Author: gourgourini

Nykyaika Gallery hosts the SYZYGY – Spatial cuts and merging orbits, a duo solo exhibition of Athens based artists Apollon Glykas & Ilias Sipsas co-curated by Zoe Kalfa & Sebastian Boulter, a dialogue between photography and sculpture. The exhibition is an étude on the art of photography; questioning and revising its technical abilities, its artistic qualities and its cultural perceptions –ultimately, its limits. Harnessing up the rather unappealing reputation of photography –as an exact documentation of reality–, Athens based artists Apollon Glykas and Ilias Sipsas are carrying out a whole universe of peculiar beings, new objectivities and spatial arrangements. Their primary material comes from an archive of anonymous photographs, shot mainly for the purpose of documenting moments of everyday lives, rather than as artistic gestures.

Sipsas and Glykas treat these photographs as what they actually are, allegedly limitlessly reproducible yet very fragile and potentially mislaid objects, only to disturb and reverse this perception. The results they generate through a series of genius disruptions and rearrangements of their material are dramatically multiplying and astonishing, as they denude these photographs from their contexts –the particular space and time of their capture but most importantly, their unfailing connection to death. For, all photographs are an uncomforting reminder of the vulnerability and ephemeral nature of all existences, whether human or animal lives, buildings, objects and landscapes are portrayed.

Hosted in a Finnish gallery, the proposed exhibition, with its own particular references to the Greek identity and to Greekness, also aspires, therefore, to function as an open door, a door step, for a fruitful cultural interaction and dialogue –just as the exhibits suggest.

Curated by:
Zoe Kalfa
Sebastian Boulter

Lighting: Liisa Makinen
Catalogue design: Talc studio

Special thanks:
Sebastian Boulter, Panos Matthaiou & Vaso Panayiotopoulou (Talc studio), Pirjo Koskinen, Ville Kurki (photographs), Embassy of Greece in Finland, George Syrmas (MINU), Kostas Kostopoulos

Opening: Friday 4, June 2021, 16.00
Duration: June 4 to July 5, 2021

Valokuvakeskus Nykyaika Gallery
Kauppakatu 14, 33210 Tampere, Finland
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*Apollon Glykas is SNF ARTWORKS Fellow 2019

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In the exhibition Six Breaths per Minute, Maria Louizou presents a sculptural installation combined with a vocal performance. Upon entering the ground floor of the gallery, the visitors encounter three large-scale clay constructions, in which the three performers step into in order to “use” the sculptures as speakers for a composition created by the artist herself.
For these large clay sculptures, Louizou drew her inspiration from the Greek tradition, ancient and contemporary, and the end result is a combination of different pottery forms, chosen to serve both the artistic vision of the artist, but also to create the necessary conditions to achieve the desired acoustics. The earthy material of the sculptures matches the colour of the performers’ costumes, which, standing still, become one with them. The sound of their voice travels in the room and activates another of the viewers’ senses, thus enhancing their connection with the artworks.

On the day of the opening the performances will take place from 12:30 to 20:30.
Afterwards, until July 17th the performances will take place every Thursday from 17:00 to 20:00 and every Saturday from 12:30 to 15:30.
The rest of the hours there will be a video recording of the performance in the exhibition space.

Maria Louizou lives and works in Athens. Her work consists of sculptural installations in which vocal compositions that she herself creates are hosted. She studied sculpture at the Athens School of Fine Arts and theory of composition of classical and electronic music. In 2020 she received the ARTWORKS award, while her research entitled Physicality in modern sculpture, vocal and Greek tradition was funded the same year by the Greek Ministry of Culture and Sports, YPOA. IN 2019, her work was presented in New York, at the annual Tabula Rasa exhibition under the artistic direction of Robert Wilson, as well as in BEIJING, where she won the China Taiyuan International Youth Metal Sculpture Creations Award 2018.
Her work has also been presented in Theorimata exhibition at the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Athens (EMST), while her participation in the Watermill Center summer residency was funded through a donation from collectors Cornelia Long and Franz Wassmer. Her first solo exhibition 22°C took place in Rome, at the Sinestetica gallery, in 2019, and she is about to present a collective work as a member of the residency Station One Air 2021 Hippodamia in Context in collaboration with Columbia University and the Victoria Square Project team.

