June was full of inspiring discussions and creative ideas thanks to our amazing fellows and their Zoom presentations. Visual artists Fellows Valinia Svoronou, Eva Papamargariti, Evi Kalogeropoulou, Maria Varela, Maria Nikiforaki, Christina Dimakopoulou, Theodora Kanelli, Apollon Glykas, Eleni Xynogala and dance Fellows Martha Pasakopoulou and Dimitris Mytlinaios presented their practice, received feedback from their peers and discussed openly their concerns.
On Monday we had the pleasure to meet via Ζoom movement artist Michele Rizzo. Michele gave an insightful talk about his projects and personal reflections around the poetics of transformation, the art of private transcendence, the shift between spaces and its relation to spectatorship, individual versus communal experience. He shared with us insights on the creation of the works ‘HIGHER’ (2014), ‘Spacewalk’ (2017) and ‘Deposition (2020).
Georgia Sagri discussed with ARTWORKS Fellows her work ‘IASI’ at TAVROS space.
Georgia talked about her ongoing research practice ‘IASI’, which started almost ten years ago in the form of self-training , now taking on a new form of one-on-one sessions with participants that have responded to an open call. These sessions are based on physical techniques that use breath as an active agent, movement and voice training.
The sessions, two or three times a week over a period of two months, are private. They take place on a specially designed soft stage, an art object but also a welcoming place, a shell of sorts. This “stage of recovery” is based on Georgia Sagri’s premise that, “we all live our lives on stage, endlessly performing. The “stage of recovery” is a place where the participants can, for a while, be freed from the necessity of performing to others and for themselves. It gives them the time to be safe and free from an audience.” Whatever shifts, releases or movements occur in these private interchanges remains undisclosed. Unrepresented; still, they are.
This new chapter of her research will develop in overlapping phases in three art institutions and three cities – Mimosa House (London), TAVROS (Athens), De Appel (Amsterdam) and at her studio ‘Υλη[matter]HYLE – knowledge accrued from one location will be carried to the next, enriching the process. Sagri’s presence in these concurrent spaces will mirror the constant disembodiment in the multiplicity of images (our split screen personalities) with which we diffuse and ‘read’ ourselves. Georgia Sagri, adept at loops, here includes this circularity as part of the very form of her research. Instead of performing in large concentric circles, connectivity in all three locations will be personal.
Georgia Sagri has exhibited internationally in various solo and group exhibitions: Portikus, Frankfurt/ Main, Germany (2018); Kunstverein Braunschweig, Germany (2017, 2018); Cycladic Museum, Athens Greece (2017); Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw, Poland (2016); Sculpture Center, New York, USA (2016); KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, Germany (2016, 2015); Forde, Geneva, Switzerland (2015); Kunsthalle Basel Switzerland (2014); MoMA PS1, New York, USA (2013); Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw, Poland (2013); Guggenheim Bilbao, Spain (2011); MoMA, New York, USA (2011); Macedonian Museum, Thessaloniki, Greece (2011); The Dakis Joannou Collection, DESTE Foundation, Athens, Greece (2006). Sagri has also participated in documenta 14 (2017), Manifesta 11 (2016), Istanbul; Biennial (2015), Lyon Biennial (2013), Whitney Biennial (2012), Thessaloniki Biennial (2011), and Athens Biennial (2007). In 2014 Sagri initiated Ύλη[matter]HYLE (hyle.gr) a semipublic/semiprivate space in the center of Athens, Greece. Her first monograph catalogue was published by Sternberg Press, following her solo exhibitions Georgia Sagri Georgia Sagri at Kunstverein Braunschweig, and Georgia Sagri and I at Portikus. In the summer of 2019 she was offered the Tenure Position in the School of Fine Arts in Athens in order to organise and run the first Performance Art studio.
Our Fellows Apollon Glykas takes part in the exhibition ‘Overmorrow’ at the Ekfrasi-yianna grammatopoulou gallery along with the artists: Annita Argyiliopoulou, Michalis Arfaras, Kornilios Grammenos, Marion Igglesi, Antigoni Kavvatha, Juliano Kagli, Panagioti Baxevani, Niko Papadimitriou, Ilia Sipsa, Aggelo Skourti, Kosta Tsoli, Panteli Chandri.
Opening : Thursday June 25, 12.00 – 21.00
Until July 24
Ekfrasi-yianna grammatopoulou gallery: Valaoritou 9a, Athens, 10671
Honored to have with us via Zoom Alexander Payne, American film director, screenwriter, and producer. Alexander talked to our Moving image Fellows about the emotional resonance in films, the notion of “harmolipi” — when drama and comedy co-exist– and gave useful tips about set and production design, screenwriting and casting actors. The discussion was moderated by Daphne Matziaraki – director, writer and producer. Thank you both for such an inspiring and intimate talk!
What do we mean by “live”? What is our relationship to the public? What is experimental and what is interdisciplinary? What do we mean by political?
