Author: gourgourini

crossings #3

Soap by Francis Ponge feels more pertinant than ever. What does an artist have to say about wax, wood, clay, skin and ashes? What can materiality tell us about its existence? Christoforos Marinos talks with Anastasia Douka (Fellow 2019), Malvina Panagiotidi (Fellow 2018), Kostas Roussakis, Maria Tsangari (Fellow 2019) and Paki Vlassopoulou (Fellow 2018) about the multiple possibilities of materiality and the importance of matter in their work. The invited artists will be asked, amongst other things to comment on Giuliana Bruno’s assertion that, “materiality is an archive of interrelations and transformations.”

 

Info:
Wed., 17 June
free entrance
the conversation will be held in Greek
following the updated instructions, up to 160 people can enter the space
Curated by:
Christoforos Marinos
Access:
Anaxagora 33, (1st floor), Tavros.
Tavros Μetro station

LIFE IN THE COUNTRYSIDE: NATURE & HOSPITALITY

Vamvakou Revival in collaboration with ARTWORKS and with the contribution of the co-founder of Syros Film Festival, Jacob Moe, realizes for the first time an online film festival under the theme “Life in the countryside: Nature & Hospitality”, as part of the Vamvakou Revival initiative, implemented with the guidance and financial support of Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF). Five filmmakers who have been awarded by ARTWORKS, within the framework of the SNF Artist Fellowship Program, will present their work and share with the audience films related to the theme of the festival.

Within 5 days, you will discover what canaries and lifejackets, bees and volcanoes, the sea and mountains have in common. Through 5 films, Nature and Hospitality unfold from various viewpoints and aspects. The Beginning and Love; The End of the World; Old Age and Death; The Civilization of Revenge and Destruction; Light and Dark.

Participants: Giorgos Kivernitis, Konstantinos Antonopoulos, Yorgos Zois, Lia Tsalta and Vasilis Kekatos.

Screenings from 18-23 Ιουνίου @ vamvakourevival.org

THE CRUCIFIXION OF THANASIS TOTSIKAS

Akwa Ibom announces its second exhibition ‘The Crucifixion of Thanasis Totsikas’ by Greek artist Thanasis Totsikas, the first solo presentation of this scale by the artist in more than five years, featuring more than two hundred new works.

A segment of the exhibition was published on Akwa Ibom website in the period of self-isolation sharing photographs of the Crucifixion, Bikini, and Seascape series the artist took in his home studio in Nikaia, Thessaly. The physical exhibition brings together these works with Totsikas’ ongoing handmade knives series in a confessional show about life and death.

“In the exhibition, we are showing more than a hundred drawings that depict his Crucifixion, he raised on the cross, being taken down and placed in his mother’s arms. I find it hard to look at them. It’s not so much the violence and the suffering that I find difficult but the sheer quantity of them—the relentless repetition of the pain he gave time to sediment. I also fear people might look past these drawings and pass judgment on Thanasis personally for the amount of suffering to which, he has laid claim. Thanasis might have crucified himself to fulfil an advance sentence he’d come to expect from the outside” – excerpt from the exhibition text by Maya Tounta

Thanasis Totsikas (born 1951) lives and works in Nikaia, Larissa. He is a skilled luthier, cutler and autobody repair technician – an expertness that has shaped his artistic practice and has been present in his work since his first solo presentation at Desmos Gallery in 1982. His prolific career has included participations at the Venice Biennale and at documenta. His artworks, expressive of a way of life more than the outcome of vocation, often incorporate objects and materials from his everyday as diverse as mud and reeds and a Ducati motorcycle.

*To mitigate the spread of coronavirus ten people will be allowed in at a time. We’d appreciate it if you wore a mask and kept a safe distance :)

On view:
June 15 – July 10
September 10 – October 10

Opening hours:
Wednesday 4 – 8 p.m., Saturday, 2 – 6 p.m., and by appointment

FELLOWS’ PRESENTATIONS – MAY

Despite the physical distance, we stayed connected to our Fellows with a series of online artists’ presentations via Zoom.
During May, six of our Fellows presented their work and practice to their peers, received fruitful feedback and discussed with them their concerns and future plans.

CURATOR’S TALK – NAYIA YIAKOUMAKI

On Friday May 29th, we invited Nayia Yiakoumaki , curator of Archive Gallery, to talk about her work at the Whitechapel Gallery where she has developed a program of research exhibitions based on the fusion of art and archives. Apart from her curatorial and research projects, Nayia is also a visual artist and served as a member of the ARTWORKS selection committee for the 2nd SNF Artist Fellowship Program.

