Saturday, June 25, 2022
Opening: May 20, 2022 18:00-22:00
ACG Art Gallery – The American College of Greece, 6 Gravias Street, Aghia Paraskevi

Organised by: The Frances Rich School of Fine and Performing Arts (FRSFPA) of Deree – The American College of Greece
as part of the Arts Festival 2022
Supported by: the Art History, Graphic Design, and Visual Arts Programs

Opening hours: Mon-Fri: 14:00-18:00, Sat: 12:00-16:00
Entrance is open to the public. Visitors are required to wear face masks at the exhibition venues.

Rebecca Camhi gallery is pleased to announce a new group exhibition reflecting on the notions of the sun as a driving force and, at the same time, an existential homeland, curated by Marina Fokidis.

The exhibition includes Zoë Paul’s weavings on obsolete fridge grills, Iasonas Kampanis’ painted portraits of animals taken from ancient Greek mosaics and friezes, Yugoexport’s collection of zoomorphic ceramic sculptures and vases, Panos Profitis’ facemask-sculptures, inspired by the iconography of ancient Greek amphorae, and Eleni Kotsoni’s ongoing collage-installations, made from material fragments of the past and the present, to create a continuous narrative.

This paradoxical title emphasizes how crucial light is in the conception and creation of these artworks. It examines the sun’s ability to transcend geographical boundaries, and to heal the human condition and our environment. The artists of the exhibition were born and raised in countries of the so-called broader south, where the sun is untamed and powerful. These include Athens, Belgrade, Kythera, Livadia, South Africa, and Rhodes.

Their works carry the influence of a shared understanding of South-eastern cultures: their myths, traditions, political idiosyncrasies, economic realities, and craftsmanship. The metaphorical and literal “shapes” and “colours” in these works encourage the viewer to look beyond the hegemonically imposed “white” purity of the Renaissance and Classicism, as well as Enlightenment’s rationalism and in general, the prevalence of western thought in society today.

The branch of philosophy called epistemology is defined by the relationship between the researcher and reality, the artists and their surroundings. This is what constitutes their version of the Epistemologies of the Sun.

You are invited to expand on these epistemologies through multiple perspectives and orientations during many occasions this summer such as the summer solstice, when the sun will be at its zenith.

Epistemologies of the sun
Group show curated by Marina Fokidis
Artists: Iasonas Kampanis, Eleni Kotsoni, Zoë Paul, Panos Profitis, Yugoexport
Duration 12/05/2022 – 09/09/2022

*Iasonas Kampanis and Panos Profitis are SNF ARTWORKS Fellows

Eleonora Siarava, a choreographer who lives and works between Greece and Germany presents her new piece Blue Beyond. Blue Beyond is a dance performance about time which as an experiential perception, a natural phenomenon, a corporeal event runs through a continuum. It constructs an imaginary condition where future penetrates present and present emerges into future creating overlapping temporalities. Drawing from the chi-fi book of the beginning of the 20th century “Last and First Men: A Story of the Near and Far Future” by Olaf Stapledon, 1930, explores corporealities, cartographies and images of the Future and questions how the idea, the vision or the fantasy of the Future is depicted, reflected, embodied.

Through an interplay with mythologies, realities, dramaturgies, fictions, topologies, imaginary spaces of the future, memories of the live present and embodied traces of the past, the idea is to turn the stage into an active hybrid space with movements, objects, sounds, words and create a live moving capsule of imprints and visions forming a Memoir for¦of the Future, a cyclic schema to represent time.
The piece uses montage techniques in order to reveal different variations of non-linear performance unfolding and explore how body and movement are affected when transferred in a different temporal condition or spatial context. To enhance this, there is an interactive sound design with live amplification processes and recording within recording techniques.

Blue Beyond follows a series of Siarava’s artworks about Time. The Body and the Other ~ (2020) premiered in one of the most important dance production houses in Europe, Tanzhaus NRW at Düsseldorf in the framework of Temps D ‘Images Festival while Who knows where the time goes – potential destination #1 (2021) was presented in Athens supported by the Ministry of Culture of Greece and after a residency at SE.S.TA Centre for Choreographing Development/Interdisciplinary Incubator 2019 (Prague).

