Studio visits, presentations, zoom meetings! This year’s presentations by our Fellows are taking place in a hybrid format mixing the physical with the virtual space ! Thank you Pennie Key, Evangelia Vatsaki, Konstantina Krikzoni, Nana Serferli, Olga Vlasssi, Eleni Kordali, Erifyli Doukeli, Alexandros Michael and Jeph Vanger for sharing your work and thoughts!
This talk brings together Dr Despina Zacharopoulou (RCA Contemporary Art Summer School Short Course Leader, Artist & Academic, SNF ARTWORKS Fellow 2021), Marily Konstantinopoulou and Dimitra Nikolou (ARTWORKS – Stavros Niarchos Foundation Artist Fellowship Program, Co-founders & Program directors), to discuss strategies of empowering contemporary artistic practice in uncertain times.
– In what ways could Institutions support contemporary art practice during unforeseen conditions (pandemics, environmental crisis, wars)?
– Who has access to this support, and how is diversity included in these moves?
– What are the criteria of selection regarding who gets to be empowered and who doesn’t?
– What are the expected outcomes?
The discussion will run for approximately 60 minutes and will include Q&A.
Mar 31, 2022 04:00 PM in London, 06:00 PM in Athens
Registrer here:
https://rca-ac.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN__ZE6Gc5PQEG6sdZeeWFRlA
Watch the video now aon the RCA website:
https://www.rca.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/in-session-empowering-artistic-practice-in-uncertain-times/
We are thrilled to announce our new partnership with K3 – Zentrum für Choreographie. ARTWORKS, in collaboration with the residency team at K3, will offer a one-month residency position in Hamburg. While in residence at K3, the selected dance artist will have the opportunity to develop and strengthen the connections between the choreographic practice, artistic research and production.
Our dear Fellow, Dimitris Mytilinaios, choreographer and dancer, has been selected to inaugurate the first and pilot year of this partnership. Congratulations Dimitris! So pleased to see you accomplishing great things !
Learn more about k3 : https://k3-hamburg.de/en/
February was full of presentations! Thank you Margarita Athanasiou, Spyros Rennt, Evangelia Spyliopoulou, Maro Fasouli, Alexios Papazacharias, Giorgos Kontis, Vasilis Zarifopoulos, Aggelos Barai, Maria Michailidou, Stamos Michael for sharing with us your work and thoughts :)
«The school of dreams lies under our bed», Hèléne Cixous
Our Fellows had the opportunity to attend a 3-day workshop specially designed by performer and visual artist Mary Zygouri hosted at Space 52! The workshop explored the invention of polyphonic identities through physical and visual means. The participants were introduced to artistic experimental pedagogical processes with the body as the main space for creation and the dream as its raw material.
Dates: Friday February 25 – Sunday February 27, 2022
Space 52, Kastorias 52, Athens
Art historian, curator at the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens (EMST) and member of our curatorial selection committee, Daphne Vitali, gave an extensive talk about the role of being a curator through a thorough retrospective of various exhibitions she has undertaken! Always grateful to collaborate with you Daphne :)
Daphne Vitali is a Greek/Italian Art historian and Curator based in Athens. She is a Curator at the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens (EMST) where she has curated and co-curated numerous group and solo exhibitions of Greek and international artists. Among them are:In Present Tense. Young Greek Artists, 2008; Expanded Ecologies. Perspectives in a Time of Emergency, 2009; Kostis Velonis. Loneliness on Common Ground: How Can Society Do What Each Person Dreams, 2010; CurrentPasts: Vangelis Vlahos & Ivan Grubanov, 2013; AFRESH A New generation of Greek Artists; 2014, Andreas Angelidakis. Every End is a Beginning, 2014; as well as projects for the series EMST Commissions, a program of new productions commissioned by the museum for the Project Room. Among other institutions, she has also been invited to curate exhibitions at DEPO, Istanbul; Galleria Nazionale d’ Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Rome; Macedonian Museum of Contemporary, Thessaloniki; Quarter Centro Produzione Arte, Florence. Most recently she curated the exhibition When the Present is History at DEPO in the framework of the 16th Istanbul biennial (2019), which will travel to MOMus – Museum of Contemporary Art, Thessaloniki, as well as the sound project Deeper than Silence in the archaeological site of the Ancient Roman Agora in Athens (2020). She has published essays on contemporary art in various publications and periodicals such as Kunstforum International, Mousse Magazine, Artpulse and has authored and edited many artists’ catalogues. She studied History of Art at Camberwell College of Arts and Contemporary Art Theory at Goldsmiths College in London.
Subterranean Sun: an “underground” open studio presenting work-in-progress from Petros Moris’s residency at Delfina Foundation, London.
