Author: gourgourini

ARTWORKS PARTICIPATES IN ART ATHINA “TALKS” CURATED BY DANAI GIANNOGLOU

As the landscape of visual arts is constantly evolving and changing, in this year’s edition of Art Athina  speakers and audience are invited to participate in discussions that address issues that directly affect the domestic Greek scene, turning them into an international and open dialogue.

ARTWORKS participates in the Talks Program of Art Athina on Sunday September 17th at 19:30 curated and moderated by our beloved SNF ARTWORKS Fellow Danai Giannoglou!
Dimitra Nikoloù– ARTWORKS Co-Founder and Program Director will be joining the discussion panel “ The introversion and extroversion of residency programmes for artists” along with Aristides Logothetis – Founder & Executive Director of ARCAthens and Nefeli Myrodia – Head of Onassis AiR!d

Find more about Talks of Art Athina here.

Read more about Art Athina here.

 

“stay with me, I’ll give you jewls” | Solo show of AnnaMaria Pinaka curated by Ioanna Gerakidi

On Friday, September 15, at 7pm, opbo studio presents the first solo show of AnnaMaria Pinaka in Greece, under the title “stay with me, I’ll give you jewls,” curated by Ioanna Gerakidi (SNF ARTWORKS Fellow 2021). Through a new series of paintings, sculptures, and performative gestures, the exhibition inverstigates the vexed subjects of childhood and mothering, of gender, femininity, and trauma: How can the girly, the femme or the seductive co-exist with the untamed, the be-wildered, the tomboyish? How can identities, always, unapologetically swift?

“stay with me, I’ll give you jewls” will run until October 14. In the context of the exhibition, a series of parallel events will take place, the program of which will be announced soon.

Curatorial text by Ioanna Gerakidi

stay with me, I’ll give you jewls, the solo show of AnnaMaria Pinaka traces the complexities and pleasures, the guilts and desires, arising from within, yet occasionally imposed or reflected by societal norms and political realms. Through a new series of large-scale paintings composed spatially along with other gestures, varying from sculptural pieces to performative acts, both visible and invisible, Pinaka aims to speak about the vexed subjects of childhood and mothering, gender and femininity, trauma and the forever efforts of reclaiming its axes and along, agency.

Whilst utilizing paltry garments and frivolous materials, such as bedsheets found in her childhood bedroom, pieces of cheap tulle used for bridal or ballerina dresses, as well as curved, sculpted and painted styrofoam, among others, her work aims to operate as a comment on what willfully remains trivial and light, sticking to its innocence, or unwillingness to pretend a pompousness that was never there. The works produced for the show come with symbolisms affiliated both with idealized or demonized figures and creatures. From mermaids or princesses, to ballerinas representing western beauty standards, mystified or praised for these exact qualities in the 80’s and 90’s, to pigs and other animals or species unknown, carrying the semantic burden of dirt and filthiness, Pinaka’s show longs for staying with and taking care of contradictory schemes; How can the girly, the femme or the seductive co-exist with the untamed, and the tomboyish? How can identities, always, unapologetically swift? How can they concurrently be naïve and politically engaged, finding their empowerment within the passivity of undoing, whilst at the same time taking a stance towards an action a priori denying acceleration?

This play in between seemingly oppositional forces, resonates also with the performative processes followed for the production of the paintings, the drawings, the videos and the sculptural materials presented in the show. The questions raised over these actions, again, aim on bringing together what would otherwise be perceived as oxymoronic. How can a performative gesture claim its dynamic, mutant characteristics, whilst being uneventful? How can it advocate its power without collapsing into nihilism, without vaporizing or melting away? How inertia can be preserved, creating an uncannily static archive of pasts, presents and futures?

Whilst holding on to this gap, on this unknown, uncertain, suspended state of what’s excluded, suppressed, or forgotten, Pinaka’s performativity ponders on what can legitimize ambiguity; the pleasure and desire it can unleash when uncertainty is chosen and not forced upon. The work of Pinaka, traces queerness “as the warm illumination of a horizon imbued with potentiality, as a structuring and educated mode of desiring that allows us to see and feel beyond the quagmire of the present”* to quote the words of Jose Esteban Munoz. The dreamy travesties, the promising subversions, the unapologetic guilt deities become in Pinaka’s work the vessel to grow in this other horizon, to look with and touch lust as an act of resistance.

“I paint as if I was 7, cause that’s when they told me my painting sucks.”
Anna Maria Pinaka

*Muñoz, José Esteban. “Introduction: Feeling Utopia.” Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity, NYU Press, 2009, pp. 1–18.

AnnaMaria Pinaka (b. 1983, Greece) lives and works between the Netherlands and Greece. Using video, drawing and performance, she looks at how (mundane) experiences of sexuality translate through the lens of auto-ethnography and masquerading while utilizing the low-tech, the unpolished and the excessively child-like. In her practice-based PhD, “Porno-graphing: ‘dirty’ sexual subjectivities and self-objectification in lens-based art (2017, Roehampton University),” she examined the methodological use of ‘dirty’ and non-sovereign sexual and artistic subjectivities in the production of images. Pinaka has exhibited, screened and performed her work at places such as the 6th Athens Biennale, Kunstraumllc, The Project Gallery, WETFILM and Mimosa House, amongst others, and she is supported by Mondriaan Fonds.

Info: opbo studio, 86 Philonos Str., Piraeus, 18536
Opening: Friday, September 15, 19:00
Duration: September 15 – October 14
Opening hours: Wednesday – Saturday, 12:00 – 20:00
Free entrance

arisandmartha, “they returned regularly, each time for more”

Stemming from the on-going artistic research project IN-QUARRY, initiated in 2021, addressing
practicing public space and expanded choreographic methodologies, arisandmartha’s new work titled ‘they returned regularly, each time for more’ proposes a sound installation which activates and transmits the groups ideas, thinking and scoring processes while working on the archive of a former stone quarry in suburban Athens.

