Author: gourgourini

ARTWORKS x NEW CENTRE

We are thrilled to continue our collaboration with The New Centre for Research & Practice and offer to all the SNF ARTWORKS Fellows from the previous five cycles of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) Artist Fellowship Program the complimentary participation in all the seminars provided at the New Centre platform and the free access to the New Centre’s archive!

The New Centre for Research & Practice central mandate has been to provide new possibilities for learning, especially those who practice their work outside or in-between existing institutional frameworks in the Arts, Humanities, & Sciences. As the New Centre states, Technological developments of the last few decades not only are fundamentally changing the way knowledge is disseminated in the global society but transforming the very idea of knowledge if not also how we remunerate and award knowledgeability to individuals.

Providing research and educational opportunities to SNF ARTWORKS Fellows and engaging them with art professionals from all over the world is a key aspiration of ARTWORKS.

For currently running seminars check here.

For past seminars visit New Centre archive.

3 FELLOWS PARTICIPATE @ “IN SITU REALITIES – Eleusis Documentary Festival”

The 1st In Situ Realities – Eleusis Documentary Festival, a legacy project of 2023 Eleusis, is inaugurated with 12 premieres of documentary films, inspired by Elefsina and the surrounding areas, and with important collaborations from the world of cinema.

The programme is complemented by a series of masterclasses with renowned Greek directors, as well as educational programmes and screenings for children.

Inviting us to turn our gaze to Elefsina and immerse ourselves in what the city always offers generously, the stories of people and the identities of places and landscapes, the 1st In Situ Realities – Eleusis Documentary Festival opens on Friday 15 December with the iconic work Mystery 31 The Eleusinians by Filippos Koutsaftis, produced by 2023 Eleusis, with the parallel opening of another venue, that of cine Eleusis, and marks the beginning of celebrations for the Closing Ceremony of 2023 Eleusis, Mystery 1 CLOSING: OPENING, A ceremony.

For five days until Tuesday 19 December, more than 12 short and feature-length documentaries, produced or co-produced by 2023 Eleusis, will be screened in a nationwide premiere, including the new documentary by Filippos Koutsaftis titled Mystery 31 The Eleusinians (23 years after Agelastos Petra [Mourning Rock]), Mystery 69 Greekies by Menelaos Karamaghiolis, dedicated to abandoned and stray animals of all kinds, and Marianna Economou’s Dark Waters, which explores the city’s relationship with the sea. The programme also includes six documentaries focusing on West Attica under the general title Mystery 23 The Western Towns, created by six young filmmakers after a year spent wandering in the region: Pavlos Kosmidis, Giorgos Kravvaritis, Katerina Markoulaki, Fani Bitou, Panagiotis Papafragkos and Christiana Chiranagnostaki. The main programme of the Festival could not be without the cinematic approach to music. Short musical journeys inspired by Elefsina, from Greek tradition to contemporary electronic sound: Mystery 96 Chóres – The Kafkos (traditional Cretan rizitiko song) by Harry Koushos, Stereo Nova Video Club by Spyros Skandalos, and finally, Mystery 0 Mysteries of Transition – Opening Ceremony.

Among several important collaborations is the Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival, which presents a series of exquisite films including the recently awarded short film by Syllas Tzoumerkas My Mother is a Saint and the film Mother of Daughters by Elke Lehrenkrauss and Gioula Boudali, both co-produced by 2023 Eleusis. The recently awarded documentaries Under the Sky of Damascus by Talal Derki, Heba Khaled & Ali Wajeeh and The Voice by Dominika Montean-Pańków will also be screened. The Peloponnisos International Documentary Film Festival selects the film Kapr Code by Lucie Králová, while a documentary dedicated to the history of Panelefsiniakos, The Wheat on the Shirt by Yiannis Kanakis, Yiannis Panayiotarakos and Anna Psarra, produced in collaboration with the Public Benefit Enterprise of the Municipality of Elefsina, reveals the long history of the sports club and its impact on the local community.

The heart of the festival is set in the historic and recently restored space of cine Eleusis, 35 years after it ceased to operate. The main screenings and masterclasses with Filippos Koutsaftis, Eva Stefani, Menelaos Karamaghiolis and Syllas Tzoumerkas will take place in the main hall, while in the specially designed lounge area, Small Screens, the audience will be able to watch documentation from the activities of 2023 Eleusis.

Moreover, 2023 Eleusis in collaboration with the Peloponnisos International Documentary Film Festival and the Exile Room will transform the Canteen art hub into a hotbed of cinematic creativity for teenagers and children through workshops and screenings, from Friday 15 to Sunday 17 December.

Finally, Mystery 110 ORFEAS, a special site-specific video installation by Eva Stefani, brings the old Orfeas cinema back to life.

Mystery 31 The Eleusinians by Filippos Koutsaftis is implemented in the framework of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan Greece 2.0 with funding from the European Union – NextGenerationEU.

Check out the Catalogue of the Festival here.

SNF ARTWORKS Fellows participating in the Festival: Spyros Skandalos, Christiana Chiranagnostaki, Elian Roumie.

IN SITU REALITIES Eleusis Documentary Festival
15.12.2023—19.12.2023

Admission to the main screenings is by ticket. Tickets: 3€ – 5€

For the workshops for teenagers, please book your seat here: https://form.jotform.com/233383349464362

Introducing SNF Interns to ARTWORKS

We had the pleasure to welcome the current SNF interns to our office where we gave them a brief presentation of ARTWORKS and the work we do through the SNF Artist Fellowship Program. Following our discussion, we accompanied the participants to the studios of our dear SNF ARTWORKS Visual Arts Fellows: Petros Moris, Theodoros Giannakis and Rania Bellou. Each artist presented selected artworks and talked about the inspiration and rationale behind their work and research. Once again, a big thank you to our Fellows for always being such great company and for sharing interesting concepts and ideas.

Find out more about The Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) Internship Program here.