Performers:
Aliki Siousti, soprano
Katerina Nounopoulou, soprano
Maria Louizou, soprano

Exhibition text: Christoforos Marinos
Flyer design: Studio Lialios Vazoura
Invitation photo: Petros Toufexis
Documentary and performance video: George Makris

Grand sponsor:

TERRANEO MYKENE HELLAS

The research for the project was funded by the Greek Ministry of Culture.

*Maria Louizou is ARTWORKS Fellow 2020 in visual arts.

The emblematic building of the former Public Tobacco Factory opens its doors for the first time, introducing a new contemporary cultural centre in Athens, open to all. This project is the result of a collaboration between the Hellenic Parliament and NEON to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the Greek War of Independence.

The new 6,500m2 cultural space, renovated with funding from NEON, will be inaugurated by an international group exhibition, Portals, featuring 59 artists from 27 countries including 15 new site-specific installations commissioned by NEON. Among them, 18 Greek artists are exhibiting new works or works whose framework of creation and presentation have been renewed to make them site-relevant.

With this year’s commemoration of the Greek War of Independence and continuing to live through the pandemic, “Portals” aspires to give rise to new messages, ideas, and reflections regarding contemporary artistic creation, through the prism of a newly-formed reality composed of change and disruption.

The exhibition takes place in all renovated areas of the building: the atrium, corridors, halls and mezzanines, bathrooms, the former Customs Office, the surrounding area, on the roof / façade of the building and on Kolonos Hill.

The inspiration for the exhibition originates from an article by author Arundhati Roy on the Financial Times on April 2020 which states that “the pandemic is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next.” Considering that the rift created by the pandemic on an individual and collective level opens a portal, it is up to us to deal with our transition through it. “We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us. Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world.”

The exhibition represents a pluralism of ideas and touches upon issues related to collectivity, cultural understanding of history and politics, public space, and our common past, present and future.

Alongside the physical exhibition, we have also created an online ‘portal.’ The free mobile NEON app enables visitors to virtually browse the exhibition, see and learn about the works and artists, as well as receive notifications on the exhibition’s parallel events.

ΝΕΟΝ app is available for iOS and Android.

Participating Artists

Nikos Alexiou, El Anatsui, Dimitrios Antonitsis, Kutluğ Ataman, Kostas Bassanos, Vlassis Caniaris, Joana Choumali, Anastasia Douka, Eirene Efstathiou, Brendan Fernandes, Apostolos Georgiou, Jeffrey Gibson, Robert Gober, Vangelis Gokas, Sonia Gomes, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Shilpa Gupta, Elif Kamisli, Kapwani Kiwanga, Panos Kokkinias, Chrysanthi Koumianaki, Jannis Kounellis, Louise Lawler, Glenn Ligon, Liliane Lijn, Maria Loizidou, Tala Madani, Teresa Margolles, Steve McQueen, Sidsel Meineche Hansen, Marisa Merz, Ad Minoliti, Alex Mylona, Nikos Navridis, Toyin Ojih Odutola, Duro Olowu, Maria Papadimitriou, Dimitris Papaioannou, Cornelia Parker, Adam Pendleton, Solange Pessoa, Francis Picabia, Gala Porras-Kim, Michael Rakowitz, Ed Ruscha, Dana Schutz, Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Elias Sime, Christiana Soulou, Do Ho Suh, Anna Tsouhlarakis, Alexandros Tzannis, Adriana Varejão, Erika Verzutti, Adrián Villar Rojas , Danh Võ, Daphne Wright, Myrto Xanthopoulou, Billie Zangewa.

The new commissions are by artists: Anastasia Douka, Brendan Fernandes, Elif Kamisli, Panos Kokkinias, Chrysanthi Koumianaki, Glenn Ligon, Maria Loizidou, Teresa Margolles, Ad Minoliti, Duro Olowu, Gala Porras-Kim, Michael Rakowitz, Alexandros Tzannis, Adrián Villar Rojas and Danh Võ.