 

5 FELLOWS at “Anthropocene On Hold”, PCAI’s first online group exhibition

During the unsettling times of a global pandemic and national lockdowns, which seem to have emerged out of dystopic fiction, what does it mean for earth and the anthropocene to remain on hold? Which are the challenges and the environmental concerns that are raised for an artist? How can social distancing and quarantine reshape artistic practices and environmental narratives? In which ways can covid-19 impact environmental crisis and our general perception of the issue?

In response to this unprecedented and urgent situtation and its toll on the planet’s well-being and safety, PCAI, on the occasion of the “Anthropocene On Hold” exhibition, has invited 20 international visual artists to address the gravity of a global pandemic and its impact on art engagement and production as well as earth’s resilience and sustainability. Our Fellows Kyriaki Goni, Hypercomf (Paola Palavidi & Ioannis Kolliopoulos), Evi Kalogiropoulou and Kosmas Nikolaou, and James Bridle, Ionian Bisai & Sotiris Tsiganos, Matthias Fritsch, Lito Kattou, Markus Hanakam & Roswitha Schuller, Rindon Johnson, Bianca Kennedy and the Swan Collective, Marcin Liminowicz & Trang Ha, Charly Nijensohn,  Ira Schneider, Andrew Norman Wilson participate with new works in PCAI’s first online group exhibition curated by Kika Kyriakakou; an ongoing digital project that will be hosted on PCAI’s YouTube Channel from May 14 to December 31, 2020.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3PQrka5So1idol6w0VM91bV-x6kP3rcB

ΝΕΡΙΤΑΝ ΖΙΝXIRIA AT THE CORONA SHORT FILM FESTIVAL

The short film  “The sky will migrate with this cup of water” created by Neritan Zinxhiria (SNF Fellow 2018) was at the Corona Short Film Festival – the first International Pandemic Short Film Festival.  The Festival is a newly launched online competition for short films initiated as a reaction to the current COVID19 developments. Neritan’s film was selected among  1250 submissions from more than 70 countries

You can view the film at Corona Short Film Festival (number 33) and vote for the best short film by May 25th.

ARTWORKS COLLABORATES WITH THE NEW CENTRE FOR RESEARCH & PRACTICE

Exploring new ways of social interaction and digital learning, we are happy to announce our recent collaboration with The New Centre for Research & Practice, an international, non-profit, higher education institute in the Arts, Humanities, and Sciences.

Through a rigorous program of online seminars and archived videos about art, curatorial practices, critical philosophy, media and technology, social and political thought, we offer our Fellows inspiration in the work of a carefully selected network of thinkers and scholars.

Some of the currently running seminars at the New Centre for Research & Practice which our Fellows can attend online Essay Events από την Rachel Rakesare the following:

The Problem of Narrative: Visual Arts by Klaus Speidel

Modern Monetary Theory: The Sixteenth Century Challenge by Colin Drumm

Essay Events by Rachel Rakes

More info visit: https://thenewcentre.org/seminars/

WORKSHOP ON ARTISTS’ RIGHTS BY MARINA MARKELLOU

Our Fellows 2019 attended a workshop on artists’ rights and intellectual property at the new library of the Athens School of Fine Arts (ASKT) by Marina Markellou. The workshop raised issues such as the notion of intellectual property, the legal framework in Greece, appropriation and artists’ rights. Several case studies were presented and discussed.

Marina Markellou is an Attorney and Adjunct Lecturer of Law at the Panteion University, the Open Hellenic University and the Open Cyprus University. She specialises in Intellectual Property law, corporate, civil and data protection law.

 

 

CROSSINGS#2 @TAVROS

Our Fellow 2019 Carolina Krasouli in conversation at Crossings#2 .

Crossings#2 will focus on the relationship between the visual arts and literature. The film director Vasilis Noulas and the cinematographer Konstantinos Hadjinikolaou, both with a background in visual arts combined with a literary output will be in conversation with Carolina Krasouli and Nina Papakonstantinou two artists who have consistently visualized literary texts. Christoforos Marinos will coordinate the conversation.

 

More info: crossings#2

Supported by:
The J. F. Costopoulos Foundation, Outset Contemporary Art Fund Greece, The Panayotis and Effie Michelis Foundation, FIX Hellas

 

RΕSIDES AND WORKS IN ATHENS

Our Fellows, Christina Dimakogianni and Vera Chotzoglou, participate in the exhibition ‘Resides and work in Athens’.