The work proposes a reversed activation of what it means to practice public space through the
receptors of human or other-than-human entities, not on the site of the quarry itself, but on a remote
and neutral space. One of the fundamental ideas of this work is the quarry seen as a vessel (damarmeans vessel/vein in Turkish) as well as a generator of ideas, thoughts and activations. The flow of excavated and extracted inorganic material (building stone and lime stone) found its place into the Athenian urban fabric. In reverse, the flow of organic material (human and other-than-human entities) has returned into the quarry post its exploitation and excavation era. How do we inhabit and practice those spaces? How do we imagine and invent new narratives for the former quarry of Galatsi –
Phychiko? Recordings, spoken text and performative actions are being shared between audience and
collaborators in a scaled and spatial simulation of a collectively re-imagined space.

arisandmartha is the creative collaboration between dancers, performers and dance makers Aris
Papadopoulos and Martha Pasakopoulou. Based in Athens, Greece they work at the crossroads of
staged and site-specific dance performances, exploring and expanding the choreographic possibilities
by implementing dance and performing language, text and conceptual ideas. The duo investigates the
notions of togetherness and performing friendship on stage, by using re-enactment and ready-made
materials, contemporary ritualistic practices and strategies of activating and performing archives.
arisandmartha have been supported by the Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports (2018-23), KLAP
Maison pour la danse – Marseille (2018), FLUXUM Foundation – Geneva (2019), Flux Laboratory
Athens (2019), GARAGE Performing Arts – Corfu (2018), Duncan Dance Research Center – Athens
(2018-22), and Onassis AiR, Athens (2022-23).

Aris Papadopoulos and Martha Pasakopoulou are SNF ARTWORKS Fellows (2022 and 2019 respectively).

CREDITS
Artistic Research / Concept: arisandmartha | Aris Papadopoulos & Martha Pasakopoulou
Material development / Co-creation: Christina Karagianni, Anastasios Koukoutas, Jeph Vanger, Martha Pasakopoulou, Aris Papadopoulos
Artistic Collaborator: Anastasios Koukoutas
Studio recordings and sound mixing: Jeph Vanger
Production: arisandmartha
The production ‘they returned regularly, each time for more’ is realized with the financial support of
the Ministry of Culture.
Kindly supported by the Duncan Dance Research Center – Athens.
The research for ‘they returned regularly, each time for more’ was supported by Onassis AiR.

arisandmartha
‘they returned regularly, each time for more’
Sound Installation / Performance
Duration 15-24 September 2023
Open every day between 19:00-22:00
Haus N Athen
Kairi 6, 2nd floor, Monastiraki, Athens

 

“Breath of the world” | YELP danceco./ Mariela Nestora

The new choreographic work of Mariela Nestora / YELP danceco. focuses on breath as the
primary relationship of the body with the world.

Plants are -and have always been- our most important co-inhabitants on the planet. We are in a
reciprocal relationship: humans breathe in the oxygen plants exhale and plants breathe in the
carbon dioxide humans produce. How can we restore the ecological affinities that bind us in a
rapidly climate-changing world?

Dancers and musicians compose the ephemeral organism of this performance that can be
perceived as part of another larger ecosystem. The choreography explores the function of
breathing as a biological, psychological and spiritual node associating different species and
cultures. Breath of the world activates empathy and proposes the experience of a performance
as a gathering of different species.

The air we breathe is not a purely geological or mineral reality but rather the breath of other
living beings. In breath we depend on the lives of others.

Emanuele Coccia

CREDITS
Choreography: Mariela Nestora
Co-creation/ performance: Ioanna Toumpakari, Yannis Tsigris, Pagona Boulbasakou
Music / original composition: Anargyros Deniosos
Musicians: Renato Kousis, Leonidas Palamiotis
Costumes: Eleftheria Arapoglou-DIGITARIA
Dramaturgy collaboration: Mårten Spångberg, Elena Novakovits
Photos: Myrto Apostolidou
Poster design: Maria Elena Myrka
Press: Evangelia Skrobola
Production: KART productions, Mary Xanthopoulidou, Anastasia Kavallari

Produced within the framework of the programme 2023 of the institution “All of Greece
one Culture” of the Greek Ministry of Culture.
Information
Performances: 22,23 August 2023, 21:00
Venue: DION Ancient theatre
Duration: 50 minutes
Tickets: The event is offered free of charge by the Ministry of Culture, yet an entrance fee to the
archaeological site is payable wherever applicable. Pre-booking is mandatory. For more
information and pre-booking: digitalculture.gov.gr, nationalopera.gr
Reservations from 7th August: https://www.ticketservices.gr/event/oli-i-ellada-enas-politismos/
YELP danceco. /Mariela Nestora

Choreographer and researcher Mariela Nestora was born in Athens, Greece. Since 2001 she
has created more than 22 productions for the stage, site specific and public space, with the
support of the Greek Ministry of Culture, Athens and Epidaurus Festival, Onassis foundation,
Kalamata International Festival etc. YELP danceco. productions have been presented in
Maribor, Ljubljana, Zagreb, Kassel, Berlin, London, Brighton, Ipswich, Bologna, Bologna,
Montpellier, Brest, Bucharest, Parnu Aarhus, Brussels, Athens, Kavala, Patras, Thessaloniki,
Volos, Hydra, Heraklion, Chania and have been selected for platforms and festivals such as ITI,
Dance Platform, Athens Biennale, Plesna Isba, Municipal Theatre of Patras, Cultural Capital of
Patras, The Place Commissions, The Video Place, Videodance festival and MIRfestival.

Nestora studied artistic research Master’s program- ArtEZ,Netherlands, Feldenkrais method-
Professional Training Greece1, Contemporary dance and choreography – London Contemporary

Dance School, Biology- B.Sc. at Queen Mary and Westfield and Molecular Genetics- M.Sc. at
St.Mary’s Medical School, Imperial College. Her artistic research is situated in Post Humanism,
exploring choreography as a gathering and developing the methodology of molecular
choreography. As an independent artist (2011-2017) she participated in collectives: Green Park,
Kolektiva Omonia, Embros Theatre, Syndesmos Chorou and also instigated the Collective
Choreography Project CCP and from stage to page a platform and publication for the Greek
contemporary dance scene. She works as a choreographer, researcher, mentor, movement
director and as a teacher/practitioner of the Feldenkrais Method.