 

4 FELLOWS PARTICIPATE AT THE GROUP EXHIBITION “WOMEN, TOGETHER”

The entirety of a museum collection can never be permanently on show, as its size invariably exceeds the available exhibition space. Changing the presentation of the collection is necessary to renew the works, to showcase those that have not been seen before, and to demonstrate that a museum, as well as its collection, are lively entities, and not moribund apothecaries of the past. Moreover, as history is neither fixed, nor singular, the acquisitions policy of a museum of contemporary art should reflect this.

The exhibition, WOMEN, together, is the first re-hang of the museum’s collection in its permanent home, the former FIX brewery, since the initial presentation in 2019.

To address a major issue confronting all museums today: the under-representation of women and the urgency regarding gender equality – one of the main shared concerns underlying all ‘waves’ of feminism over the years, no matter how different – EMΣΤ has decided to make a bold statement with this exhibition and highlight exclusively the work of women artists in its collection.

Curated by Katerina Gregos and Eleni Koukou, WOMEN, together features works from EMΣΤ’s collection, including the first presentation of a number of works from the D.Daskalopoulos Collection Gift to EMΣΤ, the most important and generous donation in the museum’s history.

There are a total of 49 works by 25 artists of different generations, ten of which are Greek. Twelve artists and 24 works are from the D.Daskalopoulos Collection Gift, while twelve artists and 25 works are from the existing collection of ΕΜΣΤ. The exhibition also includes seven new acquisitions, as well as a new long-term loan of a major work by Etel Adnan (Lebanon), courtesy of the Saradar Collection (Paris/Beirut).

Although there is no single thematic narrative, as that would be restrictive within the framework of a collection exhibition, there are many common points of reference and dialogue as well as conceptual and aesthetic affinities between the works on view. The artists are preoccupied with a variety of issues, both related to gender and identity, as well as to social and political issues, and the entanglements between them. They also predominantly share an interest in materiality and the handcrafted, and the ephemeral nature of all things.

There are several works that incorporate and re-signify objects and materials extracted from the domestic/everyday environment which are transformed through meticulous manual sculptural processes, and fragile gestures. A preoccupation with the complexity of human existence is evident in several works, as is an interest in entropy, breakdown, decay, and fragility, reflecting the current state of uncertainty widely prevalent today. There are enquiries into the body as a site of contestation and the multiple renderings of its meaning in relation to domesticity, work, sexuality, and self-representation. While the majority of works are not focused on the female condition per se, there is an underlying preoccupation with questions of equity or oppression and difference.

Finally, there are artists who probe issues regarding history, memory and collective/cultural identities centring around the critical geopolitical position of Greece and its immediate geographic surrounds in the Mediterranean, Southeast Europe, the Middle East and the former Levant. These are the territories of the former Ottoman Empire and with them come a multitude of suppressed or marginalised histories that lay dormant in the wake of new nation building. The legacy and current history of this wider region with its rich historical, cultural, and socio-political narratives lie at the heart of EMΣΤ’s renewed collection policy.

Artists featured in WOMEN, together include: Etel Adnan (1925, Beirut, Lebanon), Diana Al-Hadid (1981, Aleppo, Syria), Ghada Amer (1963, Cairo, Egypt), Helene Appel (1976, Karlsruhe, Germany), Bertille Bak (1983, Arras, France), Karla Black (1972, Alexandria, UK), Hera Büyüktaşciyan (1984, Istanbul, Turkey), Christina Dimitriadis (1967, Thessaloniki, Greece), Marina Gioti (1972, Athens, Greece), Eleni Kamma (1973, Athens, Greece), Maria Loizidou (1958, Limassol, Cyprus), Tala Madani (1981, Tehran, Iran), Despina Meimaroglou (1944, Alexandria, Egypt), Annette Messager (1943, Berck-Sur-Mer, France), Tracey Moffatt (1960, Brisbane, Australia), Eleni Mylonas (1944, Athens, Greece), Rivane Neuenschwander (1967, Belo Horizonte, Brazil), Cornelia Parker (1956, Cheshire, UK), Agnieszka Polska (1985, Lublin, Poland), Christiana Soulou (1961, Athens, Greece), Aspa Stassinopoulou (1935–2017, Athens, Greece), Maria Tsagkari (1981, Piraeus, Greece), Paky Vlassopoulou (1985, Athens, Greece), Aleksandra Waliszewska (1976, Warsaw, Poland), and Gillian Wearing (1963, Birmingham, UK).

This is not a feminist project is a collaborative artistic/curatorial scheme between 2 women (Vasia Ntoulia & Mare Spanoudaki) based in Athens, with a focus on feminist issues. Through the combination of different practices, it highlights neglected histories and memories, while amplifying voices of contemporary femininities in order to subvert deep-rooted stereotypes and dominant narratives associated with patriarchy.

The exhibit presents the course of the feminist movement in Greece from 1979 until today. It is based on the existing digital timeline of the online platform of This is not a
feminist project and includes archival material from the following institutions, initiatives, individuals and groups: Women's Archive “Delfys”, the General Secretariat for Family Policy and Gender Equality, the Center for Gender Studies of Panteion University, Kiouri@, Beaver, Gender Panic, Antigoni Tsagkaropoulou, Emantes, Queer Ink, Ntizeza, Sex Harass Map, Orlando LGBT+ mental health beyond the stigma, Assembly for the 8th of March, Strap-On Unicorns, G – All, Historians on Research in the History of Women and Gender, Center of New Media and Feminist Public Practices.

WOMEN, together
New collection presentation
Curators: Katerina Gregos and Eleni Koukou
Level 3 Opening: Thursday 14 December 2024

*Maria Loizidou, Maria Tsagkari, Paky Vlassopoulou and Mare Spanoudaki are SNF ARTWORKS Fellows.

4 Fellows at the exhibition “Liminality”

With the exhibition “Liminality”, CITRONNE Gallery introduces another current problematic. It addresses challenges arising from a contemporary liquid reality that subverts traditional ways of being, identity and life – whether voluntarily or involuntarily. The transitional stage of moving from one state to another at both an individual and collective level is described, along with the associated “rituals.”. The artists Yorgos Yatromanolakis, Marina Papadaki, Natalia Papadopoulou and Maro Fasouli engage with the concept of liminality.