*Anastasia Douka, Eirene Efstathiou, Chrysanthi Koumianaki, Alexandros Tzannis and Myrto Xanthopoulou are ARTWORKS Fellows.

PORTALS

11/06/2021 – 31/12/2021

former Public Tobacco Factory – Hellenic Parliament Library and Printing House

A collaboration between the Hellenic Parliament and ΝΕΟΝ

Curated by Elina Kountouri, Director, ΝΕΟΝ and Madeleine Grynsztejn, Pritzker Director, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago

Organised by NEON

Opening Hours:
Monday & Tuesday: Closed
Wednesday, Friday, Saturday: 12-8 pm
Thursday: 12-9 pm
Sunday: 11 am-2pm & 5-9 pm
Free Entrance

Please note that in accordance with public health guidelines, entry to the exhibition is only by timed ticket, booked in advance via neon.artsvp.co

Nefeli Asteriou, Nodas Damopoulos, Danae Dimitriade, Giorgos Nikopoulos, Yorgos Maraziotis, Dimitris Mytilinaios, Ioanna Paraskevopoulou, Martha Pasakopoulou and Andi Tzouma participate in the Athens Epidauros Festival.

Andi Tzouma is the choreographer of the performance Oikodomi (Construction Site). Giorgos Nikopoulos joins as a musician. The universe of Oikodomi (Construction Site) encompasses notions and symbols derived from two very different yet parallel worlds: rebetiko and hip-hop culture. Combining aspects of rebetiko music and history with kinesiology and hip-hop technique, this performance aims to create a space within which music, rhythm, and narratives merge together, jointly composing a uniform language of communication. A language that can be easily understood by everybody everywhere: this is the goal. Through the performance of four dancers and two musicians, Oikodomi (Construction Site) addresses human relationships and power relations, communication and isolation, life and death.

Danai Dimitriadi choreographs together with Dionisio Alamano the dance performance Free At Last: Rerooted με τον Διονύσιο Αλαμάνο. Mystical imagery and dark atmosphere. Greek tradition is deconstructed and linked with the present, as the legendary Dance of Zalongos inspires an original choreography. Two young, internationally acclaimed choreographers, Danae Dimitriadi and Dionysios Alamanos, carry the emotionally charged dance on the edge of the cliff to the stage, featuring original music and choreography inspired by traditional dances, Greek and foreign alike. A performance that vividly brings to life the creatures of the natural world. Free At Last premiered in June 2019, produced by Theater Rotterdam, with the support of Stichting Droom en Daad, RIDCC and Big Story Productions. The Free At Last: Rerooted version will be presented for the first time at the Athens Festival 2021.

Ioanna Paraskevopoulou participates in the performance  ANNNA³. The Worlds of Infinite Shifts in choreography of Alexandra Waierstall. The female body is transformed through an electrifying, emotional and existential dance trio. Three exceptionally skilful dancers cross the space around them full of both uncertainty and courage, celebrating the freedom of physical expression. They appear and disappear, hold tight and let go. Born in Britain and raised in Cyprus, acclaimed choreographer Alexandra Waierstall reimagines female bodies as sites of reflection, connectedness, and resistance, in collaboration with famous composer and pianist Hauschka and French lighting designer Caty Olive.

Ioanna Paraskevopoulou, Martha Pasakopoulou and Nefeli Asteriou (performance – video creation and editing) and Yorgos Maraziotis (space design) join the performance of Iris Karagian, A Dance as a Dance. How do we experience dancing as a practice of becoming? What happens to our senses when we dance and how are they transformed? Can the practice of dancing be connected to a need of redefining our existence and a desire for transcendence? These are some of the questions posed by choreographer Iris Karayan in her new production entitled A dance as a dance. Working with archival material that studies the movement vocabulary and dances of different cultures, Karayan explores the body, its pulses and breaths, creating a performance that focuses on dancing and liveness as a condition of being in the world.