“Breath of the world” by YELP danceco.  will be presented in Athens, at Theatro Rematias, Chalandri in October 2nd 2023, 21:30
*Mariela Nestora was a member of our dance selection committee for the 5th SNF Artist Fellowship Program by ARTWORKS.
**Yannis Tsigris and Pagona Boulbasakou (both SNF ARTWORKS Dance Fellows 2022) participate in the perforamance.

Antrea Tzourovits , Counting Rests

The genealogy of the exhibition at Kalfayan Galleries stems from the artist’s childhood before moving from Serbia Montenegro (Ex-Yugoslavia) to Greece during the conflict in 1999. A major influence for his poetic narrative emerged also from the artist’s personal experience of the euphoric celebrations for the win of FR Yugoslavia in the 1998 FIBA World Championship, followed just a few months later by the onset of tragic war-related events due to the NATO bombing.

As the artist states:

“I meticulously craft sculptures and installations infused with traditional techniques, possessing the potential to produce sounds reminiscent of musical instruments. However, instead of filling the space with audible vibrations, I embrace the power of silence, inviting viewers to immerse themselves in contemplation and imagination, evoking the possibilities these silent objects hold.

Through this exhibition, my intention is to orchestrate a symphony of silence, encouraging viewers to envision the sounds these silent objects could produce if the silence were to give way. My aim is to spark contemplation and introspection, prompting each viewer to reflect on the intriguing interplay of silence and memory within the realms of their own lives.”

Antrea Tzourovits
Counting Rests
Opening: Thursday, 21 September 2023, 19:00-22:00
Duration: 21 September – 21 October 2023
Opening hours:
Monday 11:00 – 15:00 | Tuesday – Friday 11:00 – 19:00 | Saturday 11:00 – 15:00
11 Haritos Street, Athens 10675
T +30 210 7217679
[email protected]
www.kalfayangalleries.com

*Antrea Tzourovits is a Visual Art SNF ARWORKS Fellow (2022)

ARISTEIDIS LAPPAS, “Seven Days in New Crete”

The Breeder is pleased to present “Seven Days in New Crete”, Aristeidis Lappas’ new solo exhibition.

Named after a seminal future-utopian speculative fiction novel by the poet and critic Robert Graves, the exhibition, like the book, explores how mythological personalities and personal mythologies intertwine in narrative forms that span the past, present and future. The exhibition has particular characteristics that are inspired by Graves’ novel and his broader writings on Greek Mythology. The ground floor presents a series of large format paintings revisiting mythological figures that have already appeared in Lappas’ work. The Minotaur in particular, looms large as a presence in this Sacred Grove where each painting is flanked with lush foliage that create triptychs which envelop and unfold around each scene. In the same way that Graves uses the novel form to explore how he can place himself as a character in an experiential version of his more critical writings, Lappas is asking what his relationship is to Greek culture, history and notions of belonging – by painting it.

ARISTEIDIS LAPPAS
SEVEN DAYS IN NEW CRETE
September 15, 2023–October 14, 2023
The Breeder, Athens

*Aristeidis Lappas is a Visual Arts SNF ARTWORKS Fellow 2020

“Pedagogies of the common/s”

“Pedagogies of the Common/s” consists of a group exhibition, as well as a public program that will take place during the last week of the exhibition (19-20-21 October). It brings together artworks, practices and archives as it seeks to explore the possible pedagogies of the social. Through transformative instances of togetherness, stubborn gestures of resistance, poetic and political interventions in the current destructive terrains it attempts to function as a critical public experiment. Bringing together diverse collective traces and stories this exhibition and public program (that will take place in September) seeks to sketch possibilities for monstrous political forms and new shared social habits and pedagogies otherwise, in and with the landscape.

Curated by Gigi Argyropoulou, Vassilis Noulas, Kostas Tzimoulis

Participants: Forensic Architecture, Μaria Georgoula, Jeremy Deller, Zisis Kotionis, Maria Lianou & Alexandros Christofinis, Eirini Linardaki, Jumana Manna, Christina Mitrentse, Vincent Parisot, Renee Ridgway, Evi Roumani, Andrea Sitara Gran, Eva Stefani, Yiannis Hadjiaslanis, VASKOS (Vassilis Noulas & Kostas Tzimoulis) and the Laboratory for art and social practices in the department of culture creative media and industries of the University of Thessaly ( Participants: Zoi-Danae Asterataki, Elisavet-Agapi Pantelaiou, Anna Karagianni, Efi Karagiannaki)

Public programme (19-20-21 October):
Dimitra Ioannou (experimental creative writing workshop), Eliana Otta (workshop), Laboratory for art and social practices in the department of culture creative media and industries of the University of Thessaly (open stamp workshop), Theodora Malamou (presentation), Christina Petkopoulou* (presentation), Yannis Hatziaslanis (presentation), Forensic Architecture (film screening), Jeremy Deller (film screening), Jumana Manna (film screening)

Pedagogies of the common/s
Opening: Thursday 28th September 2023
Duration of exhibition: 28 September to 21 October 2023
Thursday-Friday-Saturday 18:00 – 21:00

>> A detailed program and description of the public program will follow below EIGHT critical institute for arts and politics, (Polytechniou 8, Athens)

With support from Ministry of Culture

*Christina Petkopoulou is SNF ARTWORKS Curatorial Fellow (2019)

Eva Papamargariti in residence at LUMA ARLES

We are thrilled to announce that Eva Papamargariti is our Visual Arts Fellow (2019) who got selected for a 3-month residency program at LUMA Arles.