Concept – Choreography – Artistic Direction: Eleonora Siarava
Dance, choreography: Eftychia Stefanou
Sound design: Yannis Tsirikoglou, Space design: Eleonora Siarava, Light design: Eliza Alexandropoulou, Dramaturgy advice: Betina Panagiotara, Set construction: Christofili Kodolefa, Athina Koubarouli, Costume: Girogia Dipla, Production assistant: Nefeli Vlachouli, Visual communication: Christofili Kodolefa
Production: Per_Dance Choreographic Research Plarform
www.per-dance.com
With the financial support of the Ministry of Culture and Sports of Greece for 2021-2022

20-21-22 May | 20.00 | Theseum Theatre
Tournavitou 7, Athens
Duration: 50 minutes
Tickets: https://www.ticketservices.gr/event/blue-beyond-eleonora-siarava/?lang=en
Contact: [email protected]
Post-Performance Talk
On Sunday 23th May the performance will be followed by a discussion between the artistic team and the audience facilitated by the dramaturg Betina Panagiotara.

Η παράσταση πραγματοποιείται με την οικονομική υποστήριξη του Υπουργείου Πολιτισμού και Αθλητισμού για το 2021-2022

In sculpture there is a kind of plausibility and honesty of the materials. The material has its own properties that can only be used but not changed; the substance can be used in different ways to demonstrate various attributes. The honesty and ethics of the materials remain unscathed. In the art of sculpture, the physical dimension of the space in which the work of art is perceived plays a central role.

Having the notion of sculpture as a starting point for his solo show “I follow the sun as I follow my distraction” at Callirrhoë, Vasilis Papageorgiou is using materials through which gestures can be expressed. Bended copper plated plastic, marble spheres cut-in-half, curved steel, (de)formed plasterboards and clay shape his narration and convey to the observer the illusion of entering the domestic environment of the artist. An unconscious fantastical world is opening up as the spectator is building an imaginary space that includes all the objects to be gazed in an apparent sequence. Papageorgiou offers a twist of perspective on how we can observe familiar objects differently.

At this point, the question of the different connotations of the definition of sculpture comes to the fore, starting with the smallest object that can be found in the exhibition space and moving towards the sculpture in the middle of the room that could easily be spotted at a public space. But what is it that can actually be seen and interpreted? What’s the title hinting at?

Vasilis Papageorgiou
I follow the sun as I follow my distraction

curated by Olympia Tzortzi

27 May – 10 July 2022
Opening day: 27 May, 7 pm – 10 pm

Following an initiative of the King George Hotel, group exhibition “beautiful south” will be hosted in its lobby from 20 May till 26 June. The show will highlight the dual identity of the hotel as one of the oldest hotels and meeting points of Athens and at the same time as one of the spaces that attempts to bridge the traditional with the contemporary.

The selection of the artworks is based on works that belong to private collections and subsequently, on works from a selection of young Greek artists that play a significant role in the scene. This would be the first attempt to exhibit a NFT artwork in such an environment in Greece and will be a great addition to the more traditional mediums – such as paintings and sculptures – that will be presented. As the title implies – beautiful south – the main topic of the exhibition is the topos that we are interacting with. The south is a place which stimulates emotions, that supports a sense of freedom (through its natural surroundings).

Through a pluralistic selection of works, the show tries to unify and facilitate, attempts to build bridges and proposes a better understanding of contemporary art. A one-day symposium on the relationship between art and technology will take place. Andrea Lissoni, director of Haus Der Kunst in Munich, and Miltos Manetas, a distinguished multimedia artist, will play the key role to the symposium.

Beautiful South
King George Hotel
2, Kleomenous str., Athens

with works by Giannis Adamakos, Olive Allen, Margarita Bofiliou, Maria Georgoula, Giannis Gkizis, Dionisis Kavallieratos, Paul McCarthy, Maro Michalakakou, Roila Mpouzea, Albert Oehlen, Malvina Panagiotidi, Tasos Paulopoulos, Sofia Petropoulou, Yorgos Stamkopoulos, Erik Steinbrecher, Nikos Tranos and Kostis Velonis

Opening: 20 May, 7:30 pm – 10:30 pm
Duration: 20 May – 26 June

Directed by Desire is a collaborative project iterated into a group exhibition conceived and curated by Daphne Vitali and Arnisa Zeqo and taking place in rongwrong, Amsterdam from 15 May to 2 July, 2022. The exhibition brings together the work of mainly women artists and writers based in Greece, Italy and the Netherlands. The works deal with notions of desire, love and exhaustion. The sensitivity of the artists weaves together the personal with the political. The artworks invite us to think about the power of interpersonal relations and their effects in daily life. The exhibition presents both existing and newly commissioned works that move between longings for a person and for human solidarity altogether.