A three-storey house in the heart of Exarcheia in Athens, becomes the field of action for a group of ten artists who explore and transmute their environments as sites of psychic-mental processes and states of affectedness (disorders, traumas, oscillations, modes of recovering and rebalancing etc.), through the use of photography, video and sound. The artists involved in the project all reside and work in Athens. In their fragmented everyday life, they inexorably yield to “multitasking”, in full accord with the dominant socio-economic and behavioral model of their era. Their daily activity is split into diverse forms of production. They live as internal “nomads” moving amidst a closed existential landscape of multiple ever-changing speeds and imploded time. Every once in a while they slow down unexpectedly. They pause, set up their equipment to “document”. They abandon the prey for the shade. The selection and arrangement of their works as a unity did not result from topic-based criteria (such as: the city, art in public space, urban culture etc.), but from a purely ergo-centric approach, emerging from the specificity of each individual work of art. All works involve projections on two-dimensional surfaces, forming a mosaic-like overall composition, rich in morphological and contextual qualities, textures, sensitivities, tonal values, degrees of introvertedness/extrovertedness, varying significantly in each project.

Participating artists: Vicky Betsou, Vera Chotzoglou, Taxiarchis Diamantopoulos, Christina Dimakogianni, Gabriella Gerolemou, Yannis Karpouzis, Marietta Kavvadia, Vladimir Necakov, Alfredo Pechuan, Michaelangelo Vlassis-Ziakas.

Lectures and presentations of the artists’ work will take place during the exhibition.

Duration: 28.02 – 13.03. 2020

Works on Paper 1972 – 2020

Bernier-Eliades Gallery presents works on paper created from 1972 until today, by the older and younger generation of artists that have been collaborating with the
gallery.Our Fellow Alexandros Tzannis is participating in the exhibition with a series titled ‘Blue Black Layers Over the White Cities’ that has been
ongoing from 2015 until today. It concerns mapping of areas of cities, particular details or specific places of those. Drawings made of ink and pen, in multiple layers of black and blue covering the white paper in a correlation to the layers of melancholy and darkness which cover the cities.

Artists: Alexis Akrithakis, Stephen Antonakos, Delia Brown, Michael Buthe, Lionel Estève, Hannah Greely,
Dionysis Kavallieratos, Jannis Kounellis William Kentridge, Richard Long, Valérie Mannaerts, Brice
Marden, Marisa Merz, Mario Merz, Annette Messager, Juan Muñoz, Nikos Navridis, Tony Oursler,
Raymond Pettibon, Daniel Richter, Thomas Schütte, Jim Shaw, Christiana Soulou, Wayne Thiebaud,
Alexandros Tzannis, Monique Van Genderen, Kara Walker, Lawrence Weiner, Sue Williams, Robert
Wilson, Gilberto Zorio.

Duration: 20 February – 2 April, 2020

WORKSHOP FOR OUR CURATORIAL FELLOWS LED BY CHRISTOPHER MARINOS

Christopher Marinos, independent curator and member of our selection committee, designed a workshop for our Curatorial Fellows that consisted of guided tours at private, corporate and museum collections and inspiring conversations with artists and art professionals.

The workshop consisted of the following visits:

1. Visit at the house of artist and professor Rena Papaspyrou, Athens, 13.01.2020
2. A preview of the new display of the permanent collection of the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens, 22.01.2020
3. New Library of Athens School of Fine Arts (ASKT), Christos Joakimides collection, 27.01.2020
4. Epi Protonotariou House, Paiania 03.02.2020
5. Zeya Collection, Athens, 10.02.2020

Participant Fellows: Danai Giannoglou, Christina Petkopoulou, Mare Spanoudaki, Maya Tounta, Eva Vaslamatzi.

Cra(u)sh. Or How You Made Me Kiss The Pavement.

Can we capture our lives overturned by a crash?

Three of our Fellows – Evi Kalogeropoulou, Eva Papamargariti, and Valinia Svoronou – participate with their works in the exhibition Cra(u)sh. Or how you made me kiss the pavement the pavement., which examines the other side of the accident. Streets, routes, vehicles, encounters, crashes, are revisited through the new materialist agenda and pop culture. Twelve young artists study drifts and wounds, isolate and re-construct the entanglement of matter and flesh, the absolute fusion of machine, landscape and man, within the premise of organic and inorganic world.

With reference to J.G.Ballard’s literary work Crash from the 70s and the notion of the fetishistic desire erected by he crash, the body as anatomy and sign encounters emotions and the inorganic. The wound, as the engraved trace upon the skin, becomes a mouth or a vagina, revealing love for the inorganic. The exhibition’s space stimulates the scene of the crash.