Liminality is a term introduced by the French ethnographer Arnold van Gennep* in his book The Rites of Passage in 1909*. It represents the middle stage of the three-part pattern “separation, transition, incorporation in rituals.” The exhibition repositions this concept in the context of contemporary experiences, a result of global developments. The curator of the exhibition Vicky Tsirou** broadens the term’s meaning and examines its contemporary expressions. As she points out in her curatorial text, “more recent interpretations encompass not only the notion of ritual but also changes in the social and political sphere. Today, in the era of ‘liquid modernity,’ we observe that the status quo, an entire value system, is in a state of continuous instability characterized by successive transitions, or in other words, by a permanent condition of liminality.”

The works in the exhibition trace ‘Liminality’ through four invisible passages: architectural structure, the course of history, the integration of tradition, and the inner experiential processes. The exhibition does not strictly align each artist’s work with a thematic axis but tends to place them on one of these four axes. The works are integrated into the gallery’s architectural structure, positioned in different rooms to reflect the analogy made by van Gennep of society with a house and its different rooms. Passages in the lives of individuals and social groups resemble movement between the internal spaces of a residence.

The paintings of Marina Papapadaki depict hybrid anthropomorphic and zoomorphic beings with flat colors and in spaces that intertwine the imaginary with the real, the interior with the exterior. The artist creates geometric structures resembling enigmatic systems for organizing reality. Some of her works’ titles, such as Great Horse Manure Crisis of 1894, refer to real historical and social events that the artist transcribes through patterns and illusory spaces. The concept of transition mainly signifies the incisions occurring through social reconfigurations.

The wall-mounted works and totemic sculptures by Maro Fasouli reframe folk tradition and the art of weaving using textures and various materials such as reeds and threads. Her compositions present weaving as detached from a given set of strict rules inherent in this folk art. The passage from convention and the reproduction of standardized patterns to the possibility of “error”, freedom and spontaneity opens the way for new ways of learning and promotes creative imagination. It also emphasizes women’s identity, labor and their relationship with embodied experience and nature.

The in-situ video installation Horses, Horses (2024) by Natalia Papadopoulou transforms the gallery’s long passage into an immersive audiovisual tunnel with soundscapes, speech, and intense visual images resembling traces or impressions. Logical sequence, empirical space, and time are abolished as the images intertwine or follow a non-linear, associative narration with alternating rhythms. Both the installation and her other two works in the exhibition reveal the poetic self, the inner, unconscious, or subconscious thoughts, and hidden aspects of the psyche that emerge in the condition of liminality.

The photographs by Yorgos Yatromanolakis from the sequence The Splitting of the Chrysalis & the Slow Unfolding of the Wings (2018) derive from on a personal, experiential passage from a previous to a new relationship with memories and the past. The process begins with the stage of separation, enters the stage of liminality and concludes with incorporation. The work parallels this experience with the biological cycle in nature and specifically the flight of the chrysalis. It suggests, by extension, the correlation that van Gennep makes between the periodicity of human transitions and of natural phenomena. Transitions organize time, and correspondingly, biological time defines transitions.

As a whole, the works constitute a multifaceted array of expressive means, qualities, textures, and sensations.

*Liminality refers to transitions from one life stage to another and from one social position to reintegration with a different role and new forms of relationships. It is an intermediate state in which boundaries between the conscious and the unconscious, the personal and the collective, space and time, become blurred. Often, the experience is embodied.

**Vicky Tsirou is an independent curator, art historian and art theorist.

***All artists – Maro Fasouli, Marina Papadaki, Natalia Papadopoulou, Yorgos Yatromanolakis- are SNF ARTWORKS Fellows

CITRONNE Gallery – ATHENS
Liminality
Maro Fasouli I Marina Papadaki
Natalia Papadopoulou I Yorgos Yatromanolakis

Curator: Vicky Tsirou
Opening: Thursday, 18 January, 19.00 – 22.00
Duration: 19 January – 2 March 2024

CITRONNE Gallery – Athens:
19 Patriarchou Ioakim 19 (4th floor)
10675 Kolonaki, Athens.
Tel. (+30) 210 7235 226
Email: [email protected]
Tue, Thu, Fri: 11.00-20.00
Wed, Sat: 11.00-16.00

Master of Fine Arts Degree Show

The Athens School of Fine Arts invites you to the 18th study cycle Master of Fine Arts Degree Show.

Participants: Athanasios Athanasiadis, Marianna Athanasiou, Artemis Chatziathanasiadou – Dede, Erifili Doukeli, Marilia Fotopoulou, Viki Gerofoka, Candy Karra

Location:

Athens School of Fine Arts – Pireos 256

MET studios building

*Erifili Doukeli is SNF ARTWORKS Visual Arts Fellow (2021)

GROUP EXHIBITION “Shifting”

Shifting
shifting adjective UK /ˈʃɪf.tɪŋ/ US /ˈʃɪf.tɪŋ/ always changing or moving

Curated by Florent Frizet

w/
Despina Charitonidi

Leo Chesneau

Nadja Geer

Agata Ingarden

Katerina Komianou

Danai Kotsaki

Anna Lascari

Nicolas Melemis

Dimitris Tampakis

Eleni Tomadaki

Marios Stamatis

Camille Yvert

 

Opening Saturday 20/01/2024, 7-10pm

Until 17/02/2024

Opening hours Wed to Sat 4-8pm

One Minute Space
Marathonos 71, Athens 10435

T: +30 6949085521
[email protected]

*Katerina Komianou, Eleni Tomadaki & Marios Stamatis are SNF ARTWORKS Visual Arts Fellows

UK Alumni Awards in Greece 2024 | 2 Fellows finalists in the Culture and Creativity Award category

Despina Zacharopoulou (SNF ARTWORKS Visual Arts Fellow  2021), Georgia Paizi (SNF ARTWORKS Dance Fellow 2021) and Dr Steriani Tsintziloni (member of the dance selection committee for the 3rd SNF Artist Fellowship Program by ARTWORKS) are the three finalists  in the Culture and Creativity Award category of the UK Alumni Awards in Greece.