Directed by Desire addresses issues of affect and intimacy in the form of longing, frustration, tiredness, personal turmoil and tensions. These are emotions and situations often felt and experienced on a quotidian basis that determine both everyday lives and artistic creativity. In the exhibition, personal stories and imagined fantasies become strategies to confront the complexities of achievements, failures, self-negation, love, uneasiness, devotion and unfulfillment. Sensual pleasure and desire are sometimes linked with harsh, uneasy and demanding conditions such as distance, disillusionment, abandonments and other forms of emotional difficulties. The artists’ works engage different registers of intimacy and proximity and act as vehicles for emotional engagement.

The title of the exhibition is borrowed from a verse by American poet, intellectual and activist June Jordan (1936 – 2002) who has been an important reference for the curators while thinking of the power of the word and poetic sensibilities in relation to ideas of affect. Τhe artists participating hold a particular relation to language, writing, visual poetry and artists’ books.

Directed by Desire

Curated by: Daphne Vitali, Arnisa Zeqo

Participant artists: Eleni Bagaki, Mirella Bentivoglio, Tomaso Binga, Becket MWN, Quinn Latimer, Aliki Panagiotopoulou, Iris Touliatou, Raffaela Naldi Rossano, Myrto Xanthopoulou.

*Eleni Bagaki, Iris Touliatou and Myrto Xanthopoulou are SNF ARTWORKS Fellows

Rongwrong, Amsterdam
Binnen Bantammerstraat 2, 1011CK, Amsterdam

Opening: May 14th , 6-8pm –during Amsterdam Art Week
Duration: May 15 – July 2, 2022
Fridays and Saturdays 14:00 – 18:00 or by appointment

More info: http://www.rongwrong.org/

The exhibition is made possible with the support of NEON Organization for Culture and Development.

State of Concept Athens is happy to present the second episode of Waste/d Pavilion, the solo exhibition of Oliver Ressler, entitled “Assets Must be Stranded” curated by iLiana Fokianaki, accompanied by a public program curated by PAT.

Oliver Ressler has been for many decades working in the intersection of art and politics, closely inspired by and connected with the work of various activist groups and social movements, civic society and volunteer groups. Overall his work is characterized by themes that relate to politics, the aftermath of globalization and turbo-capitalism, protest and democracy, the commons in relationship to labour and questions that relate to ecology and sustainability and how these connect to the damaging effects of the anthropocene/capitalocene.

Belonging to a group of artists that discuss politics and ideology mainly through photography and the moving image, he is known to Greek audiences, for his four film series entitled “Occupy, Resist, Produce” that is discussing the aftermaths of the economic crisis of 2007-8, since one of the films, was dedicated to the occupation of the Vio.Me factory in Thessaloniki, by workers that took over and operate it to this day.

For this exhibition, Oliver Ressler presents works that will resonate very much to Greek audiences who the last decade witnessed protests and massive mobilization against extraction and pollution throughout the country: from the case of Erimitis in Corfu to the resistance against wind turbines in the historic Agrafa mountains, to the goldmine in Skouries in Northern Greece. Ressler has been following the environmentalist movement and has produced a series of films examining questions of climate activism. Primarily the artist will present his most recent film The Path is Never the Same (2022), discussing the efforts of activists and local residents from 2012 until this day to stop the lignite mine operations in Hambacher Forest in the region of Rheine, Germany by occupying trees and living on them.

Audiences will also see two films from his series “Everything’s coming together while everything’s falling apart” that follow the struggles of local residents to halt government plans to upend their lives and ruin their surrounding environment. The first film is focused on the infamous story of the ZAD, an autonomous zone created by local residents and activists, in an effort to stop plans for a new airport in Nantes, France. The second film, focuses on the Ende Gelände, a forest in Germany where local residents and activists aim to stop lignite extraction. Ressler will present also photographic works.

Bona-Fide: Elsa Brès – Kyveli Mavrokordopoulou Α dialogue between artist Elsa Brès and art historian Kyveli Mavrokordopoulou (SNF ARTWORKS Fellow) as part of the Bona-Fide series of exhibitions dedicated to contribute to the promotion of young artists and critics/curators. Brès presents Notes for Les Sanglières, a short film about a film in the making, shot in the rural French region where she lives, which deals with wild boars as allies, inspired by the ideas of ecofeminism. In her text Mavrokordopoulou, a researcher on the subterranean imaginary in contemporary art, especially with regard to nuclear spaces, shares her thoughts on Brès work in relation to ecology, in the fundamental sense of the term as the interaction of organisms with each other and with their environment.