During her residency, Eva will explore the connection between the greater Arles region and its bodies of water -the Rhône River and the Mediterranean- both vital to the ontology and history of the place, while a constant state of transformation and sympoiesis of organisms, bodies, flows, mythologies, systems of exchange, visible as well as invisible traces is in full swing.

Eva’s residency is supported by ARTWORKS through its founding donor the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF).

Learn more about our partners and the selected Fellows here.

“Landform Instrument”, Danae Io

State of Concept presents the first solo exhibition in Greece of the Greek, Rotterdam-based artist Danae Io, entitled Landform Instrument. Τhe exhibition is the third in the Bona Fide series, dedicated to contribute to the promotion of young Greek and international artists and critics/curators, and is accompanied by a text by the writer and researcher Amelia Groom. Exhibition’s upcoming parallel public program will be announced soon.

Landform Instrument presents a series of new works that have come from the artist’s long-term engagement with “the interrelated histories and functions of bureaucracy, mythology, and nation-building”. Through video, sculpture and text, Danae Io’s practice examines organisational systems that have their roots in modernity and have been imposed widely through imperial practices, enquiring about their role in forming dominant narratives. The works in the exhibition respond to the fabrication of the Greek ideal as an anchor of European identity and its relation to the institution of modern Greece. The show brings together commissioned sculptures and two short films developed from this research. The poems featured in the short films Sprouts of a dragon’s teeth and Seven Types of Dust (both 2023) were developed in collaboration with poet and theorist Stathis Gourgouris.

Io draws on the contemporary city of Thebes and the myth of Cadmus for the works in the exhibition. Thebes, the city of Antigone and Oedipus, serves as an ‘other’ to the ideal city-state, a site where the relations between labour, land and systems of organisation are examined. As Groom notes, it functions as “a stage for a particular misunderstanding/ retelling of the myth of Cadmus, it became a site from which to explore the historical intersections of written language, state violence, and the bureaucratic processes of nationhood.” While negotiating the construction of historical narratives, Danae Io points to the possibilities of myths as performative forms of collective storytelling, through which narratives are never static and singular.

The sculptures in Landform Instrument are related to the material infrastructure of the state’s administrative organs. Stainless-steel, aluminium, paper, security watermarking ink used by the Ministry of Finance and repetitive inkless tracings are embedded in sculptural structures that attach to the main exhibition space and State of Concept’s courtyard.

All quotes are from Amelia Groom’s text ‘Landform Instrument’ (2023).

Part of the Bona Fide exhibition series

With the support of the Mondriaan Fund

More info here

*Danae Io is a Visual Arts SNF ARTWORKS Fellow (2021)

 

(Un)Common Proximity | Curated by Alexia Alexandropoulou

(Un)Common Proximity opens on Thursday 28 September at Galeria Belo-Galsterer in Lisbon with works by Ana Velez, Claudia Fischer, Daniela Krtsch, Gwendolyn van der Velden, Jorge Molder, Juliane Solmsdorf, Mário Macilau, Mel O’Callaghan, Pedro Quintas, Renzo Marasca, Teresa Segurado Pavão, and Wolfgang Wirth.

The exhibition opens with the performance AEQUARE by artist Pinelopi Triantafyllou in collaboration with the dancers Iro Xyda and Ieva Bražėnaitė.

AEQUARE

__(lat.) derives from aequalis, meaning action of making equal, equalizing

AEQUARE is a dance performance that explores wearable artwork through a dystopic universe, which is constantly shifting and changing. The starting point was “The Big Other”, a textile artwork created by Penelope Triantafyllou in 2019, consisting of a men’s jacket covered with hand-knitted female breasts. This work was inspired by Artemis of Ephesus.

Information:

Dates: 28 September – 19 October 2023
Opening: 28 September, 19:00
Curated by Alexia Alexandropoulou
Graphic Design: Nick Letsios

*Alexia Alexandropoulou is a curatorial SNF ARTWORKS Fellow (2022)

2 Fellows join the performance “Hot Hands” by Madeline Hollander

Arch is pleased to announce Hot Hands, a performance series conceived and choreographed by the artist Madeline Hollander.

Hot Hands is a site specific performance series and installation featuring 6 dancers and draws choreographic inspiration from various versions of the reflex-driven hand game of its title, as well as other classic kids clapping games. The collaborative piece taps into the muscle memory of the dancers’ own childhoods, and playfully explores the corporeal vocabularies around fake-outs, flinches, anticipation, concentration, keeping score, and breaking rules. The installation, composed of inverted benches and tables, mimics objects found at a playground that inform the dancer’s trajectories as they cycle through the game ad infinitum.

Performers: Angelos Antoniou, Konstantina Barkouli, Aliki Georgiou, Sofia Pouchtou, Thanos Ragousis, Eliane Roumie

Performance dates:

Friday, October 6, 7:00pm – 9:00pm

Saturday, October 7, 4:00pm – 6:00pm

Friday & Saturday, October 20-21 4:00pm – 6:00pm

*Konstantina Barkouli and Eliane Roumie are SNF ARTWORKS Dance Fellows (2022)

4 FELLOWS PARTICIPATE IN THE GROUP EXHIBITION “Eleonas: Chthonic and Anthropocene”

The exhibition, titled “Eleonas: Chthonic and Anthropocene” (translated freely from the Greek title, “Xθόνιο και ανθρωπόκαινο”), explores the dynamic interplay of material entities, chronologies, and meanings. The choice of location exemplifies these contradictions within the Athenian landscape, where the contemporary pace of our existence vigorously intersects with the deep imagination emanating from the presence of ancient relics and fragments that are still profoundly evident in the area.

