June was full of inspiring discussions and creative ideas thanks to our amazing fellows and their Zoom presentations. Visual artists Fellows Valinia Svoronou, Eva Papamargariti, Evi Kalogeropoulou, Maria Varela, Maria Nikiforaki, Christina Dimakopoulou, Theodora Kanelli, Apollon Glykas, Eleni Xynogala and dance Fellows Martha Pasakopoulou and Dimitris Mytlinaios presented their practice, received feedback from their peers and discussed openly their concerns.
On Monday we had the pleasure to meet via Ζoom movement artist Michele Rizzo. Michele gave an insightful talk about his projects and personal reflections around the poetics of transformation, the art of private transcendence, the shift between spaces and its relation to spectatorship, individual versus communal experience. He shared with us insights on the creation of the works ‘HIGHER’ (2014), ‘Spacewalk’ (2017) and ‘Deposition (2020).
Georgia Sagri discussed with ARTWORKS Fellows her work ‘IASI’ at TAVROS space.
Georgia talked about her ongoing research practice ‘IASI’, which started almost ten years ago in the form of self-training , now taking on a new form of one-on-one sessions with participants that have responded to an open call. These sessions are based on physical techniques that use breath as an active agent, movement and voice training.
The sessions, two or three times a week over a period of two months, are private. They take place on a specially designed soft stage, an art object but also a welcoming place, a shell of sorts. This “stage of recovery” is based on Georgia Sagri’s premise that, “we all live our lives on stage, endlessly performing. The “stage of recovery” is a place where the participants can, for a while, be freed from the necessity of performing to others and for themselves. It gives them the time to be safe and free from an audience.” Whatever shifts, releases or movements occur in these private interchanges remains undisclosed. Unrepresented; still, they are.
This new chapter of her research will develop in overlapping phases in three art institutions and three cities – Mimosa House (London), TAVROS (Athens), De Appel (Amsterdam) and at her studio ‘Υλη[matter]HYLE – knowledge accrued from one location will be carried to the next, enriching the process. Sagri’s presence in these concurrent spaces will mirror the constant disembodiment in the multiplicity of images (our split screen personalities) with which we diffuse and ‘read’ ourselves. Georgia Sagri, adept at loops, here includes this circularity as part of the very form of her research. Instead of performing in large concentric circles, connectivity in all three locations will be personal.
Georgia Sagri has exhibited internationally in various solo and group exhibitions: Portikus, Frankfurt/ Main, Germany (2018); Kunstverein Braunschweig, Germany (2017, 2018); Cycladic Museum, Athens Greece (2017); Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw, Poland (2016); Sculpture Center, New York, USA (2016); KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, Germany (2016, 2015); Forde, Geneva, Switzerland (2015); Kunsthalle Basel Switzerland (2014); MoMA PS1, New York, USA (2013); Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw, Poland (2013); Guggenheim Bilbao, Spain (2011); MoMA, New York, USA (2011); Macedonian Museum, Thessaloniki, Greece (2011); The Dakis Joannou Collection, DESTE Foundation, Athens, Greece (2006). Sagri has also participated in documenta 14 (2017), Manifesta 11 (2016), Istanbul; Biennial (2015), Lyon Biennial (2013), Whitney Biennial (2012), Thessaloniki Biennial (2011), and Athens Biennial (2007). In 2014 Sagri initiated Ύλη[matter]HYLE (hyle.gr) a semipublic/semiprivate space in the center of Athens, Greece. Her first monograph catalogue was published by Sternberg Press, following her solo exhibitions Georgia Sagri Georgia Sagri at Kunstverein Braunschweig, and Georgia Sagri and I at Portikus. In the summer of 2019 she was offered the Tenure Position in the School of Fine Arts in Athens in order to organise and run the first Performance Art studio.
Honored to have with us via Zoom Alexander Payne, American film director, screenwriter, and producer. Alexander talked to our Moving image Fellows about the emotional resonance in films, the notion of “harmolipi” — when drama and comedy co-exist– and gave useful tips about set and production design, screenwriting and casting actors. The discussion was moderated by Daphne Matziaraki – director, writer and producer. Thank you both for such an inspiring and intimate talk!
What do we mean by “live”? What is our relationship to the public? What is experimental and what is interdisciplinary? What do we mean by political?
