Περί λαϊκισμού και άλλων δαιμονίων / On populism and other demons

G.G. Maquez's book, speaks of a forbidden love between a young monk and a very very young girl kept at a monastery due to a disease she suffers from. A relationship one would say definetely special and surely "forbidden" and maybe even possibly sinful...kind of like the relationship between audiences and greek art, i cant help but think. I am writing this with the knowledge that most of my very few readers will most probably laugh or better bitterly smile. Still i will continue this trail of thought :)

We are before an important event in Athens. No matter that many of us, from time to time, didnt really think it would be a reality, or if it would, it would have any actual impact. However, no one can deny the fact that the announcement of a Biennial in Athens, has caused a stir, and mostly an internal one, and of course spurred a dialogue amongst artists, curatos, critics etc. And an intense one. Lately this dialogue has stopped, i think slightly due to the fact that the names of the artists have been now announced. :)

There are dozens of greek blogs discussing about this biennial, about the art scene, about this "contemporary greek art scene" a phrase i am honestly sick of hearing...it sounds to me as fresh and natural and healthy as McDonald's...i would so much rather see what these artists produce than stick labels on it and name it as "something" which immediately turns into a product to be promoted...then again at this phase in which greek art is, any promotion is good..however dangerous.

I read all these blogs with great interest but i cant help it, i always think...all this energy and stuborness if these artists (if they are artists) actually put it in their art, they would definetely produce great work.

During last December i had the unbelievable honour and luck to step into Vlassis Kaniaris's house. For me one of the fiercest and most serious artists of his generation, and consequently of the after-war greek art. I heard him in awe speak about his colleague and contemporary Nikos Kessanlis calling him "kleftokota" - a greek expression meaning a thief- but he said it with such tenderness, love and respect that it was the best compliment he could give.

I think this is one thing that lacks these days. Possibly, this Biennial coming up, we should all consider reviewing our stand. This is an event that will definitely promote greek art out of its borders. The goal should be, or at least i would like it to be, to accentuate the contemporary artists of this country.
I am possibly a romantic and a non-realistic, or stupidly idealistic, but! all eyes are gonna turn to Athens on the10th of September..Whatever happens, whatever the result, the point i think is for greek art to have said something with essense (and reality towards its situation).

Of course considering the budget that has been raised, there will be a result, in conjunction to the organization of the event, the selection of works, the curating etc etc. Frankly, i dont think the point is whether they will slaughter us at foreign mags, or at posh art restaurants in London and Berlin. I mean the gigantic Documenta took some lately, so i dont think this Biennial will come out of it with no scratches. The point however is, when the lights go off, what will we have said. What have we done?

Oh and you may as well tell me, missy, why on earth are you using all these "we"s? No, i have nothing to do with this biennial, apart from maybe giving directions to lost tourists on their way to technopolis. I am only recently working in the arts actually...

What im stressing is that i really dont care as much for the result, as i care for the procedure and what will that leave to all the people in the greek arts. I think the result, is mostly important for the audiences, and especially the ones that have nothing to do with art apart from liking it. Again many people might consider me a populist, my apolologies but i am one, and i am planning on remaining one. An exhibition of this size, which has already received press in big newspapers, womens magazines, tv etc., is one that will have visitors that are Athenians, just curious to see what this is all about, that might know a thing or two about contemporary art, and they definitely have an opinion as to what would be the route through which to destroy the preconceptions on this city.

I guess these are just my thoughts/ideas/hopes, for all of us that work in the arts, and for people that will exist around it -not just those who take part in any form or way in this Biennial- and im probably writing this for me to hear it outloud as well. It is only an anxiety i guess of what we will say, they say, you say. "Them", "us", "you", whoever. My ideal situation is to have a comment, a remark, an observation with meaning, with a point at the end of the inaguration of this Biennial.

I dont care for its gravity. I care for its impact. And through my rose-tinted glasses i believe that it is immediately and inextricably linked to this procedure that i mentioned before, to this process into which greek art will be involved in its whole one way or another. Frankly, i hope for this, and not a pulp, revamped version of Frieze meets YBA's meets Basel or smth like that...