Dimitris Mytilinaios is assistant of choreographer, as well as performer at the show of Lenio Kaklea Age of Crime. Paris-based choreographer Lenio Kaklea has been commissioned by the Athens Festival to create Age of Crime, on the occasion of the Greek War of Independence bicentennial. The artist encourages us to observe the official narratives that shaped national memory. The artist draws on vampire figures in order to comment on how customs and rituals build a kind of imaginary community. Based on first-person Ottoman narratives of the Greek War of Independence, she reveals how a nation seemingly cleansed from the influences of the Ottoman occupation is, in fact, fraught with tension.

More info:http://aefestival.gr/

The exhibition proposes to reflect upon ‘craft as power’, as an ability or capacity to act in order to reclaim the knowledge of design and artistic autonomy. The research on Robinson Crusoe as a maker lies at the very centre of this narrative. The exhibition refers to the example set by Daniel Dafoe’s hero who, initially stuck at an impasse, reaches completion and proves his value when he is forced to act and to find solutions to problems he has never faced before. During the period when a large part of the Benaki Museum’s permanent display of 19th-century material is relocated from the 3rd floor of the Benaki Museum of Greek Culture to the Benaki Museum / Pireos 138 for the anniversary exhibition ‘1821; Before and After’, this contemporary art exhibition ‘occupies’ the galleries and reflects on their transitional stage.

Ηere, craft’s critical dynamic, which relates to the search for authenticity, the rejection of mass production and the reflection on concepts like ‘tradition’, ‘means’ or ‘process’, becomes a medium and a strategic practice for redefining the priorities between the artist, the artwork and the audience. The 36 participating artists present their works inside this overcharged with significance space by paraphrasing, using and upsetting the museum’s construction, the representation of history and the viewing conditions of the artwork. The exhibition thus explores the relations between the autonomy of art and the ‘heteronomy’ of everyday life by activating practices from the full spectrum of creativity and interpretive concepts like work, performance, functionality, production, bricolage and reuse.

Participating artists: Vanessa Anastasopoulou, Maria Antelman, Margarita Bofiliou, Martha Dimitropoulou, Anastasia Douka, Petros Efstathiadis, Zoi Gaitanidou, Maria Georgoula, Giorgos Gyparakis, Hope, Dionisis Kavallieratos, Ilias Koen, Zissis Kotionis, Virginia Mastrogiannaki, Irini Miga, Maro Michalakakos, Oryo, Malvina Panagiotidi, Aliki Panagiotopoulou, Maria Papadimitriou, Nina Papaconstantinou, Eva Papamargariti, Antonis Pittas, Alexandros Psychoulis, Yorgos Sapountzis, Nana Sachini, Kostas Sahpazis, Stefania Strouza, Alexandros Tzannis, Thanassis Totsikas, Nikos Tranos, Panos Tsagaris, Giorgos Tserionis, Jannis Varelas, Alexandros Vasmoulakis, Eugenia Vereli, Paky Vlassopoulou, Α Whale’s Architects, Theodoros Zafeiropoulos.

*Margarita Bofiliou, Anastasia Douka, Petros Efstathiadis, Zoi Gaitanidou, Virginia Mastrogiannaki, Irini Miga, Malvina Panagiotidi, Eva Papamargariti, Stefania Strouza, Alexandros Tzannis and Paky Vlassopoulou are ARTWORKS Fellows.

Chara Stergiou (Fellow 2020), as a member of the Practices of Attunement, takes part at the organization of the same titled workshop of New Alphabet School #Instituting at The Eight, Athens and organized by Haus der Kulturen der Welt in collaboration with The Eight & Goethe-Institut Athens.

The Practices of Attunement workshop is a proposition that takes “instituting” as a nonfinite verb, a call to collective action: a never-ending form of speculation, adopting attentiveness, receptivity and movement as its constituent elements. It seeks to extend Fred Moten and Stefano Harney’s notion of “study”: an encounter “where you allow yourself to be possessed by others,” instituting a mode of counter-maintenance, generating and maintaining felicitous conditions for encounters. For New Alphabet School #Instituting, PoA invites participants to join in extended sessions that focus on maintaining, triggering or establishing the conditions for study via remote(ly) collective practices of attunement occurring (a)synchronously across multiple sites.