Important questions raised by Katie Duck , dancer, choreographer and director, during her Zoom talk for our Fellows on Friday June 19. Katie’s talk about the consequences on the professional life of performing artists, during and after the lockdown, was moderated by Maria Mavridou, greek contemporary dancer based in Amsterdam. Many things to think about. Thank you all for the stimulating discussion :)
Useful Links:
2004 with Alex Waterman (Bach cello)
2015 CAGE (edit of different versions)
2016 with Mary Oliver (improvisation viola)
2019 Improvisation summer course / Freakatoni Witchy Weekends
Vamvakou Revival in collaboration with ARTWORKS and with the contribution of the co-founder of Syros Film Festival, Jacob Moe, realizes for the first time an online film festival under the theme “Life in the countryside: Nature & Hospitality”, as part of the Vamvakou Revival initiative, implemented with the guidance and financial support of Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF). Five filmmakers who have been awarded by ARTWORKS, within the framework of the SNF Artist Fellowship Program, will present their work and share with the audience films related to the theme of the festival.
Within 5 days, you will discover what canaries and lifejackets, bees and volcanoes, the sea and mountains have in common. Through 5 films, Nature and Hospitality unfold from various viewpoints and aspects. The Beginning and Love; The End of the World; Old Age and Death; The Civilization of Revenge and Destruction; Light and Dark.
Participants: Giorgos Kivernitis, Konstantinos Antonopoulos, Yorgos Zois, Lia Tsalta and Vasilis Kekatos.
Screenings from 18-23 Ιουνίου @ vamvakourevival.org
Despite the physical distance, we stayed connected to our Fellows with a series of online artists’ presentations via Zoom.
During May, six of our Fellows presented their work and practice to their peers, received fruitful feedback and discussed with them their concerns and future plans.
On Friday May 29th, we invited Nayia Yiakoumaki , curator of Archive Gallery, to talk about her work at the Whitechapel Gallery where she has developed a program of research exhibitions based on the fusion of art and archives. Apart from her curatorial and research projects, Nayia is also a visual artist and served as a member of the ARTWORKS selection committee for the 2nd SNF Artist Fellowship Program.
Exploring new ways of social interaction and digital learning, we are happy to announce our recent collaboration with The New Centre for Research & Practice, an international, non-profit, higher education institute in the Arts, Humanities, and Sciences.
Through a rigorous program of online seminars and archived videos about art, curatorial practices, critical philosophy, media and technology, social and political thought, we offer our Fellows inspiration in the work of a carefully selected network of thinkers and scholars.
Some of the currently running seminars at the New Centre for Research & Practice which our Fellows can attend online Essay Events από την Rachel Rakesare the following:
The Problem of Narrative: Visual Arts by Klaus Speidel
Modern Monetary Theory: The Sixteenth Century Challenge by Colin Drumm
Essay Events by Rachel Rakes
More info visit: https://thenewcentre.org/seminars/
Our Fellows 2019 attended a workshop on artists’ rights and intellectual property at the new library of the Athens School of Fine Arts (ASKT) by Marina Markellou. The workshop raised issues such as the notion of intellectual property, the legal framework in Greece, appropriation and artists’ rights. Several case studies were presented and discussed.
Marina Markellou is an Attorney and Adjunct Lecturer of Law at the Panteion University, the Open Hellenic University and the Open Cyprus University. She specialises in Intellectual Property law, corporate, civil and data protection law.
Christopher Marinos, independent curator and member of our selection committee, designed a workshop for our Curatorial Fellows that consisted of guided tours at private, corporate and museum collections and inspiring conversations with artists and art professionals.
The workshop consisted of the following visits:
1. Visit at the house of artist and professor Rena Papaspyrou, Athens, 13.01.2020
2. A preview of the new display of the permanent collection of the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens, 22.01.2020
3. New Library of Athens School of Fine Arts (ASKT), Christos Joakimides collection, 27.01.2020
4. Epi Protonotariou House, Paiania 03.02.2020
5. Zeya Collection, Athens, 10.02.2020
Participant Fellows: Danai Giannoglou, Christina Petkopoulou, Mare Spanoudaki, Maya Tounta, Eva Vaslamatzi.