Art Athina - Restart

Well, i arrived late on Wednesday and managed to whisk through the galleries and go down to plan A to see the exhibition I syhroni elliniki skini curated by Nadia Argyropoulou. It was an interesting exhibition, however, it seemed the space needed 3-4 more works and the bands in the beggining after Alexandros Psychoulis (artist and his band) they were a bit weird...I was impressed by street artist Zoe's work, it was an installation on a wall that had a lot of texture much more rich in material and more impressive than her cut-out works that i saw at at 666 exhibition in Gazi last January.
Also Dimitris Ioannou with his huge colourful cubes, an idea made out of a real game very much in the style of Rubik's cube, was a very good work, although the audience didnt realise very much they should and could play with it but not sit on it!!!!!
Very interesting works by Ioli Syfaraki, with her patterns of little mazes, forms, lines all in different colours on the floor creating something like a small city looked down from a bird-eye view, as well as Rosina Baltatzi's works, little square drawings with the name's of all participants of the exhibition stuck randomly on the floor.
Other interesting works by Loukia Alavanou, Angelo Plessas, Diamantis Sotiropoulos, Andreas Kasapis.
Will be visiting the exhibition soon so you ll have an update by the end of the weekend of the other shows by curators Sotirios Bahtzetzis and Artemis Potamianou, as well as the galleries and especially the Russian ones.

Thessaloniki Biennial part 1

Not what i expected.
There was such a fuss so people thought that it would be a wow event. Well due to the fact that i was bord and bread in this city..no-one knew there is a biennial going on in thessaloniki, and no-one cares.
this is my first comment will be updated soon.

DESTE AWARDS 2007

First of all. Love the award designed by artist Maria Papadimitriou. Secondly...?
There was an obvious unbalance among the works shortlisted for the DESTE awards at the DESTE Foundation this year.
Unfortunately the quality of works was not as high as expected. And by expected i mean compared to the previous one, 2 years ago. I have to be honest and say that i have seen live only the previous awards and unfortunately all the others through photos and press clips.

However, the 2005 awards were so much better than this year's. The works were all equal in the sence of presence in the exhibition space and in the strength of their voice. No matter whether one liked them or not, they each had something to say. they had an autonomy from one another, they were memorable .

So..this years awards had 6 nominees. The space felt a bit empty in my opinion.
The works of Eleni Kamma and Loukia Alavanou were mature, complete, balanced works with a personality. Works that left a mark and an imprint to the visitor's memory.

Kamma succeeded in describing a story, an evolution of the idea of the artist. Primarily, it was a big step for her to move to an installation apart from her usual drawings. She first surprised us with her one-woman show @ Gazon Rouge with a video (which needed attention there was a whole story going on there) and now here she presented an architectural maquette in relation to the video. There was a path that was very clear, and one could very well see how she went from point A to B and so on. However, i am not sure the space selected for the works was the most appropriate and i believe that the maquette should be elevated from the floor.

Alavanou's video was very suprising. The last work of hers i saw was the one at "what remains is future" in Patra curated by Nadia Argyropoulou. It was in accordance to her previous work with a very intense element of feminist -lets not be afraid to use the word- feel to it, a comment on woman, on age, on memory, on popular culture. This work was more austere and distanced without too much emotion, although she keeps using cartoon characters in her work. The sound plays again a very important part in her work and here it is a tool used to accentuate time, continuity and repetition. She has created a gran-guignol, humorous, elevating work that played with the notion of time and continuity and its double-sided presentation was very succesful. I am not very familiar with the technical sides of video but it seemed very well made to me.

The other works...well a bit boring. To steal F. Bonami's phrase "im bored, bored, bored". Although he was referring to contemporary performance, i am sorry to have to refer to the contemporary installations by Sokratis Fatouros (i dont know his work very well but what exactly does he want to convey through this particular work??) and Nikos Arvanitis (as a friend said and i agree completely this is so much like Takis -with a tad of 2007 technology i add).

The photographs of Yiannis Grigoriadis -ok they have a cunning political smirk on their face, if you will, however, i have seen this before. I remember seeing his solo show at Els Hanappe in 2005 in Athens and it was exactly the same thing. Working with a theme of political reference such as the Yugo car, that personally makes me think of Berlin, East and West Germany before the fall of its wall, Russia's recent economical boom, Yugoslavia and the Kosovo war, and all these things, is very strong i agree, but one has to develop it in a time frame of 2 years. My humble opinion.

Savvas Christodoulides however managed to pull it off i think, the element of this chair, -very much like the one my granny has in her dining room- very imperial, but so fragile since it was not painted in the usual dark colour, and also so useless, meaning it lost its purpose as a chair because it was tilted and nailed to woods vertical to the floor. I liked that work but i felt i needed something more out of it.