For more information on the UK Alumni Awards 2024 in Greece, please visit:
https://www.britishcouncil.gr/en/study-uk/alumni-awards

For more information on this year’s finalists, please visit:
https://www.britishcouncil.gr/sites/default/files/alumni-awards-2024-greece-finalists.pdf

Despina Zacharopoulou’s article “Contracts as Protocols of Governmentality in Performance Art” in Performance Research Journal

Despina Zacharopoulou’s (SNF ARTWORKS Fellow 2021) text “Contracts as Protocols of Governmentality in Performance Art” is now available as an Open Access article in Performance Research Journal ‘On Meeting’ Vol. 28, Issue 2 (2023), edited by Simon Bayly and Johanna Linslay. Cover Image: Mark Robson.

Abstract
This essay raises questions regarding meeting protocols as a form of art practice. Drawing on recent examples from my performance works, I initiate a discussion about how contracts in performance art might operate as protocols of governmentality, offering morphogenetic structures towards other ways of ‘meeting with’. The term ‘governmentality’ is used to designate all those ‘regulatory apparatuses (dispositives)’ that exercise power via protocols of economy and circulation, to engender new subjectivities (Foucault 2007), whereas the term ‘morphogenesis’ is employed to describe processes where the genesis of forms follows a sensuous logic of structural disposition or tendency that organizes disparities of potential events. One could argue that in the 1970s, several performance artists adopted contractual methods of negotiating their meeting with an audience in order to critically expose the power dynamics existing within everyday hierarchical relations (O’Dell 1998). In so doing, contracts often demarcated the roles of the artist and the audience from the outset of the live work, as already fixed, separate subjectivities, thus sustaining binary essentialist categories (for example subject vs. object, and so on) as met within the philosophical tradition of dialectics (Golding 2021). However, in my performance works brought forward, contracts operate as protocols of governmentality, offering morphogenetic structures governing the thickness and the porosity of boundaries within the ways that people come to meet with one another, without pre-determining any final outcomes or assigning specific roles to the parties involved. Contracts in this case establish a set of meeting protocols that generate and distribute intensities through the organization of areas of possibilities for the emergence of potential events. And it is within this shifting topography of events that subjectivities emerge through the ways that bodies affect and are affected by other bodies via processes of use.

For a full PDF version of Despina Zacharopoulou’s article, please visit: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10.1080/13528165.2023.2260705?needAccess=true&fbclid=IwAR2acYHFiB-oWwzIMMv5OJtS35xA-vC9a_oyOJgGXmFdBHR_a21dEt3ICCw

For the whole Issue of Performance Research ‘On Meeting’, please visit:
https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rprs20/28/2

 

On the Sea of my Tttttongue [θθθθθάλασσα – στην άκρη της γλώσσας] CURATED BY CATERINA STAMOU

Αμμωνίτες: from Lake Garda to Athens, the hands carry the limestone like a memory. The body leaves something of itself on the fossil; both transient, they historicize themselves through their embrace. ⸹
Βοτσαλωτά: ceramic pebbles, unwalked. Can a field research fit in the palm of two hands? Cut in half, their nature is followed by a thought, the pebbles to come in pairs, like waves. ☼ ⸛
Γοργόνες: poetesses of liquidity. From the shoal to the shore they recite their poetry with stutters. Their aim is to break the language of the beachgoers in half, like an oyster. ϒ
Δίχτυ: permeable body, vulnerable. Being cut, it changes into something new, performing a transformation. ⸎
Εμπιστοσύνη: practiced through active listening as the dolphins swim next to each other. ⸨
Ζωγραφιές: frescoes you saw in your sleep; if someone looks at them, she gets a glimpse of your dreams. Ꜣ
Ηώς (ή Έως): what if she’s not the Sun’s sister, but the Sun herself? She arrives fiercely to build networks of light, only to leave afterwards to what her myth has built for her. No one really knows her, only the bronze reflections of the dawn. ☼
Θεότητες: all of them are multilingual, they talk about «θθθθθάλασσα», “mmmmmare” and “bbbbbahr”. ⸾ ⸧ ⸛
Ιστορία: the air brings her towards us since the iodine-like smell of the saline water contains her. ⸛
Καλυψώ: once you find her (coordinates 36°34′N 21°8′E) she’ll tell you she never forced him to stay, he was the one who wouldn’t leave. ⸖
Λήμνος ή/και Λέσβος: you took Leucothea’s rage for Poseidon and turned it into affection, sublimated into ethnographies of the northeastern Aegean islands. ⸨
Μνήμη της θάλασσας: what if the tides are nothing more than the release of elevated grief? Ꝍ
Νέα μυθολογία: all the primordial creatures they hid from you at school now come to life through you, and are reflected in the marble as you contemplate it. Ꜣ
Ξεχασμένο: water is not nation-centric. ⸧
Όσφρηση: beyond language, it functions as an intrusive antidote to collective amnesia. ⸶
Παραλία: vibrant dream whose materials you wish to recover. ϒ
Ρόκα: you pull it out of your belt as if it were a sword and visualize your own theory of affect. ⸶
Σιμόν Φατάλ: Etel Adnan dedicated to her a chapter about the sea in which she wrote: “the sea’s instincts collaborate with ours to create thinking”. ⸛
Τηθύς: unclassifiable memory, ineradicable. Common between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. ⸹
Υφαντά: beyond the loom, they are spoken like throbs, written like foams, read like pulses. ⸎
Φεγγάρι: for thirteen months it has been shining for you to embroider your book. And as its phases change, so do your poems. ⸙
Χρόνος: the dysfluent speech of the waves creates it anew. ⸙ ⸾
Ψαράκι: coping mechanism is its short term memory, since everything it sees accumulates in the multiple layers of its eyes. Ꝍ
Ωροσκόπιο: it points to where the sea intersects; the horizon on the tip of your tongue. ⸖ ⸧ ⸾

