Welcome to PAST PROJECTS!

All past projects appear here (below)!

Please, scroll down for A Cab. Athenian Symposium, AA (Amsterdam - Athens), In the Studio, Political Speeches, This Must Be the Place, Michael Kliën seminar on choreography, Headquarters / Panos Papadopoulos, Retrospective / KangarooCourt, A Wonderful Life, Epitaph, The Oblong Box, Summer in the Middle of Winter, Farewell, Mountain / HOPE, Crisis, Art and Systems of Knowledge, B.Y.O.B and THE BAR.

To see or download more PHOTOS, please, visit our flickr page: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kunsthalleathena/sets/. 
To watch VIDEOS, please, visit our youtube or our vimeo page: http://www.youtube.com/kunsthalleathena, http://vimeo.com/kunsthalleathena.
For more PRESS INFORMATION and PRESS FOLDERS, please, visit our press category: http://www.kunsthalleathena.org/press.php. 
For SELECTED PRESS CLIPPINGS ABOUT KUNSTHALLE ATHENA, please, visit: http://www.kunsthalleathena.org/press.php?id=188

 

ARTISTS WITH PERMANENT WORKS IN KUNSTHALLE ATHENA:

Aids-3D, Andreas Angelidakis, Lydia Dambassina, Christina Dimitriadis, Alexandros Georgiou, HOPE, Thanos Kyriakides (BLIND ADAM), Annika Larsson, Matthieu Laurette, Ylva Ogland, Angeliki Papoulia, Robert Pettena, Theo Prodromidis, Iraklis Renieris, Yorgos Sapountzis, Socratis Socratous, Yorgos Stamkopoulos, Stefania Strouza, Maria Tzanakou, Dimitra Vamiali, Paul Zografakis  

 

WE'LL MEET AGAIN

30 June - 2 July, 2015

      

      

      

       

FROM TOP LEFT: Performances / lectures by AZA, Quinn Latimer, Angela Brouskou / Parthenopi Bouzouri
Georgios Papadopoulos, Pantelis Pantelopoulos, Paolo Thorsen-Nagel
Eleni Kotsoni, Thodoris Prodromidis, Angelo Plessas
Jennifer Teets, George-Ikaros Babassakis / Eleanna Martinou, Angela Dimitrakaki
Photos by Stathis Mamalakis

Participants: Agent Mo, Amateurboyz, Giorgio Andreotta Calò, Danai Anesiadou, Andreas Angelidakis, Anastasia Ax, AZA, Athens Zine Biblioteque, George-Ikaros Babassakis & Eleanna Martinou, Tjorg Douglas Beer, Angela Brouskou & Parthenopi Bouzouri, Vincent Chomaz, Angela Dimitrakaki, Pakui Hardware, Katerina Kana, Valentinas Klimašauskas, Dimitris Kotselis, Eleni Kotsoni, Mikko Kuorinki, Quinn Latimer, Pantelis Pantelopoulos, Georgios Papadopoulos, Natasha Papadopoulou / Giannis Loukos / Eleftheria Togia, Angelo Plessas, Dimitris Politakis, Theo Prodromidis, Lars Siltberg, Jennifer Teets, Paolo Thorsen-Nagel

Kunsthalle Athena is moving. 
As a non-static platform we feel it’s about time to transform, and to grow. But before that, we wanted to celebrate with you the end of our seeding period with a three-day series of lectures, screenings and performances, to say goodbye to the beloved building that hosted all our projects for the last five years and became part of our identity. 

Borrowed from a 1939 British song made famous by singer Dame Vera Lynn, the title of the activities We’ll Meet Again, refers to the optimistic undertones of goodbye, the anticipation of future reconciliations, and the promise to make up for the temporary absence during displacement.

To see or download more images, please go to our We'll Meet Again flickr photoset.

Supported by:

facebook event

 

 

 

A CAB. Athenian Symposium

December 4 - 13, 2014
      

      

Photos by Stathis Mamalakis

Participating artists: Andreas Angelidakis, Nick Bastis, Liudvikas Buklys, Antanas Gerlikas, Morten Norbye Halvorsen, Stephanos Kamaris, Laura Kaminskaitė, Mikko Kuorinki, Thanos Kyriakides, Lupo, Ieva Misevičiūtė, Elena Narbutaitė, Robertas Narkus, Carl Palm, Natasha Papadopoulou, Zoë Paul, Angelo Plessas, Michael Portnoy, Dexter Sinister, Ola Vasiljeva

If cabinet of curiosities were a vehicle...
After a few but productive conversations with artists between Athens and Vilnius and back, a certain phantasm, cyborg or an animal, – most probably all in one –, started to move in our heads. This creature may be called an exhibition, but also it may be a library of objects, a book written in real time, an assemblage, consisting of communicating and choreographed objects, and creating space for potentialities and events. If we may call it an exhibition, it would be as stable as “Medusa raft”, it would research itself and its surroundings as Mars rover, or the aforementioned Viking 1 lander to be more exact, it would be transported as easy as a suitcase with Ryanair, and, what is more important, it would function as a ghostly vehicle, both figuratively and literary, for audience, artists, objects, and imagination.