Subterranean Sun is an open studio installation stemming from Petros’s ongoing interest in the material and mythological manifestations of underground space as the origin of cultural pasts and technological futures.
As the artist comes to the end of his re-commenced residency (originally interrupted by the pandemic in March 2020), Petros takes an evening to share a selection of outcomes and works-in-progress from the research he conducted over his time at Delfina Foundation, which started from London’s histories of subterranean colonisation, industrial revolution and computational automation, and then re-focused on his local context of Athens.
This new body of work presented in Subterranean Sun takes the form of a series of solar intaglio etchings, a prototype of an algorithmically generated text-based work presented on-screen, a 3D animation based on the photogrammetric scans of a quarry in Greece, and a helioseismological soundscape.
Developed under the radiation of the Greek sun, and printed in London during Petros’s residency, the solar intaglio etchings derive from algorithmic machine-learning mutations performed on Petros’s own photographic archives of the animal-resembling sculptures which used to inhabit the ancient Kerameikos cemetery in Athens as the protectors of the threshold between the underworld and the life above.
Brought into dialogue with the etching is a prototype version of the text-based work Harvest. Using a similar algorithmic logic of machinic prediction it generates an endless stream of abstract “oracles”; texts of a synthetic language left to contingent human interpretation.
Reflecting back to the earthly materiality of the Kerameikos marble sculptures, the 3D-animated video Quarry Time (Ghost) unfolds as a negative image rendering of a haunted geological landscape, re-modeled after old photogrammetric scans of a marble quarry located between Athens and the artist’s hometown, Lamia.
Closing the loop between the celestial and the subterranean, the helioseismological soundscape will permeate Delfina’s underground space, reintroducing the cosmic presence of the sun through a year-long recording of solar oscillations, translated into an audible hum.
Petros’ residency at Delfina Foundation is supported by ARTWORKS
Date: Wednesday, 9 February 2022
Location: Delfina Foundation
Time: 18:00 – 20:00 (UK)
Last entry 19:30
Tickets: Free. Booking essential.
Access information: Please refer to this page
“It’s not the subject that defines the film, but rather, the relationship developed between the filmmaker with the subjects”. Inspiring words from the great Eva Stefani
During yesterday’s talk, Eva screened some excerpts from her works and shared her thoughts on the perks and benefits of being a filmmaker!
Thank you Eva, your inspiring words warmed our hearts!
Eva Stefani, Documentary Filmmaker, Visual artist, Poet was member of ARTWORKS’ Moving Image Selection Committee for the 3rd SNF Artist Fellowship Program.
Kicking off this year’s series of our Fellows’ work presentations and studio visits!
During the first sessions, Despina Zacharopoulou talked about performance as a stage of exposure, of truthfulness and embodiment of philosophy, Pinelopi Gerasimou highlighted the importance of being in the moment and keeping spontaneity when shooting, Kyveli Zoi Stenou talked about the power of the everyday in her work. Sotiris Tsiganos highlighted the connections between research, fieldwork and moving image as well as the possibilities to critically engage with underdocumented events and stories. Georgios Karamanolakis guided us at Hyperlink Athens, discussed his latest work “Delphian Landscapes” and presented his multi-dimensional artistic practice.
Thank you all for the presentations, the warm hospitality and the fruitful discussions that followed!
In view of the open call for projects that bring the ideas and insights of the humanities to life for the Greek public, Dimitris Antoniou presented to our Fellows the SNFPHI.
The Stavros Niarchos Foundation Public Humanities Initiative (SNFPHI) at Columbia University focuses on three main areas: History (e.g., preservation, oral history, archival practices, material culture); Creative Arts (e.g., performance, curation, literature); and Education (e.g., learning resources, teaching tools, educational games). Dimitris Antoniou is Associate Director at the SNFPHI and Lecturer in Hellenic Studies at Columbia University
It was time to host the annual workshop about intellectual property for artists led by Dr Marina Markellou last week. Marina Markellou is an Attorney and Adjunct Lecturer of Law at Panteion University, the Open Hellenic University and the Open Cyprus University, and specialises in Intellectual Property Law. Always grateful to have her on our team!
2022 started in the most inspiring way ! Andonis Foniadakis, dancer, choreographer and member of the dance selection committee for the 4th SNF Artist Fellowship Program, talked about his work and the challenges one faces when pursuing his/her personal artistic path, being faithful to his/her inherent skills while remaining intuitive and open to chance. Thank you Andonis for such an insightful and stimulating talk!