Curated by Caterina Stamou. Artists: ⸖ Mairy Antonopoulou, ⸎ Maria Ikonomopoulou, ⸙ Marianna Karava, Ꝍ Athina Koumparouli, Ꜣ Elina Niarchou, ϒ Astra Papachristodoulou, ⸹ Irene Ragusini, ⸶ Elektra Stampoulou, ⸨ Ειρήνη Τηνιακού, ☼ Myrto Vratsanou ||| Poetic references: ⸛ Etel Adnan, ⸾ Jjjjjerome Ellis, ⸧ Vera Linder

On the Sea of my Tttttongue [θθθθθάλασσα – στην άκρη της γλώσσας]

γκαλερί Gramma_Epsilon 

Duration: February 8 – March 9, 2024

Opening hours: Tuesday to Saturday: 11:00-19:00

*Caterina Stamou, Athina Koumparouli, Elina Niarchou, Irene Ragusini, Elektra Stampoulou, Irini Tiniakou, Myrto Vratsanou are SNF ARTWORKS Fellows. 

KYRIAKI GONI @ Serpentine Cinema: An Act of Wonder and Gratitude

A programme of artists’ moving image works which share reflections on technology, ritual and the more-than-human world.

This evening of screenings includes works by Patricia Dominguez, Kyriaki Goni, Agnieszka Polska, Laure Prouvost, Tabita Rezaire, Selvagem/Ailton Krenak, and Emilija Škarnulytė. The programme will be accompanied by live interventions by artists Kyriaki Goni and Patricia Dominguez.

An Act of Wonder and Gratitude was originally curated by Lucia Pietroiusti, Serpentine Head of Ecologies, as part of the Woods: More-than-Human-Curiosity symposium. Organised by are-events.org, the event takes place annually in the Orlické Mountains, Czech Republic. Woods operates at the intersection of contemporary art, the landscape, human health, and interspecies coexistence.

Serpentine Cinema: An Act of Wonder and Gratitude
Part of Serpentine Ecologies
Offsite / Ciné Lumière, Institut Français du Royaume-Uni, 17 Queensberry Place, London SW7 2DW
Monday 12 February 2024, 7-9.30pm
PRICE: £9, £7 CONC

Programme:

Patricia Dominguez, Matrix Vegetal, 2022

Emilija Škarnulytė, Sunken Cities, 2021

Kyriaki Goni, The Mountain Islands Shall Mourn us Eternally (Data Garden Dolomites), 2022

Tabita Rezaire, Premium Connect, 2016

Laure Prouvost, Into all that is here, 2015

Agnieszka Polska, The Book of Flowers, 2023

Selvagem/Ailton Krenak, Time and Love, 2022

*Kyriaki Goni is SNF ARTWORKS Visual Arts Fellow (2018)

Anastasia Valsamaki presents “as she rests, the wrestler bleeds her promises”, an exhibition curated by Ioanna Gerakidi

On Saturday, February 10th, at 8pm, Anastasia Valsamaki presents “as she rests, the wrestler bleeds her promises”, an exhibition curated by Ioanna Gerakidi. Hosted at opbo studio until March 1st, the show is a presentation of archives, sculptural gestures, films, and words, arising from or responding to the dance performance “W REST L ING”. The performance, conceived and choreographed by Anastasia Valsamaki, will be presented at 9 pm during the opening night.

“W REST L ING” utilises wrestling as a tool to see through the surface of a combat sport and to explore further the seemingly contradictory forces or expressions residing in our ways of acting, enacting, attacking and attracting defense or resistance. It instead aims to unleash the significance of the times, spaces and interactions occurring in-between those modes; to look with them as mechanisms that can feed or disrupt these active dynamics. Thinking through the semantics coming with the verticality of bodies or objects standing or moving, versus their horizontality when laying or standing still, Valsamaki’s work explores the meanings, understandings and interpretations of vitality and alertness, of passivity and inertia, of wrestling and resting.

How do we, human beings, prioritize production over ease or inactivity, idealise proceeding over pausing or staying awake over falling asleep, even when our bodies, minds or souls impose us otherwise? And how can such behaviors, decisions or (in)actions be thought of or be used as parables to think across sociopolitical, environmental, or financial modes, models and paradigms worshiping a nonstop extraction of energy and fuel and love and care, when there’s nothing left, when these graspable or ungraspable commodities, have already been squeezed out or appropriated? How can pauses, breaks and hiatuses allow us to organically touch robust personal transformations, grief over collective alternations, find other ways of striking back or requesting for?

These are some of the questions raised in a work that tries to twist the world, and against all odds, stroke instead of attack, play instead of ambush, dance instead of condemn. Both the choreographed gestures of the five bodies moving and resting in time and space and the traces their presence leaves behind when the performance is over, become a celestial, yet youthful, ecstatic and untamed ritual of sharing anger, sorrow, fear, but also desire, solidarity, kinship. By performing aspects of wrestlers’ fights, “as she rests, the wrestler bleeds her promises” invites us to an acceptance of our contradictions, a close listening of our breathing when in vigilance, an unconditional encounter with our chasms when in turmoil.

Curated and text by Ioanna Gerakidi

“W REST L ING” Contributors
Concept & Choreography: Anastasia Valsamaki
Music & Sound Composition: Jeph Vanger
Dancers: Gavriela Antonopoulou, Nikos Grigoriadis, Sotiria Koutsopetrou, Thanos Ragousis, Xenia Stathouli
Dramaturgy: Anastasios Koukoutas
Styling: Nefeli Asteriou
Technical support: Giorgos Antonopoulos
Production: MINDTHELOOP

Created during Anastasia’s Valsamaki Artist Fellowship Program 2020 supported by ARTWORKS and the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF)

Creation and touring are realized with the financial support of the Greek Ministry of Culture.