A special website project by Angelo Plessas: www.beforeeverything.com
A Cab also made an apparition at Podium artists space, Oslo, November 21-23, 2014.
Curated by: Valentinas Klimašauskas
Duration: December 4 – 13, 2014 

 

To see or download more images, please go to our A Cab flickr photoset.

Supported by:
      

facebook event

 

 

THIS IS NOT MY BEAUTIFUL HOUSE

May 16 - September 27, 2014 

Kunsthalle Athena in Epochi ton Ikonon
 
         
FROM LEFT: Kostis Velonis, Socratis Socratous, Anastasia Ax. Photos by Stathis Mamalakis

         
FROM LEFT: Socratis Socratous, Kostis Velonis, Kostis Velonis. Photos by Stathis Mamalakis

         
FROM LEFT: Anastasia Ax, Apostolos Georgiou, Socratis Socratous. Photos by Stathis Mamalakis

 
Participating artists: Anastasia Ax, Apostolos Georgiou, Socratis Socratous, Kostis Velonis

Borrowed its title from the lyrics of the famous song by Talking Heads, the exhibition This is Not My Beautiful House brought together four artists: Anastasia Ax, Apostolos Georgiou, Socratis Socratous and Kostis Velonis, who are engaged, directly or indirectly, with the present ‘Greek’ – not to say global – condition.

This is Not My Beautiful House as a title has no direct references to 80s pop music or New York culture. In the absence of any other significant manifestos, it served as the perfect tag to describe a world that is unfolding between fears and desires stigmatised by the current economic and social moment. As a line from a pop song, this quote had surely been interpreted and felt in many different ways by many different people. In the case of this exhibition, it has becomed a parable for the contemporary state of social and existential alienation. This is Not My Beautiful House was refering here to contradictory notions and desires like going or staying, living or dying, trying or surrendering, hoping or giving up; a topography in which the only certainty is that things cannot go on anymore as they were.

Curated by Kunsthalle Athena team: 
Klea Charitou, Eleanna Papathanasiadi and Marina Fokidis 
Assistant curator: Alfredo Pechuan

Duration: 16 May - 27 September 2014

To see or download more images, please go to our This is Not my Beautiful House flickr photoset.

Supported by: 

          

 

POLITICAL SPEECHES 

May – September, 2014

A series of performances under the title Political Speeches curated by Kunsthalle Athena team taking place as part of the parallel events program of This Is Not My Beautiful House exhibition.

Participants: Anastasia Ax, Dean Spunt (No Age), Allan Sekula - Noël Burch - Lindsay Foster, Athens Biennale, locus athens, Frown, Snehta, 3 137, Totál, Socratis Socratous, Kostis Velonis, and many more to be announced soon.

  

 

 

POLITICAL SPEECH # 17 - WITHOUT A PROPER NOUN: BINDING AND NARRATION

Thursday, October 16, 18:30, Without a Proper Noun: Binding and Narration discussion and workshop with Laura Lovatel and Federica Menin

 

      

      

Photos by Stathis Mamalakis

Kunsthalle Athena was pleased to host a discussion and workshop on Thursday, October 16th, at 18:30, under the title Without a Proper Noun: Binding and Narration, with Laura Lovatel and Federica Menin, as part of its Political Speeches series. 

The project Without a Proper Noun took place last spring while the two Italian artists were living in Athens. During the meeting at Kunsthalle Athena, the audience will be involved in the process of of assembling pages to constitute a book that has yet to come. The main purpose is to instigate a moment for sharing questions, desires, fears, views and proposals, sewing our experience to other kindred spirits and initiatives, through the act of binding a book.

To see or download more images, please go to our flickr photoset Political Speech # 17 - Without a Proper Noun: Binding and Narration

 

 

 

 

POLITICAL SPEECH # 16 - REDEFINING SCULPTURE

Thursday, July 10, 20:00, Redefining Sculpture discussion with Socratis Socratous and Kostis Velonis

Video by Jana Tziveleki

         

Photos by Nicole Nikolaou

Kunsthalle Athena invited Kostis Velonis and Socratis Socratous - participating artists in the exhibition This is Not My Beautiful House- to a discussion about their artistic work. Both artists, choosing sculpture as their medium, make a critical comment upon contemporary reality and undertake a new approach on art.

The two artists analysed their work as well as the course of their artistic production, their influences and points of reference, the way their work relates to politics, history and contemporary sociopolitical circumstances. Furthermore, they elaborated on how forms and materials converse with each other, composing a potentially new approach on the role and the significance of art today. Through this encounter, they attempted to share their visions with the public, as well as the other elements which constitute their artistic universe.