Katerina Gregos -curator, writer and lecturer- welcomed us at the National Museum of Contemporary Art (EMST) where she presented to our Fellows her work and curatorial practice. Katerina Gregos talked about the role of the curator and the numerous projects she has undertaken, including exhibitions and international biennials, always following her personal vision and exploring the relationship between art, society and politics with a particular view on questions of democracy, human rights, economy, ecology, crisis and changing global production circuits.
Katerina Gregos is the Artistic Director of the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Athens (EMST) and a member of our curatorial selection committee for the 4th SNF Artist Fellowship Program.
Xenia Kalpaktsoglou, curator and founding member of the Laboratory for the Urban Commons, talked about the art of curating in relation to cultural production, politics and society at large. Among the numerous projects she has undertaken, ranging from urban interventions, research and educational practices to her institutional role as the co-founder and co-director of the Athens Biennale (2005-2016), she elaborated on her recent and ongoing collaboration with the Laboratory for the Urban Common.
Antonis Pittas presented to our Fellows his work and talked about his context-sensitive spatial installations informed by art history and architecture. He elaborated on the concept of “recycling history” – both as contemporising history and historicising the contemporary – and the methodology he uses to create awareness around contemporary social and political issues. Antonis is a visual artist based in Amsterdam and he is currently a member of our Visual Art Selection Committee.
AthenSYN II: GOING VIRAL exhibition and symposium for Contemporary Greek Art in Berlin will open on 20 January 2022 with 14 artistic positions of the generation Y in the newly established STEINZEIT Gallery in Berlin Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg.
The participating artists are raising questions that concern our future coexistence. The aftermath of the pandemic literally illustrates the meaning of the word “viral” as it is also used in a digital context. Thousands of lives can depend on the actions of an individual as epidemics spread.
How isolated do we feel and act as individuals? AthenSYN II: GOING VIRAL focuses on the subtle connection of all existence, the importance of taking initiative and the search for ecological and affectively sustainable ways of living.
In AthenSYN II: GOING VIRAL, AthenSYN presents paintings, videos, sculptures and installations by 15 young Greek artists who have been awarded the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) Artist Fellowship by ARTWORKS, created against their background experience between the socio-economic crisis of 2009 and the current Covid-19 Pandemic. The positioning of Greek art between the global South and the North, lack of economic resources and prosperity, political center and periphery, traditionalism and innovation is characteristic.
Panos Kompis’ work is a poetic reference to human existence in defense, while Anestis Ioannou deals with the construction of subjectivity in urban environments. Kyriaki Goni thematizes the relationship between man and machine, which Andreas Ragnar Kassapis examines in the tension between perception of naturally and technically generated images. In the age of augmented reality, Latent Community (Jonian Bisai & Sotiris Tsiganos) interweave social engagement in participatory and performative strategies to create hybrid video installations, Sofia Dona illuminates historical and social site-specific influences through alienation, the Collectif MASI develops an experimental approach at the interface of architecture, sociology and visual arts of urban scenography with social art. Maro Fasouli creates connections between somatic practices, work and gender, Ileana Arnaoutou combines in her painting and sculpture the topography of longing, mourning and healing with somatic processes and creates a “landscape of affect”. Maria Tsagkari’s works show hidden narratives that respond subversively to historical references and thereby pose questions about the politics of desire. The works of Stefania Strouza and Irini Miga awaken associations between the symbolic world of objects and ideas of temporality, corporeality and geography. Maria Louizou’s large-format sculptures show the performer as a living resonance body. Ersi Varveri shows transformational processes in constant becoming in the fluidity of existence..
The exhibition, curated by Sotirios Bahtsetzis and Katja Ehrhardt, opens with a two-day hybrid symposium with artists, theorists and activists from Greece and Germany on sustainability, self-organization and alternative economies with workshops, discussions and film screening. Initiated and organized by AthenSYN in collaboration with ARTWORKS, STEINZEIT Gallery Berlin and FREIRAUM in der Box Berlin. Supported by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF), Schwarz Foundation, Kulturamt Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg, Griechische Kulturstiftung Berlin. Under the patronage of the Greek Embassy Berlin.