Within our collaboration with Benaki Museum, some of our Fellows had the chance to present their creative practice and works to Benaki Contemporaries and the rest of their co-Fellows. After their presentation, a q&a session was followed which led to open discussions and insightful exchange of ideas for the artistic practice, the institutional framework , artistic research and other interesting topics.
The following Fellows presented:
1. Thodoros Giannakis, 07.12.2019
2. Zoe Gaitanidou, 07.12.2019
3. Virginia Mastrogiannaki, 07.12.2019
4. Anastasia Douka, 07.12.2019
5. Margarita Bofiliou ,18.01.2020
6. Theo Prodromidis, 18.01.2020
7. Aggeliki Bozou, 06.02.2020
8. Anastasia Labrou, 06.02.2020
9. Alexandra Koumantaki, 06.02.2020
10. Olga Evaggelidou, 06.02.2020
Thank you all for sharing and special thanks to The Benaki Museum for hosting us!
ARTOWORKS invites the Director and Chief Curator of Center of Contmporary Art, Tel Aviv – Nicola Trezzi – to a talk at Innovathens.
A few words about the talk:
Preceded by few pioneering positions, the last 20 years have witnessed the emergence of new kind of artist(s) who do NOT work alone and do NOT work with their own names. Through the conception – often based on appropriation from the field of art as well as from other fields – of their signature as the first work of art we encounter, a sign which replaces “inherited identity” with meaning, these artists are also redefining the kind of authorship that has been associated to artists since the time of Giorgio Vasari. Working through collaboration, agency and outsourcing, these artists take the notion of multitasking to the next level. Following these premises, the talk will expand on this framework and present representatives of such positions from all over the world.
A few words about the speaker:
Nicola Trezzi (Magenta, Italy, 1982) is an educator, exhibition maker and writer, currently the director of CCA Tel Aviv. From 2007 to 2014 he was US editor at Flash Art International, and his writings appeared also Flash Art Italia, Flash Art CZ&SK, artnet News, artpress, Il Sole 24 Ore, Monopol, White Fungus. He also contributed to the several exhibition catalogues, such as Postmonument (The 14th Sculpture Biennial, Carrara, 2010), Michael Kienzer: Logic and Self-Will (Kunsthaus Graz, 2012), Joshua Neustein: Drawing the Margins (Israel Museum Jerusalem, 2012), Michal Helfman: Change (CCA Tel Aviv, 2014), Ylva Ogland: She, an Introduction (Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm, 2015), Ido Bar-El: Bagatelle, Paintings, 1986–2015 (Tel Aviv Museum of Art, 2015), Shai Yehezkelli: In Praise of Avalanche (Tel Aviv Museum of Art, 2016), Ashley Bickerton: Ornamental Hysteria (Newport Street Gallery, London, 2017), Efrat Natan / Nahum Tevet (Villa Stuck, Munich, 2017), and Yaara Zach: Lay Low (Petach Tikva Museum of Art, 2018). A staff member of the Prague Biennale Foundation from 2007 to 2014, he co-organized the following exhibitions: “Painting Overall” at the Prague Biennale 5, “Four Rooms” at the CCA in Warsaw, “Modern Talking” at the Muzeul National de Arta Cluj-Napoca, “Circa 1986” at HVCCA in Peekskill NY, “Champs-Élysées” at Palais de Tokyo in Paris, “Diagonal Histories—Imre Bak, Peter Halley—” and “Yael’s Dreams (and Nightmares),” both at Art+Text Budapest, “Yael Efrati: Eva and Emerick,” MNAC in Bucharest, “KEDEM–KODEM–KADIMA” and “Laurent Montaron: Replica,” both at CCA Tel Aviv. From 2014 to 2017 he was head of the MFA program at Bezalel Academy of Art and Design Jerusalem and he previously lectured at the Yale University School of Art (New Haven CT), SIAC (Chicago), iCI (New York), the Indonesian Institute of the Art (Yogyakarta) and The Faculty of Arts – Hamidrasha at Beit Berl College (Israel). Since 2007, he is associated to Lucie Fontaine, a pseudonymous, nomadic and collaborative project, which ideas have been presented in venues such as Marianne Boesky Gallery in New York, Galerie Perrotin in Paris, Iaspis in Stockholm, Artport in Tel Aviv and Kayu in Bali, among others.