 

ARTISTS

Dimitris Alithinos, Dimitris Ameladiotis (performance), August Veinoglou, Mpampis Venetopoulos, Dimitris Georgakopoulos, Giorgos Gyparakis, Collectif MASI (Madlen Anipsitaki & Simon Riedler), Campus Novel, Martha Dimitropoulou, Theodoris Zafeiropoulos, Giorgos Zampoulakis (performance), Vassia Zormpali (perfomance), Captain, Michael Karikis, Katerina Katsifaraki, Nikos Kessanlis, Zisis Kotionis, Mania Mpenisi, Nikos Moschos, Pandora Mouriki, Daphne Nitsou, Maria Oikonomopoulou, Maria Papadimitriou, Nikos Papadimitriou, Myrto Papadopoulou, Kostas Pappas, Eleni Panouklia, Vivi Perisinaki, Danae Stratou, Stefania Strouza, Savvas Stroumpos with Elli Ingliz (performance), Theodoros Terzopoulos (talk/performance), Tassos Triantafullou, Giorgos Tsakiris, Giorgos Tserionis, Filippos Tsitsopoulos (performance), Dimitris Tsoumplekas, Marios Fournaris, Pantelis Chandris, Vivetta Christouli, Dionisis Christofilogiannis.

Venue: Metro Eleonas

Opening: 29/9 – duration – 3/12

14:30 – 20:30

*August Veinoglou, Madlen Anipsitaki, Giannis Delagrammatikas (Campus Novel) and Stefania Strouza are Visual Arts SNF ARTWORKS Fellows.

KYRIAKI GONI & MARIA TSAGKARI PARTICIPATE IN THE three-day festival “MODERN LOVE”

EMΣΤ announces a three-day festival as the exhibition Modern Love: or Love in the Age of Cold Intimacies approaches its end. During an entire weekend the museum will present a rich programme of talks, panels, screenings, music and performances that look into, like the exhibition, the relationship between humans and technology, focusing especially love and close human relationships in the age of late capitalism, globalisation, digital connectivity and social media.

PARTICIPANTS

Participants include among others: Gabriel Abrantes, Melanie Bonajo, Maja Borg, Natalie Dixon, Sunny Dolat, Arjon Dunnewind, Cecile B. Evans, Nick Fox, Johan Grimonprez, Kyriaki Goni, Srećko Horvat, Juliet Jacques, Valerie Kontakos, Ariane Loze, Jonas Lund, Lauren Lee McCarthy, Kyle McDonald, Marge Monko, Nóra Ó Murchú, The Nest Collective, Dimitris Papanikolaou, Erica Scourti, Shelly Silver, Eva Stefani, Theophilos Traboulis, Maria Tsagari.

The Festival is realised in collaboration with IMPAKT Centre for Media Culture (NL)

Organised and curated by Katerina Gregos, Anna Mykoniati and loli Tzanetaki

PROGRAMME

FRIDAY 29.09

19.30: Opening of the exhibition The Nest Collective Stories of Our Lives: in Search of Queer Sanctuaries, EMΣΤ Μezzanine

20.30: The Nest Collective, Stories of Our Lives, film premiere. Followed by a Q&A with Sunny Dolat, member of the collective and Ioli Tzanetaki, curator of the exhibition in the screening room

The duration of the film is 60’ and it will be screened in a loop until midnight
22.30: Nick Fox Longing Disco @ EMΣΤ café

Your lovelorn record and lovesick stories can now become part of Longing Disco, a unique, live event by artist Nick Fox, where you are invited to come along to anonymously share your favourite tunes and unspoken stories of desire in an evening of music and dance inspired by the emotional spectrum of love, longing and desire.

 

SATURDAY 30.09

12.15: Introduction by Katerina Gregos, artistic director EMΣΤ, and Arjon Dunnewind, General Director at IMPAKT, Centre for Media Culture, Utrecht (NL)

*12.30-13.15: Keynote speech: Juliet Jacques, writer, journalist and filmmaker,

The Impact of the HIV/AIDS crisis on the arts in Europe and North America

Jacques will talk about how she came to understand the great trauma that had affected the generation of queer artists before hers.

Followed by the screening of her film You Will Be Free (2017), 10’ 13’’.

13.30-14.30: OctopusEMΣT’s digital journal launch & discussion on Queer Archives with Juliet JacquesDimitris Papanikolaouprofessor of modern Greek and comparative cultural studies, University of Oxford and Theophilos Tramboulis, Advisor, EΜΣT Publications (moderator)
14.30: Lunch break

15.30: Natalie Dixon, lecture-performance Senhora

16.30: Screenings

Marge MonkoDear D (2015), 8’ 10’’

Johan GrimonprezEvery Day Words Disappear (2016), 15’ 30’’.

Followed by Q&A with the director

17.00: Short break

17.30: Utter Voice, performance by Erica Scourti

18.15: Screening, shorts

Shelly SilverWhat I’m Looking for (2004), 15’

Eva StefaniThe Kiss (2007), 4’

Followed by coffee break

18.45: Tour of the Modern Love exhibition by Katerina Gregos followed by the activation of Ariane Loze’s performative participatory work Our Cold Loves (2023), Floor: -1

20.00: Break

21.00: Screening: Gabriel AbrantesArtificial Humours (2016), 30’

21.40: Screening: Valerie KontakosQueen of the Deuce** (2022), 1h 18’, followed by a Q&A with the director and Anna Mykoniati, curator, EMΣΤ.