F*ART part deux

And they generally talk about all the things everyone that is in the art world thinks and talks about within little groups but never admits in public. Lines such as Art is Important and Art Changes Your Life etc etc...After a point they turn into animals (they dress as animals as well as act like animals) and in this way they aim to show the brutal, cruel side of the artworld and consequently the world in general. They end up killing eachother. kind of. :)

The characters are very much accurate and i would say they are a Big Brother version of all of us that are in one way or another in the athens art world. Anyone that will deny that i believe is kidding themselves. I was thrilled to see the play commenting on the curator's knowledge on Louis Vuitton bags and shopping, as well as her fixation on repeating SHE curated such and such project.
The host of the show, that wickedly resembles Marina Labraki Plaka (the director of the National Gallery), looks like a mid-seventies school teacher with her ample bossom and dark kaftan, the curator that is sooooo fashionable and egocentric it is hilarious, the artist that looks like a retard, with his funny glasses and his rock t-shirt, and the gallerist also very fashionable, ice-cool and snobby, and best of all the collector, with his crisp white shirt and trendy white shoes. I am firstly describing the exterior, aka the costumes designed by Rosina Baltatzi, since they enter the viewer in a specific mood and are themselves a very succesful parody of how clothes are important even among the people of art.. :)
The actors were quite good, i have to admit that the host and the collector were among my favourites. The host with her pseudo-graveness and a feeling she is indeed producing "cultural food" for the audience. And the collector with his noble background and "old money" but slight indiference to anything that does not involve money. His philosophical babble and quotes from "important" theorists and so on, was also very funny.
I found the character of the artist to be very intriguing as well, but the actor was slightly too loud in my opinion. The script portrayed him as a poor little mouse -he disguised as one later on in the play- and i thought they kind of left out the darker side. The artist was a mouse, manipulated, raped and guided by all the other characters, and he lets say tried to manipulate but was unsuccesful since he was weaker than the others. However, he felt like an innocent whore and not a manipulative one. Which is also one side of some artists with power in the artworld.
The funniest part for me was to see the gallerist (played by Loraini Alimantiri that is the owner of gallery Gazon Rouge) with one shoe, and an electrical saw running after the curator. It was Freddy Kruger meets Hussein Chalayan (her costume kind of reminded me of his clothes).

All in all, i think it was a succesful play, i would only comment on one description of ass-licking (translated into greek into buttering someone up -oh so rare in art worlds internationally!)
where the curator describes the best way to lick someone's ass. I wasnt offended by it, it was funny but i thought it was unecessarily crude. The peeing scene where the collector pees on the artist and accidentally on the gallerist was much more succesful i thought.
Also, the time where the artist describes his childhood trauma via a performance and then all hell breaks loose and they all become animals and start raping eachother was a bit over the top. But i guess that was the point. There was Brechtian patina on the whole effort of trying to portray something extra-vagant and therefore alien so as the viewer cannot relate to it but only mock it or laugh at it. But the satira was so caustic that it was also like a political ancient comedy.

The direction was very good in my little knowledge of theatre. But i loved the lighting, and the positioning, and their brief dance routine, as well as the way they stood on stage.

F*ART @ Amore Theatre

I saw yesterday the last show of the play F*ART written and directed by artist Poka-Yio.
I must admit i didn't know what to expect, because i knew very little about it. Just that he was doing the play and that his gallerist was acting in it.
I have to say, i really liked it. The story is the plateau of a tv show about art, where the guests arrive and chat before the beggining of the show, and then they decide upon what is to be discussed on the show. A little after the show starts, and whilst they fight, -very politely since they r on air, a terrorist attack happens on a building near by and the show stops. After inhaling fumes they become relaxed and stoned. And this is when the fun begins. They relax and start revealing their inner thoughts about one another, about art and its sociological and interelational status...

DAMIEN HIRST

i visited the exhibition DAMIEN HIRST yesterday. Just an appartment in the middle of Palaio Faliro with 3 rooms used as a temporary space. The artists were Dimitris Karadinopoulos, Andreas Kasapis, Kostas Roussakis and Yiannis Tzavelas. Kasapis produced a mural-graffiti (if i am allowed to use the term) that was in usual style, however i thought it was slightly less detailed than other works of his that i ve seen. Which is maybe a step to something new in his work? I really love his work i think he has an amazing way of portraying the sadness and loneliness of modern urban man together with an optimistic smth hovering over the work. Karadinopoulos showed a cast of wht looked like the back of Formula 1 car, which was interesting as an object but because i have seen older video works of his i think they were much more succesful and whole as artworks. Roussakis showed a wonderful ladder beggining from the wall and ending on the floor made out of cardboard, it was so simple but yet so inviting to climb it and silmutaneously it was so obvious it was fragile that i felt trapped between these two feelings and it instantly made me really warm to the work. Lastly Tzavelas showed a mural on the wall which showed potential but it possibly needed more space for the drawing to breath and maybe more defined lines to his whole presentation.

I am really glad that people have fresh ideas like these and that they have the initiative to show their work in this manner. The best thing is to see these -dare i say it- underground initiatives and as a good friend said last nite "suburbia might be the new down town"...well It is a weekend so i will not be writing more. More details to come, as well as visuals

this blog is now changed.
it will host my other blog mapatokarpouzi (for previous entries look there)
i will be continuing here. enjoy.
xx