Important questions raised by Katie Duck , dancer, choreographer and director, during her Zoom talk for our Fellows on Friday June 19. Katie’s talk about the consequences on the professional life of performing artists, during and after the lockdown, was moderated by Maria Mavridou, greek contemporary dancer based in Amsterdam. Many things to think about. Thank you all for the stimulating discussion :)
Useful Links:
2004 with Alex Waterman (Bach cello)
2015 CAGE (edit of different versions)
2016 with Mary Oliver (improvisation viola)
2019 Improvisation summer course / Freakatoni Witchy Weekends
‘Motorway 65’, a short film by Evi Kalogiropoulou (Fellow 2019) is officially selected in competition of Cannes Film Festival. Winners will be announced in the fall of 2020. ‘Motorway 65’ was selected among 3.810 movies from 137 countries.The movie is founded by Eleusis 2021 – European Capital of Culture and Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung.
The movie describes the relationship between two siblings living in the industrial zone of Elefsina, an area near Athens. The neighborhood, where the characters live, is connected by a bridge, named motorway 6, to an adjacent area, which has much more diverse demographics than the first. The two areas, called ‘Ano small Moscow’ and ‘Kato small Moscow’ coexist in tension because of a conflict rooted on the cultural differences between the two communities: on one side, immigrants from Ponto, and on the other, immigrants from varying backgrounds, such as Albanians, Africans, Pakistanis. The hostility brought by cultural differences is also present within the strong sports culture of the area, further sparking the mutual antagonism. This geographical and social division perplexes and gets reflected in the relationship between the two siblings. The sister, Sima, is much more open-minded than her brother and prefers to hang with people from the opposite side of the bridge; including her best friend Ksenia.
The artists Amalia Vekri and Valinia Svoronou (Fellow 2019) create an imaginary environment at P.E.T. Projects, using the Avalon of the Heart as a metaphor for an activated space.
Avalon of the Heart is a book by British occultist and ceremonial magician Dione Fortune. The book refers to Glastonbury as a mythical place of transcendental experiences and spiritual encounters. Discovering where the heart resides, the writer develops a love affair with the landscape and its emotional counterparts.
The viewer travels through narratives of female identifying characters elevating themselves into super heroes through the use of potions, and ritual; while listening to old love songs, they groom as preparation to unveil a mysterious encounter. As a place inhabited by the heart, that is only revealed to its lovers / mystics, the Avalon is not a literal spatial manifestation but rather the nucleus of an ethereal atmosphere; an enchanting experience similar in nature to the ephemeral essence of an extraordinary perfume. The set up of the works alludes to bodily female desires and anxieties, simultaneously longing for spiritual transcendence. Through the interplay of their works, the artists aim to invoke and reconfigure the legendary environment of the Avalon of the Heart, oscillating between references to new age, popular culture, storytelling and the overpowering construct of romanticism in a contemporary technological landscape.
Vekri and Svoronou’s installation comprising of paintings, sculptures, digital prints, sound and light, invites the audience to confront their internal dialogue, where one meets the heart and by extension the internalised lover.
Once the Avalon is activated, your other half is just around the corner.
During the exhibition, a series of participatory performances will take place resembling a blind date, utilizing the installation itself as a working set. These performances will be formed by invited small groups.
P.E.T. TREAT
The 3rd commission on the facade of P.E.T. is presented entitled P.E.T. Treat with a work by Amalia Vekri and Valinia Svoronou. The project serves as an invitation, found meditation, and daily positive affirmation for passers-by on Kerkyras street. Perfumes travel across time and space re-affirming events and evoking memories, sending a message. This message can be a trigger for a long lost encounter or for a new one to begin.
Opening 23rd of June 16:30 – 22:00 (covid 19 measures apply)*
24th of June – 12 October 2020: by appointment only
* Taking into consideration all the safety health measures,
– the number of visitors will be controlled in the entrance
– a 2mt distance is mandatory
– wearing a mask is highly recommended.
On the occasion of World Refugee Day, Flux Laboratory Athens presents the dance project ‘WHAT IF IT WAS YOU?” on Saturday June 20, 2020.
Performed by artists Joanna Toumbakari and Andi Xhuma (Fellow 2019), and choreographed by Markella Manoliadi, the piece has been inspired by Imany’s song “Take Care”, aiming at conveying through dance a call for unity and encouragement among people.
The project has taken the form of a video dance directed by Andi Xhuma and will be openly disseminated through international social platforms and channels on Saturday, June 20. On the same day, the dancers will perform live with the participation of the audience in various, symbolically significant places in the center of Athens as well as Flux Laboratory Athens.
Video directed by: Andi Xhuma
Choreography: Markella Manoliadi
Dancers: Joanna Toumbakari & Andi Xhuma
Music: ‘Take Care’ by Imany. From the Album ‘The shape of the broken heart’ (2011), Time Records
Production & Artistic Direction: Cynthia Odier, founder and artistic director of Fluxum Foundation and Flux Laboratory
Camera operator: Klaus Shehaj
Camera assistant: Fotini Xhuma
Please note: In compliance with the safety guidelines pertinent to social-distancing in the pandemic, our audience is kindly asked to follow the performances, wearing a mask or scarf. During the performance at Flux Laboratory Athens, the participants are encouraged to stand around the perimeter of the building, enjoying the piece through its open doors.
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
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
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
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.
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.
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
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.
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/
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.
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
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