23.00: Drinks at the bar and playlist by flex in the mind (Berlin), inspired by Modern Love

** Valerie Kontakos’ documentary Queen of the Deuces is shown exclusively on Vodafone TV.

 

SUNDAY 01.10

*12.30: Keynote speech: Srećko HorvatLove in the Age of AI intimacies, followed by Q & A with the audience

13.45: Lunch break

14.30: Screening: Cecile B. EvansWhat the Heart Wants (2016), 41’

15.30: Keynote speech: Nóra Ó Murchú, curator, researcher and artistic director, Transmediale, Berlin: The Never Ending Hellscape of Online Datingfollowed by Q & A with the audience

16.30: Video shorts

Lauren Lee McCarthy, Social Turkers (2013), 1’ 49’’

Lauren Lee McCarthy & Kyle McDonaldpplkpr (2015), 1’

Jonas Lund, video presentation of One on One +1 (2021), 5’ 16”

16.45: Screening: Kyriaki GoniThe Portal or Let’s Stand Still for the Whales (2020), 6’ 11’’ followed by artist’s talk entitled Data sets of love and other stories

17.45: Music video break

18.00: Screening: Maja BorgFuture My Love (2012), 1h 37’

19.45: Screening: Melanie BonajoNight Soil – Economy of Love (2015), 32’ 46”

Introduced by Arjon Dunnewind

Throughout the duration of the Modern Love Festival Maria Tsagkari’s participatory performance #loveshots or collected histories of an infinite longing (2020) will take place in the ΕΜΣΤ Foyer on the ground floor

Friday 29th of September 18∶30-20∶30
Saturday 30th of September 12∶00-20∶00
Sunday 1st of October 12∶00-20∶00

Visitors are invited to take part

*Kyriaki Goni and Maria Tsagkari are Visual Arts SNF ARTWORKS Fellows.

Group Show “Outraged by pleasure” curated by Nadia Argyropoulou

In a letter dated September 29, 1962, writer Nikos Kachtitsis (1926–1970) addresses his friend Epameinondas Ch. Gonatas (1924–2006), writer of O Taxidiotis [The Traveller] (1945), with dismay at the latter’s doubts about the aforementioned debut short story of his: “…I am stunned by your cruel and dismissive manner vis-à-vis this little masterpiece of yours, which made me outraged by pleasure [exo frenon apo efcharistisi] … while the entire work is based on the absence of even the slightest plausibility, at no time is the reader not assured that all of this is real.”* The exhibition and events titled outraged by pleasure start from the ambivalent co-existence of outrage and pleasure in this paradoxical utterance within the sociocultural, literary and political context of its times, and moves on to explore what the phrase may mean in the present and in the future and in relation to the fields of life and art amidst various crises and urgencies.

Outraged by pleasure tries to make sense, with and through all that participates in it, of pleasure in its shapeshifting and multiversality within current “outrageous” circumstances: complex artistic practices, fights and assertions related to gender and sexuality, activist initiatives, communal (re)formations, a tidal turn to conservative politics and the painful fail of progressive ones, a pervading feel of doom-and-gloom induced by the destruction of the natural environment, the rapid reign of immaterial communications and digital economics, the extraordinary normalization of inequalities.

Outraged by pleasure wishes to trace the possibility of another connection to joy, delight, excitement, enjoyment; to imagine into existence the possibility of reclaiming “outrageous pleasure” from the technocapitalist imaginary and its diminishing futurology, from the far right’s macho perversion of wildness, from colonialist-type censorial abuses within wokeculture claims, from all-levelling practices of commoning and institutional appropriations.

Outraged by pleasure wishes to examine the (re)connection of pleasure to post-growth practices of environmental care and social justice; to processes of descaling and mutuality; to reconsiderations of an architecture of enjoyment; to queer approaches of care, generosity, solidarity; to native traditions and anti-colonial movements (such as buen vivir, quilombismo, etc.); to humour as a transformative power of subversion (as this appears in the work of Sara Ahmed and Silvia Federici); to rewilding and the untamed “aesthetics of bewilderment” (Jack Halberstam); to the ecstatic accuracy (found in Kachititsis’s “rabid readings,” in Gonatas’s “literature of subversion,” in the hitherto unknown paintings of pioneer filmmaker Antoinetta Angelidi, in the surrealistic visionary works of Marie Wilson- Valaoritis, in the political aesthetics of Kostas Sfikas’s cinema, in the solitary experience of Thanasis Totsikas’s craftsmanship, in the collectively-developed-over-many-years activism of Teos Romvos and Chara Pelekanou for the salvation of the insular environment); to the complex sense of reciprocity described by Michael Taussig; to the ambiguity of inconvenient objects such as the jumping beans that drove a wedge between Caillois and Breton; to Michel Serres’s “marvellous trampoline”; to the detection of radical futurisms attempted by T. J. Demos; etc.

Outraged by pleasure unfolds in space as a convivial collective study, with the intense physicality, the disquieting mood and unhierachical emergence of the questions it poses: How often do insurrectionary dynamics turn into guilt, or transform into (self-)punitive didacticism, paralyzing grief, numbness, or even neoliberal self-improvement technologies and soft philosophies, in the face of the relentless politics of destruction and the cosmogony that legitimize and prolong them? How do friendship, love, solidarity, radical pedagogy, the perception of multiple shades, the “from the bottom up” demands materialize today, in the various different contemporary circumstances and possibilities of affirmation, denial, representation? How does the phrase “outraged by pleasure” translate into different linguistic environments and hence different philosophical worldviews or cognitive approaches (e.g. enjoyment, jouissance, etc.), or how could it be perceived beyond the boundaries of language? What might be the stance towards it of independent entities and initiatives of the public sphere (the “dark matter” according to Gregory Sholette)? How can we even perceive “outraged by pleasure” in the more-than-human world? Outraged by pleasure is conceived, and will attempt to unfold, as a world of many worlds, an oddkin created by all invited people and entities, with or without material characteristics. Invited artists and curators from Greece and abroad co-shape and co-animate its “outraged by pleasure” body in many different directions.

Outraged by pleasure will be held in the half-finished, under-construction “Nobel” building in Chalandri, a space that is associated with both the idiosyncratic desire of its founder George Markou (1946–2017) and, primarily, the resilient persistence of the City of Chalandri to claim its socially and culturally extrovert presence (something that was already marked by the interdisciplinary event “The Forest’s Riddle,” September 2022–January 2023). The program of events, attached hereto, will be successively updated in detail. It includes performances, tributes on queer initiatives and collectives, film screenings in special curatorial groups, performative speeches on social ecology and degrowth, musical events, etc. It will be updated during the course of the show. A detailed description of each curatorial intervention will be included in the exhibition’s leaflet.