To see or download more images, please go to our flickr photoset Political Speech # 16 - Redifining Sculpture

 

 

 

 

POLITICAL SPEECH # 15 - PRIVATE INITIATIVES IN ATHENS, WAYS TO A NEW VISUAL REALITY

Friday, June 27, 20:00, Private Initiatives in Athens, Ways to a New Visual Reality discussion

Video by Jana Tziveleki

      

      

Photos by Nicole Nikolaou and Stathis Mamalakis

Realising that various new independent art spaces have been established during the last years in Athens as private initiatives which aim to recreate the visual map of the city, Kunsthalle Athena -being a space like that itself- invited Athens Biennale, locus athens, Frown, Snehta, 3 137 and Totál to an open discussion and presentation.

All six spaces, despite their different identities and actions, share a common passion and knowledge about contemporary art and through their constant activities they try to fill the gap of the state insufficiency in supporting contemporary art. All of them – whether they are run by artists, or by curators – are non-commercial, non-profit institutions. Their purpose is not to turn art into a commodity but to discover new ways of display, distribution and presentation of art, to produce knowledge and also to create an informal but strong network of information and collaboration between artists, encouraging at the same time new participatory ways for the public. 

By being constantly aware of local and international art tendencies, they invite other members of the international art community to think outside the box and be innovative regarding the ways in which contemporary art is dealt with, outside the legal norms and the market.

All participants presented the special identity of their space, their goals, past exhibitions and events, achievements and problems that they have had to cope with, but most importantly they expressed their thoughts on how they envision their future. An open discussion with the public followed.

Kunsthalle Athena, being a private initiative as well, transformed for one night into a platform for exchange of ideas, information, concerns and complements, hot topics and anecdotes, in order to reflect on the options of maintaining private initiatives in Greece during this time of financial and humanitarian crisis. Through this discussion we would like to revitalise an atmosphere of “freshness” similar to the one that sparked our initial vision for a better future in contemporary art.

The schedule included presentations accompanied by audiovisual material and perhaps a performative mood. The discussion was initiated by Kunsthalle Athena and continued with the main presentation of the Athens Biennale (30 min.) by the keynote speaker Poka-Yio. A round table with 10 min. presentations and discussion with locus athens (curatorial initiative), Frown (platform for culture collaborations – project space), Snehta (artist residency programme and space), 3 137 (artist-run space), Totál (project space) moderated by Klea Charitou followed.

To see or download more images, please go to our flickr photoset Political Speech # 15 - Private Initiatives in Athens, Ways to a New Visual Reality

 

 

 

POLITICAL SPEECH # 14 - ALLAN SEKULA

Thursrday, June 19, 20:30, Premiere of the last film by Allan Sekula (1951-2013) The Forgotten Space in Greece (duration 110 minutes)

Video by Jana Tziveleki

      

Photos by Stathis Mamalakis

Kunsthalle Athena was pleased to host as part of the Political Speeches series the video artist Lindsay Foster who presented the last film by Allan Sekula (1951-2013) in collaboration with Noël Burch.
Lindsay Foster was student of Allan Sekula during and after her MFA at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts). At Kunsthalle Athena the artist presented his last film 'The Forgotten Space' (duration 110 minutes), a short introduction on the work of the leading American artist and her mentor Allan Sekula.
Before the film the video Downward Ascension by Lindsay Foster was screened. The evening closed with an open discussion and questions from the audience. 

To see or download more images, please go to our flickr photoset Political Speech # 14 - Allan Sekula

 

 

 

 

POLITICAL SPEECH # 13 - DEAN SPUNT

Saturday, June 7, 20:30, Dean Allen Spunt, performance

Video by Jana Tziveleki

  
      

      

Photos by Stathis Mamalakis

Dean Spunt, member of noise punk act No Age and visual artist, presented a special action. By drowning cassette players in paint inside vessels of glass, Spunt approaches sound almost as matter, but also as spectre, and through its slow degradation he allows sculptural sonic ‘objects’ to evolve. What we see (and especially what we hear) is the sound of disintegration, a representational approach to sound itself. By damaging the initial record on tape, we become witnesses of another carving on tape, that of an artistic gesture, where we experience the friction amongst the materials and perceive an almost tangible aspect of sound the moment we see its trace dematerialising.  

To see or download more images, please go to our flickr photoset Political Speech # 13 - Dean Spunt.

 

 

 

POLITICAL SPEECH # 12 - ANASTASIA AX

Saturday, May 31, 20:30, Anastasia Ax, Exile performance

 

Video by Yannis Drakoulidis FOSPHOTOS

 

      

      

Photos by Yannis Drakoulidis FOSPHOTOS

 

The work Exile by Anastasia Ax was altered in its second stage. Through a performative event, which combined action and sound, the installation Exile did undergo a brutal transformation. Anastasia Ax’s mediums for this performance were her body, water, ink and microphones which transmited the sound of her movements and her voice. Her intention was to give the village-constellation new shape and meaning. 