The talk will be hosted on Thursday 20/02 at 11.00 @ INNOVATHENS.
Thank you for your support Athens Culture Net!
Alessandro Castiglioni, senior co-curator of the Mediterranea 19 Young Artists Biennale, presented his curatorial practice and research on small territories and radical experiments in the art history of San Marino. Mediterranea 19, a transnational Biennale, will take place in the Republic of San Marino from October 2020 to February 2021 under the title School of Waters, featuring artists, researchers, writers under the age of 35, coming from or based within a constellation of territories related to the Mediterranean Sea.
The open call runs through January 26, 2020.
Thank you to all our Fellows for coming and special thanks to our founding donor, the Stavros Niarchos Foundation.
On Friday October 25th we visited ARCH. Our Fellows 2019 had the chance to meet in person Athina Ioannou, artist in residence at ARCH and discuss with her about the preparation of the exhibition Floating Gestures, the outcome of her 2-month stay at ARCH. Athina also talked about her artistic practice and her work until now. Atalanti Martinou, Founder and Director, informed our Fellows about the general scope of ARCH, its future activities and programme.
* The exhibition Floating Gestures is opening on November 7th
On Thursday October 24th, our Fellows 2019 had the chance to meet the 2 ARCAthens Residency Fellows at the beautiful yard of ATOPOS. Aristeidis Logothetis -ARCAthens founder and executive director- welcomed us and gave a short introduction about the scope and activities of ARCAthens, highlighting the importance of networks for artists. Visual artist Tomashi Jackson and curator Miranda Lash talked about their creative time in Athens, their work and research topics and exchanged ideas with ARTWORKS Fellows around topics that emerged from the open discussion. Some of the topics were migration, education and democracy. Lastly, Stamos Fafalios, ATOPOS co-founder, guided the Fellows through some of the archives, sharing insightful stories.
ARCAthens is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to creating opportunities for visual artists to expand the discourse in the arts as well as in the local communities of Athens.
Atopos cvc is a non-profit, cultural organisation interested in the expression and adornment of the human body. The word ‘atopos’, from the ancient Greek “άτοπος”, refers to that which is the strange, the unwonted, the eccentric and the unclassifiable.
On the occasion of the recent renovation of the Patrick and Joan Leigh Fermor House in Kardamyli, the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) in collaboration with the Benaki Museum invited 10 of our Fellows to visit and reflect on the site. Here are their impressions through personal notes, photographs, drawings and videos.
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1. Cacao Rocks in collaboration with Alexandros Simopoulos
Comics, ink and acrylic on Polaroids, 2019 (Notes)
Alexandros Simopoulos
A series of painted-over Polaroids taken during
our visit and processed later.
What is the distance between narrative and fact?
Cacao Rocks
Improvised Telephone
A fishing line links Patrick Leigh Fermor to Pausanias.
Each one holds a disposable cup to his ear.
The line has to be stretched in order for them to hear each other, but here and there
it is tangled up in prickly pears, masts, civil wars, shells, goats’ horns, olive groves, the backs of dolphins and ancient temples or cages of the gods, as they are also called.
Their speech is broken up by white noise, cicada songs, heartbeats, hookah bubbles and summer thunder.
The improvised phone becomes our memory, along with all that we now despise, having surrendered to the universal dream.
A soldier’s boot in a whale’s stomach, the sweat of a woman dressed in black at the salt lakes, a Byzantine coat of arms and the reflection of the sun on the whitewash is what stayed in my eyes.
There wasn’t time for me to swim around Merope like you did every day. The truth is I don’t even know if I can do it, but hopefully in the future I will at least try.
Thank you Michali
Cacao Rocks
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2. Giannis Delagrammatikas
on reflection, P.L.F.
video, 1’ 06”
In 1933 Patrick Leigh Fermor began his first journey to Constantinople. A few items of clothing and a volume of Horace’s Odes accompanied him on his wanderings.
Kardamyli was chosen as the place he returned to, the retreat where recollections of travel, intense experiences, and inner journeys would be shared in his literary universe.
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3. Niki Gulema
The landscape and objects in the house become the subject of sketches in a notebook.