Info:
opbo studio, 86 Filonos Str., Piraeus, 18536
Exhibition opening: Saturday 10 February 2024, 20.00
Exhibition duration: February 10 – March 1, 2024
Visiting hours: Wednesday – Saturday, 12:00-18:00
Free entrance

*Anastasia Valsamaki, Jeph Vanger, Nefeli Asteriou and Ioanna Gerakidi are SNF ARTWORKS Fellows

Vasilis Papageorgiou |Sunseekers or Dimming the Sun or

In “Sunseekers or Dimming the Sun or” Vasilis Papageorgiou reflects on the vicious cycle between labour, leisure, and exhaustion (both human and planetary). By associating the depletion of planetary resources with burnout, Papageorgiou investigates the relationship between capitalist systems of pleasure, their role in the cyclical depletion of planetary resources, and the loop these create in relation the need for rest and regeneration.

The concept of the exhibition is somewhat influenced by George Papam’s text Hospitality Fatigue: Symptoms and Potions (in: Island after Tourism – Escaping the Monocultures of Leisure, Kyklada Press, 2023), in which the author is exploring different models of inhabiting and relating to landscape. Following, Papargeorgiou links the exhaustion of planetary resources to burnout, poetically employing the beach as a central metaphor to portray it as the ultimate fantasy where the dichotomies of nature and human indulgence merge. He reflects on leisure and pleasure as both a cause and a symptom of this exhaustion, hinting that structures of leisure, such as private beaches, contribute to further resource depletion, trapping humanity in a vicious cycle that ultimately stifles imagination.

The exhibition operates with several motifs embedded in the exhibition as sculptures or in the form of video installation. The metal sunbeds with various significant elements such as copper-plated beach towels, or a flower that emerges from beneath a sunbed, as a symbol of resilience against the structures of human-created leisure. Quotidian situations in which people utilize water against heatwaves in different parts of Europe are captured by the artist by his phone camera. One video depicts an elderly lady in the village Lin in Albania throwing a bucket of water on the street. Another shows affluent children playing in a fountain at Place des Vosges in Paris. These contrasting uses of water in different European contexts underscore the disparity in resource utilization in the cycle of leisure and exhaustion.

Vasilis Papageorgiou (*1991, Athens, Greece) is an artist based in Athens. His work has been showcased in notable exhibitions, including the 7th Athens Biennale – Eclipse (2021), Benaki Museum (2019), Stavros Niarchos Cultural Foundation (2019), and MAXXI – the National Museum of 21st Century Arts (2019). He also participated in the 6th Moscow International Biennale for Young Arts (2018), among others. Additionally, Papageorgiou is a co-founder of Enterprise Projects, an initiative and project space in Athens, established in 2015, that focuses on artist and curator collaborations.

*Vasilis Papageorgiou is SNF ARTWORKS Visual Arts Fellow 2018

 

SOLO SHOW “Orientation: Mater Land”, EVANGELIA SPILIOPOULOU

Orientation: Mater Land
Evangelia Spiliopoulou
Duration: 15 February – 23 March 2024
Opening: 15 February 19:00-22:00

The works at the exhibition allude to an existing body in its disappearance. Thumbprints, marks, spots, signs, cyphers and grids, spot areas and space. Natural and artificial materials mark surfaces and summon a narrative of the body at work, relevant spaces and equipment played on repeat. They refer to a state of being invisible or non-existent; to the absence yet appearance through vague circumstances; outline the physical presence and allure its gradual waning; they are a reference to the physical world, the one that can be experienced subjectively through the senses yet also that which escapes our perception.

For her first solo exhibition in Greece, Evangelia Spiliopoulou (b.1981) shows a series of works, which examine the concept of work as physical and intellectual labour and the role of objective (biological, physical) as well as collective (social and cultural) biases in the reception of the artwork. Repetition, duplication, reappearance, reoccurrence, frequency of physical and artificial nature document aspects of a living body at work; and the work as a living body gaining autonomy as a critical institution within culture.

Evangelia Spiliopoulou’s practice expands from drawing and painting, to sound and light installations and environments which encompass mixed media. These environments often work as visual puns questioning the reliance on our biological (mainly visual and auditory) trigger responses, which form the first impression. Yet the works unravel separate stories after they are first experienced.

The works presented at the exhibition, focus on the institution of work and its relation to and impact on the human body, culture and nature. They consist of series of detailed drawings as well as larger scale prints which examine the physical and technical narratives produced or created in various working stations, the use of computer, internet resources, technical paraphernalia and the influence of their signs and symbols to the human responses and perception.

The exhibition focuses on three phases of Evangelia Spiliopoulou’s practice, their development and relation to the conceptual history of art, the black and white drawing practice, the references to minimalism, the use of colour, the energetic fields of abstract expressionism, the colourism and the cerebral image ‘burn’ of impressionism. Her work has been exhibited in Athens, Museum of Contemporary Art; London, Drawing Room; Milan, PeepHole; Prague, DOX; Eindhoven, Van Abbemuseum Library; Rome, Ex-Bibli; Vienna, Kunstraum Am Schauplatz; Manchester, Castlefield Gallery, Bury Museum, Rochdale Museum-Touchstones; Antwerp, Lokaal 01. Her drawing practice has been part of the 2021 Drawing Biennial, (Drawing Room, London, UK), has been nominated for the Drawing Room Bursary (2015, 2011) and shortlisted at the New Contemporaries (2010).

*Evangelia Spiliopoulou is SNF ARTWORKS Visual Arts Fellow (2021)

ARTWORKS PUBLICATION LAUNCH (2018-2023)

After years of collective work and creative collaborations, the first edition of ARTWORKS publication, comprising 5 issues that document all the cycles of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) Artist Fellowship Program Support Program for the period 2018-2023, is finally out.

The publication features all the artists and curators who have been awarded the fellowship- 390 creatives who work in the fields of visual arts, moving image, dance and curating- and registers all the activities and events that took place throughout the course of each Program. In order to enhance the critical discourse on contemporary art, the publication includes essays written by arts professionals. Each issue has been curated by different teams of SNF ARTWORKS Curatorial Fellows -with the exception of the first one which was curated by the ARTWORKS team.

