[email protected]

Author: gourgourini

Meet and Greet with ARCAthens Residency Fellows

On Thursday October 24th, our Fellows 2019 had the chance to meet the 2 ARCAthens Residency Fellows at the beautiful yard of ATOPOS. Aristeidis Logothetis -ARCAthens founder and executive director- welcomed us and gave a short introduction about the scope and activities of ARCAthens, highlighting the importance of networks for artists. Visual artist  Tomashi Jackson and curator Miranda Lash  talked about their creative time in Athens, their work and research topics and exchanged ideas with ARTWORKS Fellows around topics that emerged from the open discussion. Some of the topics were migration, education and democracy. Lastly, Stamos Fafalios,  ATOPOS co-founder, guided the Fellows through some of the archives, sharing insightful stories.

ARCAthens is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to creating opportunities for visual artists to expand the discourse in the arts as well as in the local communities of Athens.

Atopos cvc is a non-profit, cultural organisation interested in the expression and adornment of the human body. The word ‘atopos’, from the ancient Greek “άτοπος”, refers to that which is the strange, the unwonted, the eccentric and the unclassifiable.

FULBRIGHT POLYMORPHIA

The Fulbright Foundation and Fulbright Artists Alumni, in collaboration with i-D ProjectArt, invite you to support the Fulbright Scholarship Program by acquiring a work of art. All proceeds will benefit the Fulbright Scholarship Program. The “Art Supports Education – Fulbright Alumni Art Series” is an initiative that began in 2009. In recognition of the fundamental role of education, Fulbright artist alumni donate their works in support of the Fulbright Scholarship Program.

This year’s series, “Fulbright POLYMORPHIA”, aims to highlight the diversity (polymorphia) of expression that characterizes the contemporary visual art scene and the arts in general, an element that is firmly supported by the Fulbright Artist Program.

Three of are Fellows – Fotis Sagonas (2018), Alex Simopoulos (2018) ,  Antonis Theodoridis  (2019) – participate among other artists.

Curation: Evgenia Alexaki

Participating Artists:
Erieta Attali, Dora Economou, Efi Chalikopoulou, Leonidas Chalepas, Titina Chalmatzi, Sofia Dona, Fotis Flevotomos, Elias Kafouros, Pygmalion Karatzas, Diane Katsiaficas, Zoe Keramea, Apostolos Kilessopoulos, Sia Kyriakakos, Pelagia Kyriazi, Maria Letsiou, Ioannis Michalou(di)s, Eleni Mylonas, Dimitris Papaioannou + Marilena Stafylidou, Lambros Papanikolatos, Vangelis Pliarides, Loukia Richards, Fotis Sagonas, Alex Simopoulos, Georgios Taxidis, Antonis Theodoridis, Angeliki Chaido Tsoli, Giorgios Tzinoudis, Costas Varotsos, Nikolas Ventourakis, Adonis Volanakis, Kristina Williamson, Zafos Xagoraris, Yiorgis Yerolymbos, Sotos Zachariadis, Theodoros Zafeiropoulos

On view until December 7th, 2019

A DAY IN THE LEIGH FERMOR HOUSE BY TEN ARTISTS

On the occasion of the recent renovation of the Patrick and Joan Leigh Fermor House in Kardamyli, the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) in collaboration with the Benaki Museum invited 10 of our Fellows to visit and reflect on the site. Here are their impressions  through personal notes, photographs, drawings and videos.

*Patrick and Joan Leigh Fermor bequeathed their home to the Benaki Museum in 1996. Its renovation was recently completed through the significant grant of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation.

———————————————————————————————–

1. Cacao Rocks in collaboration with Alexandros Simopoulos

Comics, ink and acrylic on Polaroids, 2019 (Notes)

Alexandros Simopoulos

A series of painted-over Polaroids taken during

our visit and processed later. 

What is the distance between narrative and fact?  

Cacao Rocks

Improvised Telephone

A fishing line links Patrick Leigh Fermor to Pausanias. 

Each one holds a disposable cup to his ear.

The line has to be stretched in order for them to hear each other, but here and there

it is tangled up in prickly pears, masts, civil wars, shells, goats’ horns, olive groves, the backs of dolphins and ancient temples or cages of the gods, as they are also called. 

Their speech is broken up by white noise, cicada songs, heartbeats, hookah bubbles and summer thunder.

The improvised phone becomes our memory, along with all that we now despise, having surrendered to the universal dream.

A soldier’s boot in a whale’s stomach, the sweat of a woman dressed in black at the salt lakes, a Byzantine coat of arms and the reflection of the sun on the whitewash is what stayed in my eyes.

There wasn’t time for me to swim around Merope like you did every day. The truth is I don’t even know if I can do it, but hopefully in the future I will at least try.