For workshop registration here.
More about the program here.
Participation is limited and registration will be closed as soon as the workshops are fully booked.

Invited writers Fred Moten and Stefano Harney give a collaborate lecture on “Instituting” and its relation to the “Undercommons” and to talk about their ongoing work, including their forthcoming book “All Incomplete” while part of the artist collective ruangrupa, will deliver a participatory lecture on aspects of “Instituting” given their diverse ongoing collective practice.

The event and program on #Instituting is curated by Gigi Argyropoulou and Kostas Tzimoulis.

PRIZING ECCENTRIC TALENTS

Curated by Georgo Bekirakis and Angelo Plessas

Opening: Wed, 9th June 2021 at 16:00 until 22:00
Duration: 09.06.2021 – 31.07.2021
Open by appointment

P.E.T PROJECTS @petprojectsathens
Kerkyras 87, Kypseli, Athens

Participating artists:

Andreas Angelidakis , Danai Anesiadou , Eleni Bagaki, Despina Charitonidi , Savvas Christodoulides, Manolis Daskalakis-Lemos  , Theodoros Giannakis, Katerina Komianou , Irini Miga  , Maria Papadimitriou , Rena Papaspyrou, Panos Profitis  , Socratis Socratous , Amalia Vekri.

* Eleni Bagaki, Manolis Daskalakis-Lemos  , Theodoros Giannakis, Katerina Komianou , Irini Miga and Panos Profitis are ARTWORKS Fellows.

ΠΕΙΡΑΩ Group Show
Opening: Thursday June 10th 17:00-21:00 pm.

Opening hours: Monday-Friday, 12:00-18:00 pm,
Duration: June 10th -July 1st, 2021

Participant Artists:
Venetia Molin
Evi Kalogiropoulou
Claudio Coltorti
Theo Prodromidis
Ioannis Augoustis
Elena Demetria Chantzis
Angelos Akrida
Kyveli Zoe Stenou
Anna Savidou Yiaxi
Theodora Kanelli

Kyan ΑΘΕΝΣ, 60 Εm. Benaki st, Exarcheia, Athens

* Evi Kalogiropoulou, Theo Prodromidis, Elena Demetria Chantzis and Theodora Kanelli are ARTWORKS Fellows

Kala azar, the feature film of Janis Rafa (Fellow 2020), will be screening at the open air cinema Anesis, as part of this year’s Iris Awards of the Hellenic Film Academy.

Kala azar. Janis Rafa, 85′, Netherlands, 2020

A canary, a dog, a cat – even a fish. The young couple employed by the pet crematorium collect them all. She mumbles something about forms that have to be filled in at this difficult time and ashes that will be returned within 24 hours. He wraps the departed pet in a blanket and puts it in the back of the jeep. They hardly speak during the rest of the day. They drive through a post-apocalyptic landscape on the shabby periphery of an industrial city. They make love, swim and are surprised by the large numbers of dead animals strewn along the roadside. When they hit a stray dog, their relationship starts to derail. The universe has lost its harmony.

In Kala azar, the camera regularly hangs at dog’s eye level, so we see mainly feet and legs. Humans and animals communicate in similar ways: without words, with a growl and a shove. This also applies to the girl’s parents, who live with a pack of dogs, and the silent migrant workers in a dusty chicken hatchery. Only the hunters at the neighbouring shooting range are loud and heartless – a different archetype.

Kala azar is named after an infectious disease decimating the canine population of Southern Europe. But this enigmatic debut is mainly about the thin line between life and death, the spiritual connection between human and animal and the fragility of love between humans.

Winner IFFR 2020 KNF Award.