To see or download more images, please go to our flickr photoset Political Speech # 12 - Anastasia Ax. 

 

 

 

AA (AMSTERDAM - ATHENS) 

March 2014

      

      

Photos by Stathis Mamalakis

Participants: Tessel Brühl, Giada Fiorindi, Lenka Hamosova, Anja Kaiser, Polina Medvedeva, Mark Jan van Tellingen, Jaroslav Toussaint, Rasmus Svensson, Janna Ullrich, Tommi Vasko

Presentation of recent work by the students of the Sandberg Instituut, Amsterdam as part of their residency at Kunsthalle Athena.
Ten students of the Design Department of the Sandberg Instituut, Amsterdam filled Kunsthalle Athena with their work, which varies from installations, screenings and performances to a conceptual juice bar. 
Covering a wide range of areas from technological solutionism to alternative economical structures and from mutating national identities to contemporary feminism, their projects deal with topics urgent for the emerging generation of graphic designers and artists.

www.sandberg.nl 

To see or download more images, please go to our  Facebook Photo Album.

 


IN THE STUDIO 

September 8 - 30, 2013 - Curated by Daily Lazy Projects artists' team for ReMap 4 

       

   

      

             

Photos by Stathis Mamalakis

Participating artists: Loukia Alavanou, Athanasios Argianas, Erik Binder, Clara Broermann, Stephane Calais, Lizzie Calligas, Thomas Chapman, Dionisis Christofilogiannis, Michael De Kok, Christina Dimitriadis, Oana Farcas, Petra Feriancova,  Shannon Finley, Dimitris Foutris, Torben Giehler, Helidon Gjergji, Stelios Karamanolis, Vassilis P. Karouk, Michalis Katzourakis, Jan Kiefer, John Kleckner, Caroline Kryzecki, Marek Kvetan, Daniel Lergon, Sifis Lykakis, Mathieu Mercier, Svätopluk Mikyta, Ilona Nemeth, Yudi Noor, Ilias Papailiakis, Angelo Plessas, Tula Plumi, Vassilis Salpistis, Georgia Sagri, Frank Selby, Yorgos Stamkopoulos, Daniel Steegmann, Henning Strassburger, Joulia Strauss, Morgane Tschiember, Brent Wadden

As part of the exhibition, a talk under the title Artist Mathieu Mercier in a conversation with Marina Fokidis and Daily Lazy Projects took place on Monday, September 9, at 18:30, in the French Institute of Athens (Théo Angelopoulos Auditorium), 31 Sina Street, Athens (www.ifa.gr).

The exhibition In the Studio focused on the conditions under which the artwork is created and investigates its fundamental relation to the artists’ studios. The project found its conceptual base in a twofold approach: on one side displaying art as a time-based procedure and activity, and secondly, to document the private milieu of the artist studio, the place where this process is unveiled. The exhibition In the Studio displayed the work of selected artists, focusing on unfinished pieces, works in-progress, sketches, maquettes, models, and other objects taken from the artists’ studios. It was one of the few opportunities to present a curatorial project where the artwork and the labour of the artist share one immediate and intact space, a space co-habited now by the artist and the audience.

The on-going project In the Studio was launched in December 2011 and it currently includes more than 130 renowned and upcoming contemporary artists, based in Athens, Berlin, Paris, Vienna, Amsterdam, Istanbul, Zürich, Basel, Frankfurt, Florence, Valletta, Cluj-Napoca, Johannesburg, Kuala Lumpur, New York, Rome, Washington, North Carolina, Stockholm, Bratislava, Rotterdam, Tampere, Düsseldorf, San Francisco, and more.

Α project originally initiated by Daily Lazy Projects in the form of an online documentation and showcase of individual distinctive practices (“In the Studio”: http://daily-lazy.blogspot.de/search/label/In%20The%20Studio), it was presented for the first time as an extensive and multidimensional installation in Kunsthalle Athena. The final aim was to create an active environment, where both the artist and the visitor simultaneously attend to the very early stage of the conception and creation of the artwork, before it leaves the studio to enter institutions, museums and galleries around the world.

In the Studio attempted to reveal the invisible facets of art and it concerned a curatorial proposal which covers a variety of research, conceptual, aesthetic, creative and experiential interests, inviting us to meet art in the most direct manner.

The exhibition was curated by Daily Lazy Projects. DLP collaborated with Lydia Pribisova for the selection and support of the Slovak artists.

http://dlprojects.tumblr.com/  &  http://daily-lazy.blogspot.gr

More info: http://remapkm.com/4/   

To see or download more images, please go to our Flickr photo set or  Facebook Photo Album

Supported by:                                                                                   Media sponsors: 

 

 

POLITICAL SPEECHES 

May – September 2, 2013

A series of performances under the title Political Speeches curated by KA team that took place as part of the parallel events program of This Must Be the Place and In the Studio exhibitions.