Through different mediums and practices, the artists unfold different sides of crash and crush. The artworks include image bendings of an automotive legacy, interpretations of erotic symbols, exhausting trials of hard/soft materiality, perfomative reductions of conflict, techno-bio-philic studies of the hybridal boy and docu-fictove formulations of archival material.

Who’s next to cra(u)sh?

Artists:
Phaidon Gialis, Konstantinos Giotis, Christos Delidimos, Evi Kalogeropoulou, Byron Kalomamas, Orestis Karalis, Konstantinos Lianos, Eva Papamargariti, Marios Stamatis, Valinia Svoronou, Marina Velisioti, Iria Vrettou.

Curator:
Vassiliki-Maria Plavou.

Exhibition Duration: 14 February – 08 March.
Opening: 14 February, 20:00.

 

 

FELLOWS PRESENTING THEIR WORK AT ΤΗΕ BENAKI MUSEUM

Within our collaboration with Benaki Museum, some of our Fellows had the chance to present their creative practice and works to Benaki Contemporaries and the rest of their co-Fellows. After their presentation, a q&a session was followed which led to open discussions and insightful exchange of ideas for the artistic practice, the institutional framework , artistic research and other interesting topics.

The following Fellows presented:
1. Thodoros Giannakis, 07.12.2019
2. Zoe Gaitanidou, 07.12.2019
3. Virginia Mastrogiannaki, 07.12.2019
4. Anastasia Douka, 07.12.2019
5. Margarita Bofiliou ,18.01.2020
6. Theo Prodromidis, 18.01.2020
7. Aggeliki Bozou, 06.02.2020
8. Anastasia Labrou, 06.02.2020
9. Alexandra Koumantaki, 06.02.2020
10. Olga Evaggelidou, 06.02.2020

Thank you all for sharing and special thanks to The Benaki Museum for hosting us!

EVI KALOGIROPOULOU, DELIRIOUS ATHENS

Our Fellow Evi Kalogiropoulou shows sculptural works in addition to a filmic work by examining the connections between mythology, patriarchal social structures and notions of femininity in her first solo exhibition in Germany.

Evi Kalogiropoulou is concerned with ancient feminist concepts and myths relevant to the female body. How were they perceived in the past and how are they represented in today’s society? Can new cultural identities arise from the emancipation of the female body in the context of technical developments?

In her examination of post-feminist theories, the Greek artist not only questions patriarchal historiography, she also inscribes her view in a speculative and questioning continuation of the ancient myths.

​Curator: Lotte Puschmann

GEORGIS GRIGORAKIS WON THE CICAE ART CINEMA AWARD FOR DIGGER AT BERLINALE

Georgis Grigorakis‘ (Fellow 2018) first feature ‘Digger’, won the CICEA Art Cinema Award at the 70th Panorama of Berlin Film Festival. The movie world-premiered at Berlinale on February 24th 2020.

Digger is a contemporary western about a native farmer who lives and works alone in a farmhouse in the heart of a mountain forest in Northern Greece. For years now, he has been fighting against an expanding industrial monster digging up the forest, disturbing the lush flora and threatening his property. Yet the greatest threat comes with the sudden arrival of his young son, after a 20-year separation. They turn into enemies under one roof. Father and son confront each other head-on, with nature as their only observer, a showdown that ultimately yields an unexpected redemption for both.

Georgis Grigorakis studied Social Psychology at the University of Sussex and obtained his Master’s degree on Directing Fiction at the National Film and Television School (NFTS, London). He has written and directed 8 short films that have been screened in more than 100 international festivals winning at least 20 prizes. They have also been shown on TV and distributed in movie theaters or as VODs. ‘Digger’ is his feature debut, a production of Haos Film, co-produced by Le Bureau (France) and Match Factory (Germany).

More info:  https://www.berlinale.de/en/programme/programme/detail.html?film_id=202004783

http://www.georgisgrigorakis.com/

CURATOR’S TALK: NICOLA TREZZI @INNOVATHENS

ARTOWORKS invites the Director and Chief Curator of Center of Contmporary Art, Tel Aviv – Nicola Trezzi – to a talk at Innovathens.

A few words about the talk:
Preceded by few pioneering positions, the last 20 years have witnessed the emergence of new kind of artist(s) who do NOT work alone and do NOT work with their own names. Through the conception – often based on appropriation from the field of art as well as from other fields – of their signature as the first work of art we encounter, a sign which replaces “inherited identity” with meaning, these artists are also redefining the kind of authorship that has been associated to artists since the time of Giorgio Vasari. Working through collaboration, agency and outsourcing, these artists take the notion of multitasking to the next level. Following these premises, the talk will expand on this framework and present representatives of such positions from all over the world.