Outraged by pleasure is curated by Nadja Argyropoulou and shared by the following artists, art entities, curators:

Antoinetta Angelidi, Patricia Apergi & Aerites Dance Company, Tosh Basco, The Callas (Lakis Ionas & Aris Ionas), Daglara, Sofia Dona, Navine G. Dossos with James Bridle, Georgia Fambris, Family Business, iLiana Fokianaki (with Danae Io, Harun Farocki, Mary Zygouri), FYTA, Ιoanna Gerakidi (with Yianna Charachlianni, Leah Clements, Anna Savvatopoulou), Pinelopi Gerasimou, Hypercomf, Dimitris Ioannou, Xenia Kalpaktsoglou with [Pegy Zali, Sofoklis Koutsourelis, Panagiotis Lianos] and Athina Koumparouli, Lito Kattou, Dionisis Kavallieratos, Blaise Kirschner, Katerina Komianou, Konstantinos Ladianos, LALA, Kostas Lambridis, Iris Lykourioti, Irini Miga, Rashaad Newsome, Nionia Films (Maria F. Dolores, Sofia Dona, Alkisti Efthymiou, Smaro Papaevangelou), Malvina Panagiotidi, Aggelos Papadimitriou, Eva Papamargariti, Agnieszka Polska, Filipa Ramos (with Rosalind Fowler, Goutam Ghosh & Jason Havneraas, Mariana Murcia, Lea Porsager, Ani Schulze), Teos Romvos & Chara Pelekanou, Kostas Sfikas, Gabriella Simossi, Panos Sklavenitis, Kostis Stafylakis & Theo Triantafyllidis, Nancy Stamatopoulou (with Nicoleta Chatzopoulou, Makis Faros, Tassos Vrettos), Eva Stefani, Valinia Svoronou, Temporary Academy of Arts, Eleni Tomadaki, Thanassis Totsikas, Antigoni Tsagkaropoulou / Bunny, VASKOS (Vassilis Noulas & Kostas Tzimoulis), Marina Velisioti, Nikos Velmos, Hypatia Vourloumis (with Jackie Abhulimen, Maria F. Dolores, Eleni Ikoniadou, Maria Sideri, Taka Taka), Iria Vrettou, Rea Walldén, Marie Wilson-Valaoritis (with Zoe Valaoritis & Katerina Valaoritis)

Curator: Nadja Argyropoulou
Curatorial Assistant: Adrianos Efthymiadis
Visual Identity and Print Material: Eva Papamargariti
Audiovisual Design and Installation: Makis Faros, Antonis Gkatzougiannis
Contributing Architect: Sofia Tektonidou
Εvents Αssistant: Stephanie Orati
Lighting Design: Nikos Vlasopoulos
Text Editing: Fotini Pipi
Transport and Installation of Artworks: Move
Art Insurance: Karavias
Underwriting Agency S.A. Production: Laika Productions, AtoZ communication & strategy P.C.C.
The works of Nikos Velmos are exhibited courtesy of The American College of Greece Art Collection, Gift of Takis Efstathiou

Organization: City of Chalandri
Sponsor: FLYA, Municipal SA for the Management of the City of Chalandri’s Real Estate
Sponsor: Karavias Underwriting Agency S.A.

Duration of Exhibition: Friday, Sept. 29 to Sunday, Nov. 12, 2023
Visiting Hours: Wednesday – Friday 18:00–21:30 Saturday & Sunday 12:30–18:00 (Closed on Saturday, Oct. 28)
Admission to the exhibition and all events is free of charge.
“Nobel” building – cultural space in the City of Chalandri Ivis 30 & Tymphristou, 152 34 Chalandri M3, Chalandri stop | OASA, line 447, Ardittou stop
The building is accessible for the disabled only on its ground floor.
Contact: [email protected]
Follow us on Instagram: @outragedbypleasure

 

“CAREER PATHS” | Professional Development Week @ ASFA ORGANIZED & CURATED BY ARTWORKS

Students and alumni of the Athens School of Fine Arts (ASFA) are invited to attend “Career Paths”, a weekly program consisting of professional development events organized and curated by ARTWORKS.

CAREER PATHS, 2nd week
Professional Development Week
Monday 2 October – Friday 6 October, 2023
10 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Amphitheater of ASFA Library (Pireos 256, Ag. I. Rentis)

Curated and organized by ARTWORKS

one work show: “All the sticks, spears and swords, blades entwined.” | Ileana Arnaoutou & Ismene King

The third presentation of the one work show series is presenting a new body of work by the artist duo Ileana Arnaoutou and Ismene King under the title All the sticks, spears and swords, blades entwined . Drawn to questions concerning the environment and femininity, the artist duo explores fragmented structures within immediate surroundings. The site specific approach evolves around the re-use of materials which already exist, the re-assemblage of fragmented shapes as well as re
– thinking the perception of our realities.

As part of the new production Arnaoutou and King collected fragments of a wind turbine which was destroyed during a storm by a strike of lightning. The broken turbine parts were found and selected at the Perme recycling site in Ritsona, Greece. Arnaoutou and King were particularly drawn to fragments that revealed both, the aerodynamic shape as well as the industrial character of the firm structures. When looking at the chosen structures, one can interpret them as a dichotomy of materiality. The material is alienated from its natural state and only through the artistic practice it is re- trans
ated into an organic form. Once firm and heavy, Arnaoutou and King bend the structures of the wind turbine just like weaving any organic fiber. This translation of visible shapes symbolizes notions of regeneration.

All the sticks, spears and swords, blades entwined
Ileana Arnaoutou & Ismene King
05–27 October 2023
Opening day: 05 October 2023, 7 pm–10 pm

https://callirrhoe.info/

*Ileana Arnaoutou and Ismene King are SNF ARTWORKS Fellows.

Pytheas Travels | Hypercomf & Maja S. K. Ratkje with Ergon Ensemble

Four musicians, a video with landscapes of Tinos and Northern Norway, a party on board, and AI developers meeting in the belly of a whale. A surrealistic cruise from the Mediterranean to the northern countries, with the journey of Pytheas the Greek—the unassailable explorer of antiquity—in its very center.