Thank you Michali

Cacao Rocks

———————————————————————————————–

2. Giannis Delagrammatikas

on reflection, P.L.F.
video, 1’ 06” 

In 1933 Patrick Leigh Fermor began his first journey to Constantinople. A few items of clothing and a volume of Horace’s Odes accompanied him on his wanderings.

Kardamyli was chosen as the place he returned to, the retreat where recollections of travel, intense experiences, and inner journeys would be shared in his literary universe.

———————————————————————————————–

3. Niki Gulema

The landscape and objects in the house become the subject of sketches in a notebook.

“Except where their cutting edges were blurred by landslides, the mountains looked as harsh as steel. It was a dead, planetary place, a habitat for dragons. All was motionless.”

Excerpt from Patrick Leigh Fermor’s Mani

———————————————————————————————–

4. Katerina Kotsala

Walk on Me
2019

-cotton paper, the imprint of a pebbled floor, 55x25cm

-2 watercolors, a color study of a pebbled floor, 29×20.5cm

 Himself a walker, Patrick Leigh Fermor built a pebble path in his backyard. 

Walk on Me reproduces the pebble floor in the yard of the Fermor house; it is the imprint of the pebble surface on cotton paper. Watercolors refer to a color study of the pebbles used on the floor and evoke the distinctive sunset of Mani in Messinia. 

———————————————————————————————–

5. Orestis Mavroudis

BRIGHT SPECIAL LEIGH
MINI TERES 1 SPOT
BRASS TR
H.P.  D 3W /827 40D
220-240V 50/60Hz
EN60598-1
EN60598-2-1
IP65
CE
MADE IN GREECE ’19

 ———————————————————————————————-

6. Kosmas Nikolaou

Drowning in the Details

Ten images that act as quick notes lead one’s gaze around the house, to points that we wouldn’t usually notice on our first visit. Ten images lead us to look at the house’s modern technical infrastructure. Quick clicks in space, a quick rotation, cracks, sockets, and air ducts. Small details betray the discreet renovation, noisily attesting to the new function of the house and, ultimately, its new owners.

 ———————————————————————————————-

7. Stefania Strouza

The Dark Ones
2019, digital collage

 The photo collages are based on snake patterns that appear as engravings in different parts of the house and are juxtaposed with the belongings of its owners. The symbolically charged combinations hint at an introverted universe closer to the unconscious. They seem to be referring to Patrick Leigh Fermor’s mystical aspects as they ‘traverse’ an increasingly complex and ambivalent post-war world.

———————————————————————————————–

8. Pavlos Tsakonas

Portals
A series of digitally processed photographs 

First impressions of structural surfaces and details of the Fermor house, color-treated in the style of a quick sketch or note. The original stimulus that activates one’s curiosity to delve into an intensely adventurous world. 

———————————————————————————————–

9. Neritan Zinxhiria

Mythology of Blue

The sea as a bridge that unites and doesn’t divide:

an author’s many travels, presented in summary through the covers of books that kept him company.

Playing Ground @ Automatic Transmission

Constantly present in contemporary culture, play due to its abrupt and unexpected nature has been put under manifold and -one could claim- inspired control mechanisms: absolute connection with infancy or idleness, educationally tooled to infuse common principles and behaviours. Ιn the 20th century, in the sake of the socially engaged communicational strategies, play has been used from arts institutions to propagate the inclusive cultural model. Participatory art practices, public programming built on the triptych of “play-create-learn” have functioned as attempts to orchestrate the notion of play and the playful practice of art into hegemonic narratives. Artists themselves, are invited to constrain their playful power of experimenting, creating, interacting with the material and the immaterial to pace with the prevalent art industry.

Irini Karayannopoulou, Anna Lascari, Irini Bachlitzanaki and Anastasia Pavlou (Fellow 2019) explore the possible ground of the element of play through various practices, media and gestures in the recently founded space of Automatic Transmission.

Curator: Christina Petkopoulou (Fellow 2019)

Into my garden come, Primarolia Festival 2019

Maria Tsagkari (Fellow 2019) presents her new video work Intimate letters at the exhibition Into my garden come in Aigio, Greece, a contemporary art show, part of the Primarolia Festival 2019.

Eight artists arrive in Aigio eager to start a new conversation with the place. Aigio, a town cradled between the sea and the high mountains holds a history that dates back to ancient times and offers a fertile ground of artistic creation and dialogue through a contemporary art exhibition. The exhibition focuses on the metaphorical concept of the garden. The title is taken from Emily Dickinson’s verse “Into my garden come!”, perceived as a meeting and gathering of senses, ingredients, objects, ideas – a point of conjunction, of matter and meaning, of past and future. This new sowing of people, ideas and meetings takes place in the coastal zone of Aigio, known as Vostizza during the Middle Ages, meaning the city of gardens, lending the famous name to the local currant variety PDO «VOSTIZZA».