Participants: George-Icaros Babassakis, Stella Dimitrakopoulou, Panayiotis Hadjistefanou, Rosemary Lee, Dracula Lewis, Jaws & Sewn Leather, Pantelis Pantelopoulos, Natasha Papadopoulou, Georgios Papadopoulos, Poka-Yio, Slavs & Tatars

 

THIS MUST BE THE PLACE

May 9 – August 2, 2013  

Maria Tzanakou, This Must Be the Place, 2013, ephemeral text-sculpture, Courtesy of the artist

Solo shows: Katerina Kana, Thanos Kyriakides (BLIND ADAM) and Petros Touloudis

Three visual artists -currently living and working in Athens- presented their work in Kunsthalle Athena.

The exhibition featured also works by: Sotiris Bakagiannis (Kunsthalle Athena online commission 2013), Angelo Plessas, Socratis Socratous, Maria Tzanakou

Following the solo presentations of established and upcoming artists, Kunsthalle Athena presented this summer Katerina Kana, Thanos Kyriakides (BLIND ADAM) and Petros Touloudis. Three artists, who insist on living and working in Athens at this difficult time, met up in Kunsthalle Athena on a peculiar co-existence that investigated the dynamic of the artistic spirit and production under all kind of severe economic and existential circumstances. Kunsthalle Athena chose to focus once more on Greek artists. This time though, we decided to have a non-specific theme for our main show, since everyday life has become so hectic, that it cannot be expressed yet by verbal terms and meanings.

The artists who presented their work in This Must Be the Place are working on the verge of form and image. They seem to have a prismatic comprehension of reality and thus create a body of work that is less a documentation than a subjective gesture or a bold sketch of life, in this given moment.

      

Petros Touloudis, Katerina Kana, Katerina Kana - Photos by Stathis Mamalakis

    

Thanos Kyriakides, Sotiris Bakagiannis - Photos by Stathis Mamalakis

      

Socratis Socratous, Thanos Kyriakides, Maria Tzanakou - Photos by Stathis Mamalakis

 

Curated by Kunsthalle Athena’s team: Marina Fokidis, Eleanna Papathanasiadi, Jorgina Stamogianni, Apostolos Vasilopoulos. Guest curator: Michelangelo Corsaro

Duration: May 9 - August 2, 2013

To see or download more images, please go to This Must Be the Place flickr-photoset or facebook photo album. 

Supported by:                                                                 Media sponsor:

                                            

 

This Must Be the Place Video Interviews of artists by Michelangelo Corsaro: 

Maria Tzanakou - Video Interview by Michelangelo Corsaro

For more interviews of artists, please go to:

Katerina Kana, Thanos Kyriakides, Petros Touloudis, Angelo Plessas, Socratis Socratous, Maria Tzanakou

  

 

 

THE CRASH OUT OF CIVILIZATION AND INTO THE WORLD: CHOREOGRAPHY AS AN AESTHETICS OF CHANGE 

November 30 – December 2, 2012  

      

PUBLIC LECTURE: The crash out of civilization and into the world

I believe that action, if it is to be planned at all, must always be planned upon an aesthetic base. (Gregory Bateson)

Michael Kliën outlined a radically rethought understanding of ‘choreography’ as a creative practice fundamentally relevant to current social and political processes. As an Aesthetics of Change, choreography is concerned with the workings and governance of patterns, dynamics and ecologies: the choreography of the living.

If the world, as anthropologist Gregory Bateson proposed, is perceived as a reality constructed of interactions, relationships, constellations and proportionalities, choreography can assume the creative practice of setting such relations, or set the conditions for such relations, to emerge. Choreographic knowledge harvested from perceived patterns in nature, forms the basis for wider acts of human creation and ordering.

WORKSHOP FOR ARTISTS, CHOREOGRAPHERS AND CITIZENS: Choreographing in the imagination of your gods

We might think of choreography in terms of rehearsal; that is, as the working out and working through of utopian, nevertheless real, social relations. Andrew Hewitt: “Social Choreography”

This workshop outlined choreography as a deeply political practice, unfathomably entwined with ways in which we perceive the world. Seen through a connecting framework to other fields of human knowledge (such as philosophy, physics, formal composition, sociology, anthropology, etc) participants were encouraged to recognize and challenge epistemological assumptions inscribed in the act of creation. Discussing and demonstrating a series of methodologies, the workshop explored structures and dynamics to be found in and between humans, in and between ideas as well as within the overall fabric of contemporary reality.

The workshop included an introduction to ‘Social Dreaming’, an experimental psychoanalytical practice developed by Gordon Lawrence of the Tavistock Institute (London). Depending on how the week would developed, there were movement elements, although it was neither required a change of clothes nor a feeling of inadequacy. 