The 5 issues complement each other and in their entirety aim to capture much of the creators of the local contemporary art scene, highlighting on the one hand the wide range of their aesthetic and formalist directions and on the other hand the various thematic references that often converge but also have deviations.

Our initial idea and our main goal was to create this publication that would document our activities and serve as an archive for research–a point where creative people from different art fields meet and coexist.

We thank our founding donor, the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (ISN) for the trust and support, as well as all our collaborators and our SNF ARTWORKS Fellows for our common journey to date!

 

ARTWORKS PUBLICATION LAUNCH @ ROMANTSO | PHOTOS: PINELOPI GERASIMOU

CONTRIBUTORS

PUBLICATION: ΑRTWORKS
FOUNDING DONOR: STAVROS NIARCHOS FOUNDATION (SNF)

ARTWORKS TEAM
CO-FOUNDERS / PROGRAM DIRECTORS
Marily Konstantinopoulou
Dimitra Nikolou

PROGRAM COORDINATOR
Panos Giannikopoulos

COMMUNICATION OFFICER
Xaviera Kouvara

PUBLICATION 2018

EDITORS
Panos Giannikopoulos
Marily Konstantinopoulou
Dimitra Nikolou

PUBLICATION DESIGN
Stathis Mitropoulous

PUBLICATION 2019

EDITORS
Danai Giannoglou, Christina Petkopoulou, Mare Spanoudaki, Eva Vaslamatzi

PUBLICATION DESIGN

Ogust

PUBLICATION 2020

EDITORS
Eirini Fountedaki, Vassilia Kaga, Kyveli Mavrokordopoulou

PUBLICATION DESIGN

Typical Organization for standards & order

PUBLICATION 2021

EDITORS

Panos Fourtoulakis, Ioanna Gerakidi, Christina Tzekou, Angeliki Tzortzakaki, Nicolas Vamvouklis

PUBLICATION DESIGN
Alex Brouhard

PUBLICATION 2022

EDITORS

Alexia Alexandropoulou, Ariana Kalliga, Caterina Stamou, Despoina Tzanou

PUBLICATION DESIGN
Maita Chatziioannidou, Loopo Studio

PRINTING
Pletsas K., Kardari Z. OE

KYRIAKI GONI @ ATTENTION AFTER TECHNOLOGY Group Show

State of Concept proudly presents a group exhibition with newly commissioned works exploring the relationships between attention, algorithms, and social justice. Founded in a collaboration between Kunsthall Trondheim, Art Hub Copenhagen, Tropical Papers and Swiss Institute New York, with The Friends of Attention, D. Graham Burnett (Princeton University), Justin Smith-Ruiu (Université de Paris) as associated partners.

The two-year collaborative project Attention After Technology explores how algorithms affect us and how we could imagine them otherwise, through newly commissioned works by six international artists. The artists consider how our attention is commodified and monetized, examine how algorithms reinforce bias while also probing their emancipatory potential, and analyze attention as a political space to foster sustained critical thinking and to support collective action.

The exhibition title, Attention After Technology, is a reference to Ruha Benjamin’s celebrated book Race After Technology (2019). In her publication, Benjamin decodes the discriminatory designs embedded in algorithms that prop up racial, socioeconomic, and other systemic hierarchies. Attention is a much discussed topic with regard to technology. It is closely connected to epistemic justice, or the creation and recognition of diverse forms of knowledge, experiences, and perspectives. Our capacity as knowing subjects, and being recognized as such, is an essential component of agency agency and our ability for choice. It is crucial for social justice.

While distraction and fragmentation may seem like antonyms of attention, the exhibition resists such simple dichotomies. Far from luddites opposing technology, the exhibiting artists both use and hack, celebrate and critique, discard and invent new tools. The exhibition explores attention as a practice, as an embodied technology, and as an evolving aesthetic, social, and political sphere. In bringing attention into debates around algorithmic justice, the works in Attention After Technology pull back the curtain on the neutrality of technology, while using it to draft new ways of relating.

In the lead-up to the exhibition, which considers the intersections above, the artists participated in regular online meetings to workshop their artworks with the exhibition curators, the associated partner collective The Friends of Attention (an informal network of creative collaborators), and advisors from diverse disciplines including computer science and artificial intelligence, visual arts, and queer and transtechnology studies.

This exhibition is the last of three expressions of the expansive project, spanning over two years (2022–2024). The exhibition has travelled from Kunsthall Trondheim, Norway (13 October 2023–28 January 2024) to State of Concept Athens (24 February 2024–27 April 2024). Online versions of the artworks have been available on Tropical Papers’ web platform from November 2023. The associated symposium “The Digital Divide – Attention, Algorithms and Social Justice”, coordinated by Art Hub Copenhagen in partnership with IDA – the Danish Society of Engineers and TOASTER, took place on 4 May 2023, while Art Hub also hosted two artist residencies, with biarritzzz and CUSS Group. The overall project also includes curatorial and strategic contributions by Swiss Institute New York, USA.

The last activity of the parallel program, is an online discussion between iLiana Fokianaki (Founder
and Director of State of Concept) on the 29th of February at 18:30 CET. Zoom Link HERE

The exhibition is collectively curated by Kunsthall Trondheim’s team: Katrine Elise Agpalza Pedersen, curator and project lead “Attention After Technology” with Stefanie Hessler; Liz Dom, project manager “Attention After Technology”; Kaja Grefslie Waagen, producer and communications manager; and Art Hub Copenhagen: Lars Bang Larsen, head of art & research; Rose Tygat, project coordinator; and Tropical Papers: María Inés Rodríguez; and State of Concept Athens: iLiana Fokianaki, founder and director; Konstantina Melachrinou, production manager and press officer; and Swiss Institute New York: Stefanie Hessler, director, curatorial concept and project lead “Attention After Technology” with Katrine Elise Agpalza Pedersen.

In collaboration between Kunsthall Trondheim, Art Hub Copenhagen, Tropical Papers and Swiss Institute New York, The Friends of Attention, D. Graham Burnett (Princeton University), Justin Smith-Ruiu (Université de Paris).