Anesis Open Air CInema
Kifisias Avenue 14, Ampelokipoi
Tel: 2107487912

Everything Is in a State of Change is a project conceived by curator Daphne Vitali (GR/IT) on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Joseph Beuys’s birth following an invitation of the Goethe-Institut Athen. In order to pay homage to one of the most important and influential artists of the post-war period, the curator has invited two mid-career international artists Jennifer Nelson (GR/US) and Janis Rafa (GR/NL) to produce new works, referring to and dialoguing with Joseph Beuys’s diverse body of work and artistic research.

Jennifer Nelson and Janis Rafa are two artists whose artistic preoccupations are related to Beuys’s vast artistic practice, methodologies, and ideas as well as his stand on ecology. The artists’ new commissioned works engage – directly or indirectly – with environmental issues and more specifically with the relationship and interconnection between the human and the animal worlds. Both artists are drawn to the animal kingdom and focus on the biological, ethical, and philosophical connections that bind us to animals by creating artworks that are filtered by abstractions and metaphors, tackle social issues, and create an open perception of reality. The two new video works by the two artists each create a very different universe and visual narrative, yet both reflect on trauma, existence, violence, and change. Moreover, both works describe an abuse and a state of being trapped in a place or a disturbed landscape as well as being in an uncertain and unfavourable condition with no real escape. The healing, transformative, and ritualistic processes of art – important interests for Beuys himself – are also significant aspects of Janis Rafa’s and Jennifer Nelson’s works.

The artists attempt to visually examine connections between the natural and animal world and human existence but also poetically suggest the healing potential of art for a humanity seeking – in times of Covid – self-revitalisation and a sense of renewed hope for the future, as was the case in the post-war period that Beuys lived through. The title of the project, Everything Is in a State of Change, is a quote from Beuys referring to his artistic process, and it is used here to speak about the artists’ new works, the transformative possibilities of art, and the times we are now living in.

H Janis Rafa is SNF ARTWORKS Fellow (2020) in visual arts.

GOETHE-INSTITUT ATHEN
Panepistimiou 57
Athens

Duration:
27.05.2021 –  22.07.2021

More info:
https://www.goethe.de/ins/gr/el/ver.cfm?event_id=22164747&fuseaction=events.detail&

Visual artist and Fellow Eleni Bagaki is exhibiting at Eleni Koroneou Gallery

Opening: Friday 4 Ιουνίου, 12-9 pm
June 4 – July 17 2021

Reclining artist, the artist is reclining

I am taking a break

I stop to think, enjoy, absorb

What is there left to make?

I take it easy, I slow down, I look back

Joy and desire

What can I reclaim?

Within the framework of the second part of the F.A.R. (Floor Area Ratio) program, 3 137’s glass facade hosts a new installation by artist Myrto Xanthopoulou.

Her work titled The Opposite of Falling covers 3 137’s windows. It is a grid made of masking tape and scotch tape; a composition of shapes and text. The materials used are secondary – familiar and ordinary, opaque but light-permeable. Light penetrates them and thus the work is transformed throughout the day. The tapes are both connections and borders, they frame and delete. The work is a comment on light, certainties and permeability, footnotes or endnotes.

Myrto Xanthopoulou’s installation is placed next to the existing interventions presented by Can Altay, Diohandi, Zoe Giambouldaki, and Kostis Velonis as part of the first installment of the F.A.R. program. Thus, the presence and coexistence of these works transforms 3 137’s outdoor space into an informal public exhibition space.

F.A.R. (Floor Area Ratio) maps the economic, cultural, and residential changes that have been taking place in the city, while giving prominence to multiple narratives and images of both the past and the future of Athens. A reference point as well as a source of inspiration, the city of Athens becomes a field of action hosting a series of artistic interventions in its public space. These interventions mainly aim at provoking the public’s imagination, while also prompting unexpected encounters with the residents of the city; consequently, these interventions aim to reveal the conceptual bonds between the material world that surrounds us and the economic models that (re)structure it.

F.A.R. (Floor Area Ratio) Part II was made possible with the support of the Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports, Outset Contemporary Art Fund Greece, and Mécène / Mycenae (the membership scheme of 3 137).

F.A.R. PART II

The Opposite of Falling

A work by

Myrto Xanthopoulou

May 10 – June 10, 2021

3 137, window display

(Visible 24/7)

Myrto Xanthopoulou is a visual arts SNF ARTWORKS Fellow.