Michael Kliën (1973) is an acclaimed choreographer, curator and producer of numerous touring productions, installations and events. In1994 he co-founded the performance collective Barriedale Operahouse (in operation till 2000) and worked as a choreographer for Ballett Frankfurt, Volksoper, etc. From 2003 to 2011 he was Artistic Director/CEO of Daghdha, Ireland's premiere dance organisations. Kliën’s work, equally at home in the Performing as well as Fine Arts, is concerned with development of choreographic practice for which he has been awarded a PhD from Edinburgh College of Art in 2009.  Recent key projects include the works for Hayward Gallery (London), ‘IMMA (Irish Museum of Modern Art). COIL (New York) and the publication of ‘Books of Recommendations’ – Choreography as an Aesthetics of Change’.www.michaelklien.com

To see or download more images, please go to our Flickr photoset or Facebook Photo Album 

 

 

PANOS PAPADOPOULOS – HEADQUARTERS 

KANGAROO COURT – «RETROSPECTIVE»   

 October 4 - November 8, 2012

   

Panos Papadopoulos, Headquaters, 2012, mixed media, Exhibition view - Photos by Stathis Mamalakis

   

KangarooCourt, "Retrospective", 2012, mixed media, Exhibition view - Photos by Stathis Mamalakis

 

As part of the programme of solo shows of acclaimed and upcoming artists, Kunsthalle Athena presented two concurrent solo shows opening on Thursday the 4^th of October. On the left side of the building, there was the show of visual artist Panos Papadopoulos, Headquarters, and on the right side, the show of the artistic group KangooroCourt, “Retrospective”. The emphasis put on Greek artists who live in Athens during this period, as well as the combination of these specific exhibitions, were not coincidental. Instead, they were directly related to the specific regional -but also more general- condition.

PANOS PAPADOPOULOS – HEADQUARTERS

Responding to the current time of uncertainty, to the growing bankruptcy of the State, to the general inability to figure out a solid solution, to the political and economical machinations -that take place at the expense of the citizens-, to the general corruption, to a small percentage of dynamic visionary inhabitants -that has collided with an invisible wall-, but also in a flimsy hope, that begins with the “irrational” of the visual language, the curatorial team of Kunsthalle Athena set a handful of artists to confront each other as well as the audience through works that deal with some of the above subjects, in a unique and liberated way, avoiding quotes and guided political utterance. Through abstract compositions, and actions with evident references to the social and political structure of reality, Panos Papadopoulos and KangarooCourt group, made us think harder, in the hope of approaching a clearer solution. Deploying his own paintings, photographs, videos and readymades, like old tables- desks, and incorporating them in an “aimless” strategy, shakes casually the established institutions, -either artistic or broadly social. At a time when everything is tested, the work of Papadopoulos is not looking to propose solutions in vain, but constitutes itself through the exploration of new combinations of grim reality and innocent imagination. Born in Athens in 1975, Panos Papadopoulos has exhibited extensively in Vienna. Kunsthalle Athena hosts his first individual exhibition in Greece, Headquarters. Using the structural and visual relations that rule the institutional structure of the contemporary service as material, the artist reconstructs an irrational situation -parasitic to the vertically integrated mentality of the office- commenting on it at the same time. Thus, in an abstract way, he offers a sample of the problematic contemporary social and economic situation,in a language that tends to escape the real. 

KANGAROO COURT – «RETROSPECTIVE» 

Choosing to express themselves through an harmonic blend of different forms of art, like visual art, performance, music, literature, among others, KangarooCourt group‘s actions critically comment on “the limits of (re)presentation, the utterant body, the aestheticised speech”, as they unfold in the frames of the art, as well as in the general social realm. It is up to the spectator to place his own focus on the meanings and associations that become imprinted, or even disappear, though the intermingling of different individuals. 

The group KangarooCourt was founded in the beginning of 2010 in Thessaloniki, Greece, and its name is inspired by the term kangaroo court, that refers to the out-of-law courts, that, for example, teams of prisoners or workers on strike create to solve their differences. The group  consists of Dimitris Ameladiotis, Filippos Gountzos, Elena Koukoli, Iordanis Papadopoulos, Nana Sachini, Ioanna Stratoglou and Simos Veis, who come from different artistic backgrounds, but share the same interests regarding artist-audience or power relations. Given a planned future collaboration for a new act by KangarooCourt group in the building of Kunsthalle Athena in the summer of 2013, we decided to present an historical retrospective of documents-works and archive material of all the group’s acts. Apart from the speech- presentation of KangarooCourt group in the meeting SYSTEMS at CAMP in the summer of 2012, it is the first time that the group is presenting its work as a whole in a solo show. 

The organisation and curation of the exhibition has been a collaboration of Kunsthalle Athena’s curatorial team: Marina Fokidis, Eleanna Papathanasiadi, Angeliki Roussou. 