Oliver Ressler’s exhibition was made possible by the support of Federal Ministry for Arts, Culture, the Civil Service and Sport (BMKÖS).

Waste/d Pavilion is part of the ‘Coalition of the Care-full’ a program of The European Pavilion.
The European Pavilion enables cultural spaces to experiment and reflect on Europe. To question, discuss and define what Europe is and what it could become in the future. To tell stories, to imagine, to question. Is there a more appropriate venue for such an undertaking than the European Pavilion?
‘Coalition of the Care-full’ is funded by the European Cultural Foundation. https://culturalfoundation.eu/stories/european-pavillion

Waste/d Pavilion, Episode 2:
Oliver Ressler – Assets Must be Stranded
Bona Fide 2: Kyveli Mavrokordopoulou & Elsa Brès
Opening: 27th of May, 19:00-22:00
Duration: May 27th 2022 – September 24th 2022
Opening Hours: Wednesday – Friday, 16:30-20:30 Saturday, 12:00-17:00

In ‘Spirit Structures’, Athens-based Petros Moris unfolds a ranging installation of sculptures, etchings and video both inside and outside PTX; a dialogue of works revolving around the entanglements between the material and metaphorical undergrounds of geology, bodies, and psyches. Equally employing both computational and archaic production techniques, machine learning algorithms, makeshift rapid prototyping and intaglio printing, the artist looks at the internal anatomies beneath surfaces and skins – domains that reverberate the processes of animation and transformation, engendered by the fateful interdependencies of earthly and cosmic phenomena.

*Petros Moris is SNF ARTWORKS Fellow 2018.

Spirit Structures
Petros Moris
PTX Athens, Pl. Theatrou 10, Athina 105 52
Exhibition dates: 02.06 – 19.06.2022

The G. & A. Mamidakis Foundation Art Prize 2022 was jointly awarded to artists Ileana Arnaoutou (1994) and Ismene King (1993) for their in situ sculptural installation Tender shell geophilia.

The in situ installation Tender shell geophilia (2022), by Ileana Arnaoutou and Ismene King, consists of concave forms situated on the rocks of the shore, semi-submerged in the water. The work is created through multiple casts of rocks, reflecting the existing landscape of the shore, while a part of it extends towards and within the seabed, allowing water to move fluidly in a wavelike flow. Resting pockets appear within its smooth and waxlike surface, reminiscent of an organic shell, creating inviting spaces within its interior. The installation functions simultaneously as a destination and a passage, proposing various routes, which can be approached either from the paved piers or from the sea.

The work creates a system of relief structures placed on the rocks, introducing a sculptural language of “potent containing spaces, which rearticulate the notion of the container, reiterating it as an active, porous and constantly ‘open’ space, interlinked with the geographical landscape.” The installation draws links between a “semi-sunken boat and a new alternative gulf, as an extension of the existing landscape”, opening up the conversation regarding a technology that is rooted in a libidinal approach towards industrial design and the ways that it may relate to the body.

Following a “geophilic approach”, the work is in line with practices of Land Art, offering a “bidirectional and embodied relationship with the landscape” through which “the work develops into an empirical and in situ condition of viewing and interacting, which positions the human body as an active element in a state of relatedness with nature.” In addition, the work introduces “a broader sculptural vocabulary that relates to ebb and flow, absence and presence”, which materially makes kin with feminist approaches towards phenomenology, and contributes to a wider conversation around embodiment as a methodology for the production of knowledge. In this regard, the artists refer to a “fluid condition which does not constitute the mold as a container and the relation of absence and presence as dual, but rather as bidirectional and constantly evolving.”

Τhe artists note that “the work is based on a feminist approach articulated through multiple and multidimensional encounters and extensions, related to a ‘safe geography’, directly referencing [their] Mediterranean narrative, closely linked to the experience of being within an archipelago, always interconnected and in harmony with water, a condition that places the body in a situation of proximity and safety, in water and on land.” They elaborate on ways in which sculptures become “‘safety topographies’, in view of contributing to an expanded community rooted in embodied communication, bidirectional relation and active co-relation with others, and the environment”, positions which both form an integral element of their collaborative artistic practice, and the vision of the Sculpture Garden.