Five Fellows – Sasha Streshna, Spiros Kokkonis, Iasonas Kampanis, Anastasia Pavlou and Pavlos Tsakonas –  participate in the exhibition Against the Linear, opening in May 15th. The exhibition is the aesthetic extension of a discussion between artists about how and where the fragmentary experience acquires material substance in their work. The exhibition can be seen as a sampling selection, curated by Konstantinos Lianos accompanied by Aris Anagnostopoulos’s text entitled Fictioning – towards a technology of potentiality.

Artists:

Sasha Streshna
Anna Gonzalez Noguchi
Theo Michael
Spiros Kokkonis
Iasonas Kampanis
Anastasia Pavlou
Konstantinos Lianos
Kostis Velonis
Pavlos Tsakonas

curated by Konstantinos lianos
text by Aris Anagnostopoulos

Konstantinos Samaras, Daphne Heretakis and TETTTIX meet at the Piraeus Municipal Theater to create a new kind of movie. An empty theater, against the backdrop of an empty Athens, becomes the refuge of a group of musicians, but also of a mysterious woman named Nora.

Directed by our Fellows Konstantinos Samaras and Daphne Heretakis.

Screen days:
Thursday 13/05
Friday 14/05
Saturday 15/05
Sunday 16/05
Wednesday 19/05
Thursday 20/05
Friday 21/05
Saturday 22/05
Starting time:
21:00

http://tetttix.com/

The second part of the Hydroexpress Project will focus on the correlation between “The Commons” and the Greek family model, as far as their mechanisms used by the members to survive, coexist and support each other, are concerned. Hosted artists, writers and architects analyze and highlight the notion of “Community” through the three main axes that characterize the commons (goods, community, and their regulatory framework), which are reproduced in the traditional way of life of people who share the Greek mentality and culture.

In this chapter, we will examine the uniqueness of the Greek family where through the care of each other and the deference for their needs, the boundaries between the individual and the collective have become fluid. But also, how in “the Commons” the members, not related by blood or kinship, are greater in number and usually work without hierarchies for the benefit of the community. We will also see the differences between the family and “the Commons”. The kinship between family members often creates a closed character; the members end up facing patriarchal remnants, intervening behavior and interdependence. While, on the other hand, “the Commons” value the osmosis of ideas that taking place between members, strengthening concepts and values such as collectivity, solidarity, care etc.

This year, Maria Varela is hosted in Hydroexpress Space presenting the work “Family Structures of Finite State” while in this edition the writers are Eva Vaslamatzi, Daphne Dragona and a Whale’s Architects, as well as there are works by Theodora Kanelli and Artemis Papachristou.
*The Hydroexpress Project is an initiative of the artist Marina Papadaki. It started in 2019 on the occasion of the co-location of her father’s business (YDROEXPRES) and her art studio in an old family house in Kaminia in Piraeus.

Marina Papadaki, Maria Varela, Eva Vaslamatzi and Theodora Kanelli are SNF ARTWORKS Fellows.

May 15th, 2021 // 13:30 – 20:00
Paxon 8 Piraeus
Exhibition Duration 16/5 – 23/5
Open: Saturday & Sunday 18:00 – 20:00

Due to the epidemic situation from the virus Covid 19, inside the space will be maximum of two people each time keeping all the necessary safety measures and the use of a mask is mandatory.

Snow silent, a quiet numbness as space is proofed from sound. Minute crystals accumulate to transform our sight into whiteness that blinds. And then (as if) melting it dissipates, ebbs out of view and consciousness. Imprinted on our memory we long for its next cycle of fullness and flow.

Both Andreas Ragnar Kassapis & Constantinos Hadzinikolaou set similar questions, responding with different means. Ellipses become materiality as they tentatively struggle with the insidiousness of image-making. Each work is a small triumph in the lowly and lonely quest of thinking about form, the resurfacing of its absence, the lacunae in our memories of. How objective is our relationship to the everyday objects that surrounds us, these support structures that condition the patina of our lives? Both artists think about the fine line that connect us to the everyday and its representation: the surface pull, the depth that calls, that pallid in-between.