ATTENTION AFTER TECHNOLOGY
Group Show

24 FEBRUARY—27 APRIL 2024

WITH
biarritzzz (Brazil), Vivian Caccuri (Brazil), Shu Lea Cheang (USA/Taiwan), Kyriaki Goni* (Greece), CUSS Group (South Africa), Femke Herregraven (Netherlands)

CURATORS
Kunsthall Trondheim, Art Hub Copenhagen, Tropical Papers, State of Concept Athens, Swiss Institute New York

*Kyriaki Goni is SNF ARTWORKS Visual Arts Fellow (2018)

SNF ARTWORKS FELLOWS RETREAT @ VAMVAKOU

 Looking back, Looking forward

Having fulfilled our initial commitments, ARTWORKS is currently looking towards the future. In order to better understand the impact of the 5 cycles of the SNF ARTWORKS Artist Fellowship Program, we have spent the past few months undertaking various evaluation exercises which culminated in an intensive reflection workshop.

The workshop brought together SNF ARTWORKS Fellows from different cycles and disciplines of the Program in order to delve into our impact assessment study and identify key areas of learning. The dual perspective –evaluation (looking back/reflecting) and prioritization (looking forward/planning)– as well as our highly participatory approach has deeply inspired us to continue serving our mission and create a strategic plan that will hopefully speak to the heart of our past and future beneficiaries.

Forever grateful to our founding donor, the Stavros Niarchos Foundation, and big thanks to the Vamvakou Revival team for the hospitality and to everyone who was part of this nurturing process.

ELENI BAGAKI @ LUMA ARLES

Eleni Bagaki, visual artist and SNF ARTWORKS Fellow 2020, was selected by the team of the Luma Arles Residency Program for a 3-month residency (March -May 2024) to conduct research and carry out projects related to her artistic field. During her time in Arles, Eleni Bagaki aims to explore Camargue’s biota, study the distinctive southern light depicted in historical paintings of Provence, and further her research on the representation of the male figure by examining vintage French books from the 60s and 70s.

Eleni’s residency is supported by ARTWORKS through its founding donor the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF), and as part of its ongoing collaboration with Luma Arles with the aim of sponsoring every year one residency position in France for its alumni Fellows.

Find more info here.

ARTWORKS’ Co-Founders featured on VIMA Politismos

ARTWORKS’ Co-Founders, Dimitra Nikolou & Marily Konstantinopoulou, featured last week on VIMA Politismos!

Through their interview with Marilena Astrapellou, they spoke about the impact of ARTWORKS since its creation, the recently launched publication documenting the 5 cycles of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) Artist Fellowship Program (2018-2023) and their future plans.

ARTWORKS supports the Greek participation in the 60th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia

ARTWORKS, in collaboration with its founding donor, the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF), supports the Greek participation in the 60th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, for the presentation of the interdisciplinary installation Xirómero / Dryland some members of which are SNF ARTWORKS Fellows.

Through this support, our aim is to enhance artistic creation and provide visibility to the young, dynamic, and talented individuals who have joined forces to represent the country in such an important institution for contemporary art this year.

Xirómero / Dryland is an interdisciplinary collective installation based on a concept by Thanasis Deligiannis and Yannis Michalopoulos and has been created in collaboration with Elia Kalogianni (SNF ARTWORKS Moving Image Fellow 2022), Yorgos Kyvernitis (SNF ARTWORKS Moving Image Fellow 2019), Kostas Chaikalis and Fotis Sagonas (SNF ARTWORKS Visual Arts Fellow 2018). The Greek participation has been curated by Panos Giannikopoulos (ARTWORKS’ Program Coordinator). It comprises an agricultural irrigation machine, music, moving image, soundscapes, lighting and the element of water.

The work consists of a piece of agricultural irrigation equipment which synchronizes in real time the sound, video and lighting environments that make up the installation. It investigates the experience of a village festival by following a route that leads from the village square to the borders of the surrounding farmland. More specifically, it draws upon the experience of the panighíria -local festivals- of mainland Greece, Thessaly and the area of Xirómero, in Western Greece, which lends the work its title.

Xirómero/Dryland aims to relate the situated, local experience to the global condition where aesthetic directions change, traditions shift, rural life and celebration take on different forms, whilst the political dimensions of these processes remain an open subject of inquiry.

* Xirómero (Ξηρόμερο) [ksirˈomero]: Known for its paneghíria, was a historic province of Aetolia-Acarnania. Today, it is a municipality in the Region of Western Greece.

Xirómero / Dryland | Photo ©Yorgos_Kyvernitis


Xirómero/Dryland
Pavilion of Greece at the 60th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia
April 20–November 24, 2024

Professional preview: April 17–19

Press conference: April 18, 13:30 pm, accreditation required

Pavilion of Greece– La Biennale di Venezia
Giardini
30122 Venice
Italy
Hours: Tuesday–Sunday 10am–6pm

 

Xirómero / Dryland | Photo ©Yorgos_Kyvernitis

 


Commissioner: EΜΣΤ | Νational Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens; Katerina Gregos, Artistic Director

Administrative & financial director EMΣΤ | Νational Museum of Contemporary Art Athens: Athina Ioannou

Head of production of the Greek Pavilion, ΕΜΣΤ | Νational Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens: Yannis Arvanitis

Artistic team:

Kostas Chaikalis, Thanasis Deligiannis, Elia Kalogianni, Yorgos Kyvernitis, Yiannis Michalopoulos, Fotis Sagonas

Curator: Panos Giannikopoulos

Artistic collaborators: Fotini Papachristopoulou, Studio Precarity (Vassiliki-Maria Plavou and Marios Stamatis)

Xirómero / Dryland | Yannis Michalopoulos, Thanasis Deligiannis, Elia Kalogianni, Kostas Chaikalis, Yorgos Kyvernitis, Fotis Sagonas, Panos Giannikopoulos © Yorgos Kyvernitis