Tender shell geophilia is a “proposal of a hybrid extension of the land in the sea, functioning as a point of encounter, rest, and leisure”, always seen under the prism of socially engaged art, i.e., an art form where the artwork becomes the stimulus for introspection, community forming conversation, collaboration and social interaction.

June 4, 2022 | 19:00-23:00
Minos Beach art hotel

MISC Athens proudly presents Unlikely Outcomes.The Exhibition**, Nikolas Ventourakis’ third part of the series, which will take place between June 8th 2022 and July 30th 2022.

The exhibition is an occasion for Ventourakis to return to some of his most significant themes and approaches. Meandering between intimate and public stages, we are confronted by existential questions through an unwonted use of the documentary aspects of photography aimed at questioning its instrumental value. Ventourakis leaves the observer in charge of piecing together the fragments of a narrative which ultimately brings us to the most fundamental of thresholds: of light and darkness, of life and death. He does so through images able to immerse us in situations familiar to us but underlining their transcendence by extrapolating and abstracting the signifier in a careful selection of associations, colours and textures.

The balance found by Ventourakis with Unlikely Outcomes.The.Exhibition** is one between abstraction and documentation, between familiar and unexpected, between pleasure and staleness. However the key to unlocking these dichotomies seems to lay in the artist’s capacity to evoke images beyond those presented, turning static photographic images into performative gestures in which every carefully thought detail opens a dialogue to another more intricate but also unexpectedly intimate subject.

After all artworks are more often than not, mere traces of the artistic process and invitation to join a dialogue between ourselves the artist and their worlds.

Curators: Christian Oxenius and Sylvia Sachini.
Curatorial Text: Christian Oxenius
Essay: Danai Giannoglou

*Nikolas Ventourakis is SNF ARTWORKS Fellow 2020

MISC ATHENS
Tousa Mpotsari 20, 11741 / www.miscathens.com

Private View: 08.06.22 | 19.00-22.00
Duration: 08.06.22 – 30.07.22

Opening hours: Wednesday and Saturday 12.00 – 18.00 / Thursday and Friday 14.00 – 20.00

The exhibition “Does it Matter?” held under the auspices of the Embassy of Greece in Riga brings together works by 11 Greek visual artists from different artistic media; dedicated to the Centenary of diplomatic relations between Greece and Latvia, it is inaugurated on the occasion of the official visit to Latvia of H.E. The President of the Hellenic Republic Ms Katerina Sakellaropoulou. The exhibition, curated by the artist Chloe Akrithaki, focuses on the artists’ relationship with the medium of photography, a relationship that reveals itself as one of simultaneous dependence and admiration, an endless dynamic or the only way to realize the work. At the end, it is an approach to photography based on its material dimension. An attempt to underline the importance of matter and material, which are of great importance because in the case of art, matter and meaning are inseparable and decisive. The artists participating in the exhibition are active in Greece and abroad and apart from photography they work with different media such as sculpture, performance, painting, video and installations.

Outdoor exhibition 24/7

The site-specific installation enveloping the vessel Diversity’s Ark by Tolis Tatolas, as well as the three-channel video installation Beckett Rain by FilipposTsitsopoulos, on display at the deck, will remain on view until September 2022.

The exhibition is held under the auspices of the Embassy of Greece in Latvia.

Participating artists:
Chloe Akrithaki, Martha Dimitropoulou, Efi Haliori, Athina Ioannou, Lizzie Calligas, Marianna Lourba, Alexios Papazacharias, Georgia Sagri, Tolis Tatolas, Filippos Tsitsopoulos, Katerina Zacharopoulou

*Αlexios Papazacharias is SNF ARTWORKS Fellow 2021

DOES IT MATTER?
Group exhibition at NOASS Art Center

ADDRESS: AB dambis 2, Riga LV-1048, Latvia
Contact: Gita Jankovska [email protected]
Opening: 03.06.22 at 18.00
Exhibition duration: 03.06 – 01.07.2022
Opening hours: Wednesday-Friday 15.00-22.00

The Breeder is pleased to present Oikonomia, Georgia Sagri’s new solo exhibition.

Performance lies at the center of Georgia Sagri’s work. Through the years, the artist has developed a practice of care she terms IASI, in reference to the Greek word ίαση for recovery. This was born out of her need to prepare and recuperate from demanding performance pieces. IASI has since shifted into ongoing research on conditions of the body, which Sagri calls “performance pathologies”.