Both artists allow us to witness the arduous process of articulating the hows and wheres of images, the punctum, negative and positive, our prelingual memories which may have been erased. In the exhibition a painting leads you to a word (like a gaping question mark), on to a muffled sound, followed by an intravenous explosion of color, to the tonality of silence, then shade and dusk and back again to the surface pull of the simple pleasures of paint on canvas. One artist’s suggestion sets the stage for the next, thinking together and apart in a subtle choreography of give and take. Unclear of what is spoken and what is left unsaid, Kassapis and Hadzinikolaou, nudge us gently to an ontological horizon between each of them and everyone of us, between the blueness of a son’s ear and the helplessness of a blanched brushstroke.

The haptic, the acoustic, the muteness of painting, the meticulously handwritten (where the rush of words become a glutinous web of meanings), the somnolence of accumulation, the recording on and off and on again, a constant flow of visual signifiers, function as residues that seem to come from some dark point within. Kassapis and Hadzinikolaou enlighten them, bringing them to the surface, together, for us to see: images we know, have known, we see, somewhere (yes!) we have seen.

Andreas Ragnar Kassapis is a painter who looks at photographs and a writer. Constantinos Hadzinikolaou is an artist, writer and film-maker. This exhibition is based on a friendship and a long-term conversation on images and the making-of.

~

Andreas Ragnar Kassapis (1981) studied at the School of Fine Arts in Athens from 1999-2004 where he lives and works. His work includes paintings, drawings, photographs, texts, sound and music. He has also worked on set designs and as a teacher. In his practice he has focused on mechanisms of memory and representation within cultural history using methodologies linked to psychoanalysis, phenomenology and contemporary cultural criticism.

Solo shows: Songs. Athanasios Argianas / Andreas Ragnar Kassapis (Hero Gallery, Amsterdam, 2018), Breakwater (Independent Space, Athens 2015), How Can oneRemember Thirst? (Loraini Alimantiri Gallery, Athens 2011), Bones are Tight (Loraini Alimantiri Gallery, Athens 2008), Numb (Loraini Alimantiri Gallery, Athens 2006).

Selected group shows: Documenta 14 (Art, Director Adam Szymczyck cur. Katerina Tselou, Athens / Kassel 2017), Reverb: new art from Greece (cur. Evita Tsokanta – Eirine Efstathiou, Boston, 2014), Hell as Pavillion (cur, Nadia Argyropoulou, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, 2013), Heaven, Athens Biennale (cur. Christoforos Marinos, Athens, 2009), Anathena (cur. Marina Fokidi-Marina Gioti, Athens, 2006).

Selected set designs: Era Povera, Patricia Apergi (Athens 2012. As my Heart in a Storm, Bijoux de Kant (Athens 2012). Blossom, Agni Papadeli Rossetou.

Selected musical works: Rooms in negative-Lucky Boys published on tape.(untitled. 1) 2019. Rooms in Negative, published on vinyl (2009), Look and the Beast, Music for the dance performance by Agni Papadeli Rossetou.

Constantinos Hatdzinikolaou (1974) was born and lives in Athens. He studied Surveyance at N.T.U.A, Cinema at New Sorbonne University, digital arts at the Athens School of Fine Arts MA program. His practice includes texts, films, performance, photography and installations. In 2013 he took part in the 4th Athens Biennale, while in 2017 he presented two works at documenta 14. In 2019 his filmic work using Super8 was presented at Belvedere 21 in Vienna. He has published the novel Iakovos (Antipodes publications, Menis Koumantareas Award for best first novel) as well as the collection of poetry Mimes co-authored with Andreas Ragnar Kasapis. He contributes frequently to Kathimerini newspaper. He has published texts in numerous publications, catalogues and magazines. He used to be part of the film collective Kine.

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Andreas Ragnar Kassapis is SNF ARTWORKS Fellow in visual arts.

IN STANDING WATERS
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