“Except where their cutting edges were blurred by landslides, the mountains looked as harsh as steel. It was a dead, planetary place, a habitat for dragons. All was motionless.”
Excerpt from Patrick Leigh Fermor’s Mani
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4. Katerina Kotsala
Walk on Me
2019
-cotton paper, the imprint of a pebbled floor, 55x25cm
-2 watercolors, a color study of a pebbled floor, 29×20.5cm
Himself a walker, Patrick Leigh Fermor built a pebble path in his backyard.
Walk on Me reproduces the pebble floor in the yard of the Fermor house; it is the imprint of the pebble surface on cotton paper. Watercolors refer to a color study of the pebbles used on the floor and evoke the distinctive sunset of Mani in Messinia.
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5. Orestis Mavroudis
BRIGHT SPECIAL LEIGH
MINI TERES 1 SPOT
BRASS TR
H.P. D 3W /827 40D
220-240V 50/60Hz
EN60598-1
EN60598-2-1
IP65
CE
MADE IN GREECE ’19
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6. Kosmas Nikolaou
Drowning in the Details
Ten images that act as quick notes lead one’s gaze around the house, to points that we wouldn’t usually notice on our first visit. Ten images lead us to look at the house’s modern technical infrastructure. Quick clicks in space, a quick rotation, cracks, sockets, and air ducts. Small details betray the discreet renovation, noisily attesting to the new function of the house and, ultimately, its new owners.
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7. Stefania Strouza
The Dark Ones
2019, digital collage
The photo collages are based on snake patterns that appear as engravings in different parts of the house and are juxtaposed with the belongings of its owners. The symbolically charged combinations hint at an introverted universe closer to the unconscious. They seem to be referring to Patrick Leigh Fermor’s mystical aspects as they ‘traverse’ an increasingly complex and ambivalent post-war world.
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8. Pavlos Tsakonas
Portals
A series of digitally processed photographs
First impressions of structural surfaces and details of the Fermor house, color-treated in the style of a quick sketch or note. The original stimulus that activates one’s curiosity to delve into an intensely adventurous world.
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9. Neritan Zinxhiria
Mythology of Blue
The sea as a bridge that unites and doesn’t divide:
an author’s many travels, presented in summary through the covers of books that kept him company.
Our first gallery visit with the SNF ARTWORKS Fellows 2019 took place at Piraeus, at 2 exhibition spaces – The Intermission and Rodeo Gallery.
The Intermission, a new exhibition space which opened recently in Piraeus , focuses on shows of established and upcoming artists with contributions in the international art scene. Fellows had the chance to see the inaugural show – a new work in situ by the American artist John Knight – and discuss with the owner and director Artemis Baltoyanni.
Fellows experienced also a guided tour at the show of Tamara Henderson Womb life by the director and owner of Rodeo Gallery, Sylvia Kouvali. Henderson makes work that extends her bodily adaptations to places and situations, people that she engulfs and she is embraced by while attaching on to them via personal emotional mechanisms.
Until next time!
Last night, we launched the 2nd SNF Artist Fellowship Program with a welcome party, α party to know us better. Here are the photos from this amazing night by Andreas Simopoulos :)
We hope you enjoyed and met our friends and family!
On Monday September 23rd, the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) and the Museum Benaki invited some of our Fellows to visit the recently renovated house of the famous British author Patrick Leigh Fermor.
The author Patrick Leigh Fermor and the photographer Joan developed a special relationship with Greece, which led them to build their permanent residence in Kardamyli, Mani, where they lived until the end of their lives. The house was designed by architect Nikos Hatzimichalis, in close collaboration with them, and was completed in the mid-1960s. In 1996, they bequeathed the Leigh Fermor House, which is widely regarded as one of the most beautiful properties in Greece, to the Benaki Museum, expressing the desire for the house to be used for the purposes of the Museum and remain open to the public.
The SNF supported, as lead donor on the project, a study on the use, operation, and sustainability of the house, then the necessary repair and renovation work. The main objective in this process was to preserve the original character of the buildings and the surrounding space.
The house has opened to the public for tours, and in the near future it will function as a space for conducting educational activities and cultural events open to the public and for hosting researchers.
Many thanks to Stavros Niarchos Foundation and Museum Benaki for the amazing hospitality!