Assistant curators: Maria Passarivaki, Christina Stamou, Viki Stavraka 

To see or download more images, please go to our Flickr photo set or  Facebook Photo Album

Media Partner

Beton7 Art Radio (www.beton7artradio.gr)

 

 

 

 A WONDERFUL LIFE 

 July 3 - end of September, 2012 

      

      

Dimitris Masselos

Vangelis Vlahos

   

Kostis Paravadis, Socratis Socratous

            

 Andreas Angelidakis

 

Participating artists: Andreas Angelidakis, Christina Dimitriadis, Yiorgos Lazongas, Dimitris Masselos, Kostis Paravadis, Dimitris Rokos, Socratis Socratous, Vangelis Vlahos, Maria Tzanakou

Summer in Kunsthalle Athena finds us living A Wonderful Life.

After a winter of deep economic, social and existential crisis in Europe, during which Greece was the epicentre of it, on the verge of literal and moral disasters in an area of the city centre such as Metaxourgeio, where human trafficking and drug dealing go on undisturbed with the State’s tolerance right in front of our eyes and leave shattered people behind, raped women as well as impoverished heroine addicts, yet we feel ‘wonderful’. We didn’t bother the riot brutalities, we don’t mind the unfair austerity measures, either the schizophrenic promises of the vote-wise politicians, or the whirlpool that drugs us deeper and deeper; it just reminds us that something crucial has happened, happens and will happen once again, while we are drowning. Besides, it’s about a wonderful life in the context that Capra is presenting it in his -accidentally characterised as a Christmas- film, It’s a Wonderful Life, which occurs at the heart of the American crisis in the ’30s, and has a reference to a series of setbacks and human dilemmas, corruption, death, blind destruction and greed. All these take place in Posterville, in today’s Athensville, or in any today’s city, where people have become worse and more corrupted than their own rulers and where all the people have to come together in order to deal with their unthinkable weaknesses. By facing one another.

Knowing nothing else but art, we finally decided to continue. Perhaps, in an abstract way we are making an effort to resist against this individual and also collective drowning. This winter, we published a magazine called SOUTH, in English, aiming at ‘contaminating’ the whole world with the infamous southern stereotypes and ideas, since nothing else has worked out. The first issue seems to be a success; lots of information from Greece and all around has gone everywhere, or at least wherever we thought they should have gone. We are now sending you news about this. Furthermore, influenced by our research for the magazine and in relation with everything that has happened lately, we invited some artists to present their work altogether, so, along with the works that exist already in Kunsthalle Athena, they would ideally deliver the trace of this “wonderful life” that surrounds us, more black than ever. The reflection from these works seems to be magical through our eyes and, hopefully, through yours too. At the core of this set stands the work of Vangelis Vlahos “1981” (Allagi) (2007), courtesy of The Breeder gallery, a work that seeks to construct an “image” of the first nine months of PASOK government in the beginning of the ’80s, showing material that has been found in the archives of the right-wing newspaper Eleftheros Kosmos, we also present a series of photographs by Dimitris Masselos that thematises the protests and late turbulances in Europe, the video Troll (Walking Building Part II) by Andreas Angelidakis that refers to a workers’ housing block which can no longer stand the city and takes refuge into the nature becoming a part of it, the School by Socratis Socratous, a series of photographs depicting a vandalised by its own students Greek school, works of Yiorgos Lazongas, whose main work is the video Small Gas Tanks for Multiple Uses, 1978, the dark works by Kostis Paravadis, the poetic photograph by Christina Dimitriadis from a performance directed by herself in collaboration with Stefania Goulioti, which took place in the room where the photograph is now exhibited, and the surreal paintings by Dimitris Rokos. 

The organisation and curation of the exhibition has been a collaboration of Kunsthalle Athena’s curatorial team: Marina Fokidis, Apostolos Vasilopoulos, Eleanna Papathanasiadi, Angeliki Roussou. Assistant curator: Christina Stamou

To see or download more images, please go to our Flickr photo set or Facebook Photo Album

Sound:                        Sponsors: 

                                                              

Sonic Playground 

        

 

A WONDERFUL LIFE EVENTS

A Wonderful Life - Opening and SOUTH publication launch party - June 3,  2012  

Exclusive Performance by Cibelle! 