Artists: Rob Kesseler, Agalis Manessi, Aggelos Antonopoulos, Luc Messinezis, Yiannis Brouzos, Maria Tsagkari, Kostas Pappas and Bill Psarras

Curator: Nansy Charitonidou

GALLERY WALK @THE INTERMISSION & RODEO GALLERY

Our first gallery visit with the SNF ARTWORKS Fellows 2019 took place at Piraeus, at 2 exhibition spaces – The Intermission and Rodeo Gallery.

The Intermission, a new exhibition space which opened recently in Piraeus , focuses on shows of established and upcoming artists with contributions in the international art scene.  Fellows had the chance to see the inaugural show – a new work in situ by the American artist John Knight – and discuss with the owner and director Artemis Baltoyanni.

Fellows experienced also a guided tour at the show of Tamara Henderson Womb life by the director and owner of Rodeo Gallery, Sylvia Kouvali. Henderson makes work that extends her bodily adaptations to places and situations, people that she engulfs and she is embraced by while attaching on to them via personal emotional mechanisms.

Until next time!

 

Counting Craters on the Moon

As a result of advances in machine learning, our understanding of today’s world is ever more mediated by machines. What challenges does deep learning bring to human-based knowledge? What do machines see and do differently than humans? How can artificial intelligence enhance new forms of experience and understanding?

To address these questions, in Counting Craters on the Moon, Kyriaki Goni purposely turns her gaze to a distant and uncanny territory: the Moon and its surface. The Moon, according to the artist, constitutes a fascinating example and offers an interesting analogy. Lacking an atmosphere, it operates as a data center which stores in its body the memory of our solar system and allows predictions for the future. The project presents an imaginary encounter between astronomer Johann Friedrich Julius Schmidt (1825–1884) and the neural network DeepMoon, both of which set out to count the craters on the moon. Speculating upon the possible synergies between human and machine, the artist invites us to imagine how we can learn from and with machines in order to build different, multiple and, possibly, collective understandings of the surrounding world and its cosmos.

Curated by Daphne Dragona

THEODOROS GIANNAKIS @ FRIEZE

SNF ARTWORKS Fellow 2019 Theodoros Giannakis takes part at Frieaze London with the work Always Already aka a primitivism mirage again. The installation is part of Frieze East End Sunday.

2 ARTWORKS FELLOWS winners at the 25th Athens International Film Festival

Congrats to Konstantinos Antonopoulos and Vasilis Kekatos (ARTWORKS Fellows 2019) for winning the award in the Greek Short Stories in competition awards – at the 25th Athens International Film Festival among 311 submissions!

The award for Best Director was presented to Konstantinos Antonopoulos for “Postcards from the End of the World”. The jury awarded this film for being a “redemptive film, elegant and well made”. The award was generously accepted by the director.

The award for Best Film went to: “The Distance Between Us and the Sky” by  Vasilis Kekatos.

ARTWORKS team is proud & happy :)

 

 

The Manual of the Perfect Traveler

“The Manual of the Perfect Traveler” is a group show that explores the concept of travel. Building on Kazantzakis’s phrase “That is why every Perfect Traveler always creates the country where he travels”, six artists illustrate their journey.

A journey of imagination, of self-awareness, or even a real journey.
What comes to our mind when we think of a journey? Is it a getaway, a way out, or a need for knowledge and adventure? In any realization, a journey is an exercise-path leading to inner exploration and development.
An unknown or familiar destination, even a trip of imagination, becomes a means that pushes us out of our comfort zone and changes our perspective through the making of our “own country”.
Through their personal narrative, the artists of the exhibition create a unique manual of the Perfect Traveler, for all those who love to travel and dream.

Curated by: Dialektaki Maria

Artists: Marina Velisioti (Castrata Feel), Kostis Velonis , Leonidas Giannakopoulos, Rania Bellou (Fellow 2018), Pavlos Tsakonas (Fellow 2018), Marco Raparelli

ARTWORKS Fellows 2019 welcome party!

Last night, we launched the 2nd SNF Artist Fellowship Program with a welcome party, α party to know us better. Here are the photos from this amazing night by Andreas Simopoulos :)

We hope you enjoyed  and met our friends and family!

ARTWORKS Fellows visiting the house of Patrick Leigh Fermor at Mani

On Monday September 23rd, the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) and the Museum Benaki invited some of our Fellows to visit the recently renovated house of the famous British author Patrick Leigh Fermor.

The author Patrick Leigh Fermor and the photographer Joan developed a special relationship with Greece, which led them to build their permanent residence in Kardamyli, Mani, where they lived until the end of their lives. The house was designed by architect Nikos Hatzimichalis, in close collaboration with them, and was completed in the mid-1960s. In 1996, they bequeathed the Leigh Fermor House, which is widely regarded as one of the most beautiful properties in Greece, to the Benaki Museum, expressing the desire for the house to be used for the purposes of the Museum and remain open to the public.