For her solo exhibition Oikonomia at the Breeder, IASI (recovery) is practiced onto her own works. Sagri narrows her attention on the reorganization of practices, materials and objects that have been produced and presented in the past -that share common qualities: most were damaged and retrieved from the art circulation, reaching a state of vanishing. Some were damaged while being exhibited, others by being used in performance works or being displayed in public space or were destroyed due to mistreatment, during deinstallation and transportation.

The exhibition includes three performances, which are also currently in a state of invisibility, because they were never documented. Part of their recovery is the search for testimonies and archival fragments, on the basis of which the artist reconstructs the performances, remembers them and mnemonically re-enacts them.

This process is economic in the sense that Sagri creates new artworks by invoking and validating artworks that already exist.

However, the main economic dimension lies in the conceptual reorganization of the works. Although they may have meritorious courses in different times and places, they have reached a state of seemingly irreparable damage. The deterioration they have suffered is a situation that Sagri wishes to reverse. Following an eclectic method of repair, preservation and reinvention, the artist comments on the body per se and the way it is wounded and healed.

With this exhibition, Sagri states that IASI (recovery) is the most fundamental form of economy.

GEORGIA SAGRI
OIKONOMIA
January 12, 2023–February 5, 2023

Opening: , Thursday 12 January, 19:00-22:00
The Breeder

Curated by Danai Giannoglou & George Bekirakis

Performances:
● Breathing (2003): Saturday 21 January 2023, 12-5pm
● Deep Listening (2001) : Saturday 21 January 2023, 7pm
● Rent (2009): date to be confirmed, subject to menstruation fluctuations

*Danai Giannoglou is a curatorial SNF ARTWORKS Fellow

IONE & MANN is delighted to present Rhizome, a three-person exhibition bringing together the work of Irini Bachlitzanaki (b. 1984), Shannon Bono (b. 1995) and Thomas Langley (b. 1986). In kinship with the natural world, traditional craft practices as well as individual and collective cultural and emotional anchors, the artists explore the inter-connected, ever-evolving structures of the places we inhabit physically and spiritually and the deeply entangled nature of identity, perception and being.

Much like rhizomatic structures, Bachlitzanaki, Bono and Langley’s work appears to have no end points; bold, unapologetic yet tender, it emerges as a material expression of consciousness with a pared-down linearity that connects the internal with the external and defines a space that allows for individuality and belonging, rootedness and growth.

Inspired by material culture, artisanal traditions, nature and the biographies of objects, Irini Bachlitzanaki builds upon re-contextualising recognisable forms to examine our relationship with the world around us and ourselves. Within a practice that is primarily sculptural she plays with two and three-dimensionality and explores the object as image, signifier and continuation of the body and the self.

Drawing on cultural, geographic and historical references she offers us renditions of familiar forms: a traditional clay pot (in this case a ‘stámna’ or ‘kryologos’ found in her native island of Skyros) becomes flattened and moves into a new plane, its distinctive shape operating as a different type of container enveloped in an image-based narrative; the emblematic and ubiquitous opuntia cactus, a symbol of resilience encountered all across the Mediterranean and in dry, rocky areas around the world, reclaims its power as it rises from a concrete base and invites us to interact with it directing our movements in the space around it. The body, visually notably absent, feels undoubtedly present and so is the mind, assigning and re-evaluating meaning.

There is a linear, reductive, diagrammatic quality to Bachlitzanaki’s shapes but the simplification of forms does not seem to detract from their essence nor from their power to elicit an emotional response. Her sculptures, reductive yet dense with meaning, lend themselves to a multiplicity of narratives in a dialogue between cultural specificity and universality, informed by the associations and experiences of both artist and viewer.

Shannon Bono’s paintings embody an afrofemcentrist consciousness, sharing muted narratives and projecting black women’s lived experiences. She is invested in producing layered, figurative, compositions embedded with symbols and scientific metaphors that centralise black womanhood as a source of knowledge and understanding. Drawing on African spirituality, Christian iconography and Renaissance art, she consciously employs a purpose of cultural impact, liturgy and instruction for an improved society within her works. At the same time, she turns to her own experiences and beliefs to define and express black womanhood from her own unique perspective.