Do you find it hard to float through life? Do you feel tangled in the nets of your daily routine and seek escape? Embark on one of the state-of-the-art vessels of Pytheas Travels cruise fleet and become part of the most oceanic experience of your life. A musical cruise with four musicians of the Ergon Ensemble as passengers and a video screening as a backdrop: a compilation of animation, live shootings on board and in various locations in Tinos and Northern Norway, as well as green screen footage, all inspired by the sea element. The immersive experience of “Pytheas Travels” includes furthermore many surrealistic touches that involve opulent parties, a great wildfire, as well as AI developers that meet in the belly of the whale. Shall we hop on board?

The title of the performance refers to the historical journey of Pytheas the Greek—the Columbus of antiquity—where in 325 BC sailed north from Marseilles to a place he called Ultima Thule, the mythical island, to reach the “frozen seas.” Unable to extend the exploration of the mythical lands of Northern Europe, Pytheas returned to the Mediterranean to document his legendary journey in a manuscript titled “On the Ocean” which vanished forever in the great fire of the Library of Alexandria.

“Pytheas Travels” is a staged audiovisual simulation of the experience of being on board a passenger vessel, traveling from the Mediterranean to the Northern Seas. It is a maritime story, an imaginary journey, and a critical insight into the mass tourism industry and its consequences on environmental, cultural, and societal structures.

The music score is courtesy of pioneering Norwegian composer and performer Maja Solveig Kjelstrup Ratkje, for whom in 2015 the Financial Times noted that “she brings a feral disregard for conventional form, combined with an extravagant imagination, linking it all to a fascination with the human voice and its communicative possibilities. Her works are dramatic, engaging, and wildly diverse.”

Athens, Onassis Stegi

* Hypercomf (Paola Palavidi & Ioannis Kolliopoulos) are SNF ARTWORKS Fellows.

“SYMBIOTICS” A GROUP EXHIBITION CURATED BY MISS DIALECTIC

Symbiotics, by the miss dialectic curatorial team, was chosen through an open call process by EMΣΤ | National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens, for the submission of proposals for a group exhibition. A contemporary narrative on coexistence, which focuses on the process of communication through female art practices, defines the conceptual core of the project, which comprises a group exhibition, framed by a broad programme of public events. The exhibition presents works by four contemporary Greek visual artists – Chrysanthi Koumianaki, Karolina Krasouli, Christina Mitrentse, and Maria Varela – as well as by the artist group Phantom Investigations (Giannis Delagrammatikas and Ino Varvariti). Compositions by Chryssa, Bia Davou, and Nausica Pastra, from the EMΣT collection, complete the exhibition, whose starting point, in fact, according to the curatorial team, is the series of drawings Serial Structures 2 – Odyssey by Bia Davou. The Symbiotic Discourses of the public programme include workshops and educational events (by Karolina Krasouli, Christina Mitrentse, and Maria Varela), performances (by Chrysanthi Koumianaki), and a performative lecture (by Phantom Investigations).

The use of the grid as a common structural component of the works in the exhibition functions in a unifying manner, defining a literal, or even an imaginary, space within which the concepts of equilibrium, seriality, repetition, succession and – potentially – liberation and expansion into the real and the public space, are dynamically imposed. The grid, in addition, is connected to weaving – an activity that has been traditionally linked to the place and role of women. Weaving is here elevated as a fine art practice, turning the process of handicraft into a tool of empowerment of the female in contemporary art and connecting it to different versions of the visual, textual, scientific, and technological language. This medium is common in the practice of the visual artists taking part in the exhibition, heightening the symbiotic and conceptual system of their coexistence. At the same time, they share features such as the reuse of motifs and symbols (also) from their earlier works, which are inherent in and converse with their subsequent proposals.

Emphasising the process of creation through fragmentary images and codes, using a broad range of art mediums, the works presented in the Symbiotics exhibition create space and rhythm, become poetic gestures and contemplations on contemporary reality and the history of art itself, and weave their own narrative on the female in art, “in a room of one’s own” (Virginia Woolf).

At the opening of the exhibition, three performances by Chrysanthi Koumianaki are presented from 20:00 in the exhibition space as well as in other common areas of the Museum.

You can find more here.

*Klea Charitou and and Kelly Tsipni-Kolaza, co-founder of miss dialectic are SNF ARTWORKS Curatorial Fellows. Chrysanthi Koumianaki, Karolina Krasouli,  Maria Varela and Giannis Delagrammatikas member of the group Phantom Investigations are SNF ARTWORKS Visual Fellows.

5 FELLOWS WERE AWARDED AT THE SECTON “GREEK SHORT STORIES” OF THE 29th Athens International Film Festival

For the 29th Athens International Film Festival 47 short movies directed by Greek filmmakers competed for the awards.

Check below the SNF ARTWORKS Fellows (moving image) awardees:

Golden Athena Award
LIGHT OF LIGHT by Neritan Zinxhiria (SNF ARTWORKS Fellow 2018)

Silver Athena Award
UNORTHODOX by Konstantinos Antonopoulos (SNF ARTWORKS Fellow 2019)

Best Director Award
MIDNIGHT SKIN by Manolis Mavris (SNF ARTWORKS Fellow 2018)

Special Mention
ANGRY FISH by Kostas Chaliasas (SNF ARTWORKS Fellow 2022)

More info here.

Congrats to all!

AKIS KOKKINOS @ SAHA

SNF ARTWORKS Curatorial Fellow 2022 Akis Kokkinos will depart for Istanbul this week to join the SAHA curatorial residency program. During his residency he aspires to gain valuable insights into the dynamic Turkish artistic scene with the aim to connect with artists and curators who may contribute to upcoming DEO projects, where transnational dialogue across borderland cultures in the neighboring countries is being fostered.

Good luck with everything Akis!

You can find more info about SAHA Association here.