AthenSYN II: GOING VIRAL
Exhibition and Symposium for Contemporary Greek Art in Berlin
STEINZEIT Gallery
Kottbusser Str. 11
1ß999 Berlin
Opening: 20 January 2022, 5-9pm
Duration: 21 January–3 March 2022
Artists: Ileana Arnaoutou, Sofia Dona, Maro Fasouli, Kyriaki Goni, Anestis Ioannou, Andreas Ragnar Kassapis, Panos Kompis, Latent Community (SNF ARTWORKS Fellows Jonian Bisai & Sotiris Tsigkanos), Maria Louizou, Collectif MASI (SNF ARTWORKS Fellow Madlen Anipsitaki & Simon Riedler), Irini Miga, Stefania Strouza, Maria Tsagkari, Ersi Varveri
Curated by: Sotirios Bahtsetzis and Katja Ehrhardt
In collaboration with: ARTWORKS, STEINZEIT Gallery Berlin, FREIRAUM in der Box Berlin
Donors: Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF), Schwarz Foundation, Griechische Kulturstiftung Zweigstelle Berlin, Hellenic Foundation for Culture
Under the Patronage of: Botschaft der hellenischen republik in deutschland
On Thursday November 18th, the moving image selection committee members for the 4th SNF Artist Fellowship Program – Giorgos Karnavas, Timon Koulmasis and Sofia Michailidou- sat together and discussed their work and the journey of a filmmaker, a producer and a programmer through sharing their personal and professional experiences as well as the challenges that arise. Thank you all for joining and thank you to our selection committee members for this stimulating discussion.
Giorgos Karnavas is a film producer at Heretic, a boutique film house producing and selling films on a global scale.
Timon Koulmasis works as a film director, writer and producer in Paris and Athens.
Sofia Michailidou is a programmer. For over 30 years she planned and organized cultural events, mainly related to cinema, at the Goethe-Institut Athen.
Konstnatina Georgelou, performing arts theorist, dramaturg and researcher, and also a member of our Dance Selection Committee this year held an zoom talk and spoke about her interest in exploring discursive, artistic and activist practices as articulations of the political and how “practices of undoing“ can become means of creating space to formulate and express the collective.
Konstantina Georgelou is an Amsterdam-based performing arts theorist, dramaturg and researcher. Her research is on the practice and theory of dramaturgical activity, especially regarded from a political perspective, which is part of her ongoing inquiry on embodied practices of resistance and forms of dis/order as these are thought and expressed within dance, performance and artistic activism.She works in the MA programmes of choreography and theatre at DAS Graduate School (Amsterdam University of the Arts) and she is a senior lecturer in the Department of Media and Culture at Utrecht University, teaching courses on dramaturgy, spectatorship, artistic interventions in the public space and on performance theory. In 2011 she received her PhD from Utrecht University, with a thesis entitled Performless: The operation of l’informe in post-dramatic theatre. Together with Danae Theodoridou and Efrosini Protopapa, she edited and authoredThe Practice of Dramaturgy: Working on Actions in Performance(Valiz, 2017). Her publications have appeared in journals and books internationally, and she collaborates with dance and performance artists, such as Zhana Ivanova, Efrosini Protopapa, Billy Mullaney, Danae Theodoridou, Janez Janša. Konstantina also has an ongoing engagement with modes of production in theory and in the arts, which has been taking different formats in primarily collaborative projects.
After so long, we finally had the pleasure to host our first curator’s talk in person! Our guest speaker was Marina Fokidis, curator, writer, lecturer and also member of the Visual Arts Selection Committee for the 4th SNF Artist Fellowship Program.
Juxtaposing notions such as entitlement vs relevance, translocality vs global fiction, empathy vs exoticism, Marina elaborated on her curatorial practices and presented some of the major projects she has undertaken: the 3rd Thessaloniki Biennale as a member of the curatorial team, Documenta 14 where she served as Head of the Artistic Office in Athens, Kunsthalle Athena as the founding and artistic director, as well as the bi-annual arts and culture journal South as a State of Mind produced in Athens and distributed internationally that she founded before it temporarily became the @documenta14 journal for several years.
On November 1st, we visit with our cohor of Fellows the Takis Foundation in Gerovouno hill, Attica. We were immersed through the unique world of Takis: kinetic sculptures, magnetic fields, cosmic and invisible powers, telesculptures, telepeintures (telepaintings), telelumieres (telelights), musicals, electromagnetic sculptures, hydro-magnetic sculptures, erotic scupltures.
Panayiotis Vassilakis, known as TAKIS, was one of the most prominent personalities of both international and greek art scenes. A pioneer of kinetic art, he unfurled his talent after the end of World War II, and he asserted himself by offering a different approach to kinetic art. Self-taught artist by conviction, he managed to create an inextricable link between art and science by combining elements of nature and physics in his sculpturing. Takis, as a “tireless worker of the magnetic fields …” continues to this date to experiment and create kinetic works of art that have inspired painters, sculptors and poets of his generation, as well as his contemporaries.
Takis Foundation – Research Center for the art & the sciences History has been the birthplace of Takis’ research and art with the aim to promote knowledge and appreciation of the visual arts to the general public, as well as to provide services, facilities and support programs for both education and contemporary art.
More info: https://takisfoundation.org/