Her latest body of work, entitled ‘To Summers End in Gambia’ follows an intimate journey that explores themes of love, loss, healing and awe, as well as the power and traditions of West African divination. Working with a mix of acrylic, oil and spray paints, she uses the structure of her paintings to bridge seen and unseen worlds, the internal body with the external. The background, consisting of repetitive patterns reminiscent of Dutch wax fabrics but also biological and organic structures, appears both distinctive and integral; the body, depicted or implied, emerges seamlessly in the foreground as a powerful signifier, alongside elements of still life in the form of plants or mystical objects used in rituals of magic.

Bono uses figuration in an attempt to tell relatable stories, make sense of and peace with personal and shared experiences, but the power of her work urges us to look beyond the imagery and explore its symbolism and truth. Her world is rich and colourful but there is nothing superfluous about it; underneath it all, there is a simplicity that permeates it completely and authentically, a solid structure connecting and supporting the variegated elements of society, identity and selfhood.

Thomas Langley works within an interdisciplinary practice that includes painting, sculpture, drawing and installation. Through a lens that is often self-referential he is keen to explore universal themes in the human and artistic condition and the concept of what he describes as material thought, how consciousness makes its way into an object or a work of art. Born into a family of basket makers he has an affinity with traditional craft practices and the natural world both as a source of inspiration and raw material. Always seeking new territories for artistic comment, he tends to work in series with the works functioning as modular components of a wider narrative or sentiment.

His latest body of work sits at the intersection of painting and drawing; the series’ title, ‘Bodger’s Hovel’, references the highly-skilled itinerant craftsmen practicing a form of wood turning in nature, a practice dating back to medieval times. Using a mix of charcoal (a bodging by-product), wax and oil paint, he creates bold, monochromatic works derived from observing plant life, resulting in a loose yet dynamic botanical abstraction. The natural world emerges as a protagonist but, in reality, the imagery is inseparable from the material, the intention and the act of creation itself.

The artist’s hand is very much present as he creates raw, bold rhythmic compositions that function almost as language, conveying simultaneously the urgency of a call and the softness of a whisper. Langley’s entangled, expressive, undulating lines and the texture of the painted elements imbue the works with an energy that renders them more than a representation of botanical forms but an expression of a state of being.

RHIZOME
17-29 January 2023
Irini Bachlitzanaki · Shannon Bono · Thomas Langley

IONE & MANN Arc Gallery | 4 Cromwell Place, London SW7 2JE
Opening Hours: Wednesday – Saturday 10am – 6 pm, Sunday 10-4 pm and by appointment.
For additional information, images, or interview access to the artists please contact us at: [email protected]
Website: www.ioneandmann.com | Instagram: @ioneandmann

*Irini Bachlitzanaki is a visual art SNF ARTWORKS Fellow 2022

A solo show by Kyriaki Goni at Blenheim Walk Galler,  Leeds Art University.

A story of small secret communities unfolds throughout the exhibition revealing their efforts to protect the plants whilst experimenting on new technologies of storing data in the plants’ DNA. Almost as if Haraway’s cyborg becomes a fusion of plant/machine in a revolutionary process of converting plant life into memory devices, disrupting hegemonic surveillance practices and processes of extractivism.

Data centres, one of the main digital ecosystems, allow us to store and share information, providing access to applications and data at great environmental costs. As the number of technological mega-infrastructures is constantly increasing across the world, so is the impact of digital activity on the natural environment; energy and water consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, waste, land use and biodiversity are some of the areas affected. Today’s climate emergency brings into question the growing demand of data centres to sustain our current techno-dependent practices, seeking for alternative solutions. Thus, the data garden communities advocate not only on privacy and informational self-determination but also on environmentally conscious and effective data management.

The mountain islands shall mourn us eternally (Dolomites Data Garden) 2022, presents the latest Data Garden community and a plant; a hybrid of Ortiseia leonardii, a conifer fossil 260 million years old, and Saxifraga depressa, a rare white flower that grows only on the summits of the Dolomites between 2000 and 2850 meters. The Dolomites, an ecosystem of high plant biodiversity in the Alps, has been recognized as one of the richest areas of endemism; they are also one of the most intensively exploited regions in the world. Mass tourism infrastructure continues to present a threat to the landscape resulting in habitat change and pollution. Excessive development, over-exploitation of land and climate warming necessitate the migration of plant species from lower altitudes to the summits, shifting to new territories in pursuit of more suitable and colder microclimates.