A few words about the speaker:
Nicola Trezzi (Magenta, Italy, 1982) is an educator, exhibition maker and writer, currently the director of CCA Tel Aviv. From 2007 to 2014 he was US editor at Flash Art International, and his writings appeared also Flash Art Italia, Flash Art CZ&SK, artnet News, artpress, Il Sole 24 Ore, Monopol, White Fungus. He also contributed to the several exhibition catalogues, such as Postmonument (The 14th Sculpture Biennial, Carrara, 2010), Michael Kienzer: Logic and Self-Will (Kunsthaus Graz, 2012), Joshua Neustein: Drawing the Margins (Israel Museum Jerusalem, 2012), Michal Helfman: Change (CCA Tel Aviv, 2014), Ylva Ogland: She, an Introduction (Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm, 2015), Ido Bar-El: Bagatelle, Paintings, 1986–2015 (Tel Aviv Museum of Art, 2015), Shai Yehezkelli: In Praise of Avalanche (Tel Aviv Museum of Art, 2016), Ashley Bickerton: Ornamental Hysteria (Newport Street Gallery, London, 2017), Efrat Natan / Nahum Tevet (Villa Stuck, Munich, 2017), and Yaara Zach: Lay Low (Petach Tikva Museum of Art, 2018). A staff member of the Prague Biennale Foundation from 2007 to 2014, he co-organized the following exhibitions: “Painting Overall” at the Prague Biennale 5, “Four Rooms” at the CCA in Warsaw, “Modern Talking” at the Muzeul National de Arta Cluj-Napoca, “Circa 1986” at HVCCA in Peekskill NY, “Champs-Élysées” at Palais de Tokyo in Paris, “Diagonal Histories—Imre Bak, Peter Halley—” and “Yael’s Dreams (and Nightmares),” both at Art+Text Budapest, “Yael Efrati: Eva and Emerick,” MNAC in Bucharest, “KEDEM–KODEM–KADIMA” and “Laurent Montaron: Replica,” both at CCA Tel Aviv. From 2014 to 2017 he was head of the MFA program at Bezalel Academy of Art and Design Jerusalem and he previously lectured at the Yale University School of Art (New Haven CT), SIAC (Chicago), iCI (New York), the Indonesian Institute of the Art (Yogyakarta) and The Faculty of Arts – Hamidrasha at Beit Berl College (Israel). Since 2007, he is associated to Lucie Fontaine, a pseudonymous, nomadic and collaborative project, which ideas have been presented in venues such as Marianne Boesky Gallery in New York, Galerie Perrotin in Paris, Iaspis in Stockholm, Artport in Tel Aviv and Kayu in Bali, among others.

The talk will be hosted on Thursday 20/02 at 11.00 @ INNOVATHENS.

Thank you for your support Athens Culture Net!

CURATOR’S TALK, Alessandro Castiglioni

Alessandro Castiglioni, senior co-curator of the Mediterranea 19 Young Artists Biennale, presented his curatorial practice and research on small territories and radical experiments in the art history of San Marino. Mediterranea 19, a transnational Biennale, will take place in the Republic of San Marino from October 2020 to February 2021 under the title School of Waters, featuring artists, researchers, writers under the age of 35, coming from or based within a constellation of territories related to the Mediterranean Sea.

 The open call runs through January 26, 2020.

Thank you to all our Fellows for coming and special thanks to our founding donor, the Stavros Niarchos Foundation.

Live cinema shows and workshops for children by Aggeliki Bozou

Our Fellow 2019 Aggeliki Bozou designs live cinema shows and art workshops for children inspired by Pablo Picasso’s paintings at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center (SNFCC).

Vlefaro Live Cinema lands at the SNFCC in February to present original productions based on Pablo Picasso’s life and work. A series of screening shows and art workshops will take place, based on handmade moving images and paper constructions that produce patterns of movement.

In the first part of each session, children and their adult chaperones attend a screening in which images are being painted and composed before their eyes, accompanied by live music. Following the screening, they participate in a sound and image art workshop, in which they process the screened material creatively.

Kids Lab
Saturday 08/02
11.00-12.30
Meeting point: NLG Lobby

For children aged 7-11 years old and their adult chaperones
Up to 15 children and 15 adult chaperones
Free admission by online preregistration (the workshop is conducted in Greek) ηλεκτρονική προεγγραφή

Music Collages
Saturday 15/02
11.00-12.30

For children aged 3-6 years old and their adult chaperones
Up to 15 children and 15 adult chaperones
Free admission by online preregistration (the workshop is conducted in