The SNF supported, as lead donor on the project, a study on the use, operation, and sustainability of the house, then the necessary repair and renovation work. The main objective in this process was to preserve the original character of the buildings and the surrounding space. 

The house has opened to the public for tours, and in the near future it will function as a space for conducting educational activities and cultural events open to the public and for hosting researchers. 

Many thanks to Stavros Niarchos Foundation and Museum Benaki for the amazing hospitality!

 

Am I That Name Or That Image?

The way we perceive ourselves and our relations with other human beings are changing drastically in the era of digital culture and this is without doubt a new reality. Artists participating in the exhibition critically comment  through their work the innocent certainly that there are clear border lines between existence and its innovation, the realistic representation and the impersonation. The “reality” of human interaction is disturbed and set-up afresh, in accordance with the image, the mask and the ideal model that we construct for ourselves. That is why the visual representations of the self utilize to such a large extent digital mediums such as photography, the internet, video, and projection.

In their majority, the works of the exhibition come from the collections of the museums that comprised the platform of the Metropolitan Organization of Museums of Visual Arts of Thessaloniki or have been presented in Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art.

The exhibition “Am I That Name, or That Image?” stands in the frame of the collaboration between the two organisations in Thessaloniki and Skopje, as part of a broader collaboration MOMus has with museums in SE Europe.

Curator: Syrago Tsiara

Assistant Curators: Domna Gounari, Eirini Papakonstantinou

Participating Artists: Evangelia Basdekis, Filippo Berta, James Bridle, Kyriaki Goni, Marianna Ignataki, Majida Khattari, Fenia Kotsopoulou, Virginia Mastrogiannaki, Oleg Mavrommati & Boryana Rossa, Eleni Mylonas, Natasha Papadopoulou, Alexandros Plomaritis, Marilou Poncin, Rena Rädle & Vladan Jeremić, Vivi Tsioga, Ira Waldron

 

5 ARTWORKS Fellows at the Athens International Film Festival

ARTWORKS Fellows 2019 Vasilis Kekatos, Konstantinos Antonopoulos, Yorgos Kyvernits and Vaggelis Serfas take part in Greek Short Stories – In Competition . Electric Swan of our Fellow 2018 Konstantina Kotzamani will screen after the Greek Awards Ceremony of the Festival.

Check below our Fellows’ screenings!

Monday, 23/9, 17:30, Danaos 1

The Distance Between Us and the Sky
DURATION: 9’  DIRECTOR: Vasilikis Kekatos (Fellow 2019)
Night, national road. Two strangers meet for the first time at an old gas station. One has stopped to gas up his bike, while the other is just stranded. Lacking the 22.50EUR he needs to get home, he will try to sell him the distance that separates them from the sky.

Postcards from the End of the World
DURATION: 23’DIRECTOR: Konstantinos Antonopoulos (Fellow 2019)
Trapped in a seemingly dull family vacation, Dimitra, Dimitris and their two daughters will have to find a way out of a secluded island in the Mediterranean when confronted with the unexpected end of the world.               

Tuesday 24/9, 17:30, Οdeon Opera1

The Canaries
DURATION: 17’   DIRECTOR: Yorgos Kyvernitis (Fellow 2019)
Petrina and Stathis fell in love when they were little kids. However, they went separate ways and each one followed their own path. They had children, grandchildren, they raised their families. Several years later, when they were left alone, they got together again, got married to grow old together. Today, at 85 years old, they live together in Syros island with their canaries.

I Only See in Me the Sea
DURATION: 24’   DIRECTOR: Yorgos Kyvernitis (Fellow 2019), Nefeli Oikonomou Pantzou, Maria Sidiropoulou, Alexis Chatzigiannis
Boredom, escape, sea, city, free time. Musician and songwriter Vangelis Germanos, sweeps us along to a summer adventure full of colors and sounds in the city and by the sea.

Wednesday 25/9, 17:00, IDEAL 

Basil
DURATION: 18’   DIRECTOR: Vangelis Serfas (Fellow 2019)
A man returns to his birthplace for his mother’s funeral. She has left a basil pot for him to take care of. During the time he spends there he confronts his past.

Friday , 27/9, 19.15, Danaos 1

Greek Awards Ceremony of the Festival

Electric Swan
DURATION: 40’ DIRECTOR:  Konstantina Kotzamani (Fellow 2018)

Buildings are not supposed to move. But on Avenida Libertador 2050, a building moves and the ceiling shivers, causing a strange nausea that devours its residents. Those who live on the top are afraid they’ll fall – the ones who live beneath are afraid they’ll drown.

Info: http://www.aiff.gr/