The installation begins with a CGI video in which the hybrid plant addresses humanity on behalf of its entire species. Information stored in plants’ DNA advocates for non-human communication protocols and technoshamanic interspecies communities spread across the Earth. Through an alluring simulation the transmission shares a planetary chronicle of deep time, geological transformations, and plant history along with an ominous future of forced migration. The mountain top then becomes the end of this journey, the last destination before extinction. Seemingly to an extraterrestrial transmission in reverse. The message demonstrates the diversity of life and technological achievements on Earth only this time from a plant’s non-anthropocentric perspective. It endorses human signals and language as a means of communication. Alongside the film, there is a sculpture; a wooden representation of the hybrid plant, produced in collaboration with local makers in the Ortisei region. And a set of four screen prints that depict digital drawings and notes documenting the artist’s creative process.

A way of resisting (Athens Data Garden) 2020 focuses on the first Data Garden and the plant Micromeria acropolitana, a small and humble perennial species, considered extinct for almost a century until its rediscovery in 2006. Endemic to the Acropolis hill – an archaeological site with more than sixteen thousand visitors per day, human disturbance becomes the plant’s greatest threat. Kyriaki Goni takes the species’ vulnerability as a point of departure to present a fictional story of a secret community’s efforts to preserve plant life and data privacy. In doing so the artist invites us to imagine a network of plant/machines operating as data storage devices, utilising experimental scientific methods that allows for information to be stored into a plant’s DNA. The installation’s fractured storyline does not unfold as a precise linear sequence, but rather reveals the interconnectedness, inseparability, and synthesis of natureculture.

In Kyriaki Goni’s Data Garden fiction and scientific facts are intertwined in an attempt to provide alternative futures and forms of resistance. Prints, videos, interviews with scientists, a sculpture, a polyphonic sound installation, and an Augmented Reality application are coming together to offer the potential for new insights into multi-layered, socio-eco-technological relationships. Data Garden invites us to critically evaluate the climate impact of digital technology with particular focus on the growing demand for data storage and the expansion of data centres’ infrastructures. Potential alternative storage solutions are proposed by the artist as imaginaries of a sustainable future. The exhibition brings together the two data gardens for the first time as a proposition of glocal, eco-technological networks of human and plant life promoting synergy, care, and solidarity.

KYRIAKI GONI | DATA GARDEN

Preview & Panel Discussion: Thursday 19 January 2023
4:30-5:30pm Panel Discussion (Auditorium)
5:30-7:30pm Preview (Blenheim Walk Gallery)
Leeds Arts University, LS2 9AQ
Free entry. Booking not required.

20 January – 1 April 2023
Monday to Saturday, 10am-4pm
Blenheim Walk Gallery, LS2 9AQ

*Kyriaki Goni is a visual arts SNF ARTWORKS Fellow 2018

On Thursday, January 26th, from 18:00 to 21:00, Ileana Tounta Contemporary Art Center presents Alkistis Mavrokefalou’s first solo show, curated by Galini Lazani.

About his work An end – A beginning, Nikos Alexiou said: “This design, these lines, stand on the threshold. They are death and birth at the same time. They are both the end and the beginning”. This phrase could very well describe the entire artistic work of Alkistis Mavrokefalou. Because, even though at a first glance you may think that her work is all about nature or sensitivity or even romanticism, it entails some of the most profound existential questions that tantalize the human species. Life and death, pain and love, our place in the world and the connection between all its components, the continuity of existence.

In the exhibition tithoni* the artist presents a new series of micro-sculptures, continuing to gather most of her materials from nature. Exoskeletons of cicadas and shellfish, flower petals, fruit cores and nut shells co-exist with dry colour pigments, threads, lace and resin, in order to create environments and characters which define and claim the space around them. She builds up her installations in the space or confines them in transparent plexiglass boxes, complementing them with laborious drawings on millimetre paper, which often depict patterns of the human anatomy. For, within this natural environment, Mavrokefalou places herself and every human being, both as an observer and a participant, acknowledging the ironic contrast between fragility and resilience in the cycle of life.

Galini Lazani

January 2023

*the title of the exhibition paraphrases the name of the mythological hero Tithonus. The gods granted him eternal life, but not eternal youth. To liberate him from eternal old age after all, they transformed him into a cicada.

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ALKISTIS MAVROKEFALOU
tithoni
Ileana Tounta Contemporary Art Center
26.01.2023 – 24.03.2023

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