 

 A Wonderful Life exhibition opening party and South magazine launch - Exclusive live performance by Cibelle, Video by Aggeliki Hatzi

          

A Wonderful Life exhibition opening party and South magazine launch - Exclusive live performance by Cibelle, Photos by Stathis Mamalakis

Athens, the 25th of July

Kunsthalle Athena has successfully completed  a series of cultural events in the heart of Athens. Under this scope, Kunsthalle Athena wished to show that, we - in Athens – will not stop producing art due to the latest economic and social crisis. Ιn short, 2.000 people so far have visited Kunsthalle Athena's parallel events. Namely, the opening of the exhibition, A Wonderful Life, with an exclusive live performance from Cibelle, and also a big party to celebrate SOUTH magazine's very first issue. In addition to that, the Epitaph, a two-day lecture-performance-concert along with the current exhibition and yet, the fast pace under which SOUTH is going sold out of the bookstore shelves all around the world. Thus, Kunsthalle Athena is empowered and motivated to continue its niche, so that it will keep this kind of relationship it has developed with its supporters, from both the arty and non-arty community, untouched. And therefore, it will keep it up no matter the hardships, right after a short summer break (a break from the city and not from work, as you will soon find out yourselves), with the exhibition A Wonderful Life, which will remain open until the last days of July, and the second issue of SOUTH, a part of which will be produced during this August at Anafi island, and that will be out this December.
For further details about SOUTH publication, you can also take a look at a presentation of SOUTH at Pablo León de la Barra’s blog, Centre for the Aesthetic Revolution. 

To see or download more images, please go to our http://www.flickr.com/photos/kunsthalleathena/, or Facebook Photo Album, or watch the video on vimeo.

 

 

EPITAPH

July 9 & July 10, 2012

Part of A Wonderful Life exhibition 

 

 Epitaph (Part of AWonderful Life exhibition), Video by Aggeliki Hatzi  

         

      

Epitaph (Part of AWonderful Life exhibition), Photos by Stathis Mamalakis

"Theatro Domatiou" Angela Brouskou - Parthenopi Bouzouri

With the participation of Gina Politi and MiniMaximum Improvision: Thalia Ioannidou, Despina Tsafou, Gelina Palla, Eirini Christofaki, Alkistis Stefanidou 

Kunsthalle Athena presented the lecture - live act - concert about democracy titled Epitaph, directed by Angela Brouskou, for two days only, on Monday, the 9^th and on Tuesday, the 10^th of July. Epitaph was a performance - action that was conducted in collaboration with the music band MiniMaximum Improvision and “Theatro Domatiou”. Apart from the three main actors and the music band, a group of upcoming actors that were interacting with the audience and, of course, the visitors also participated inEpitaph. The performance was a particularly timely but also essentially ageless music installation that was in dialogue with Thucydides’ text Pericles’ Funeral Oration, which was read by Gina Politi, extracts from Cornelius Castoriadis’s texts about democracy and the Greek particularity and a letter that an anonymous female signer left intentionally inside the book The Problem of Democracy Today in a central Athenian bookshop, at a time when the country is plunged into economic and social wretchedness. “Athens as perceived by Thucydides in Pericles’s Funeral Oration has still a meaning that speaks to us even today, even if he invented or dreamed of it. The form of government under which the people have the right and the ability to change things, to constitute public space through action”, Angela Brouskou states. “We are aiming at a reflective context where the concept of democracy is revisited in juxtaposition to citizens’ sentimental discourse as articulated in public spaces today, in cafés, in the streets, in the squares of the city.” Audience and artists met in one of the most abandoned, but at the same time basic, arteries of the heart of the city, Metaxourgeio, the ground zero of tragedy, to talk about the “deads” and “loss”, to sing, drink, lie down on Kunsthalle Athena’s roof terrace, which is a symbolic public space, in order to leave a trace - ours and of those who are slowly dying with us. The questions that were raised, deal with the concept of public grief and its expression, the epitaph in its entire conceptual spectrum; death, the end of sexual and family relationships, everyday crime, political and socio-political turbulences, violent displacement of people from their houses and jobs, existential dead-ends, human trafficking or simply the time’s passing, with no return. Epitaph was a performance open to anyone who wanted to participate for personal or collective reasons. A blanket made of human bodies and objects covered the roof terrace of Kunsthalle Athena’s aged building, like a public funeral that carries the grief of a city that wants to articulate a discourse, to assemble its forces, to reaffirm its bonds and relationships and perhaps to regenerate itself.We expected you to join us in a rare opportunity for all of us to express and confess, together and separately, our public or private, the unthinkable loss.

The organisation and curation of the performance has been a collaboration of Kunsthalle Athena’s curatorial team: Marina Fokidis, Apostolos Vasilopoulos, Eleanna Papathanasiadi, Angeliki Roussou. Assistant curator: Christina Stamou 

Sound: Sonic Playground

To see or download more images, please go to our Flickr photoset or Facebook Photo Album, or watch the video please go to  Vimeo

 

MOVING

May 2 - 6 and 8 - 13, 2012

Moving: The NQR Ensemble, Sleep II, live recording

Moving, installation view, Photo by Katerina Michopoulou

Music composed by: Dimitra Trypani

Performers: Tatiana Bre, Dimitra Papastavrou

Musicians: Thodoris Tzovanakis (piano), Dionyssis Vervitsiotis (violin), Tasos Misyrlis (cello),

Ismini Papathanasiou (recorders, mandolin, percussion), Dimitris Koukourakis (guitar, percussion)

Installation: Nikos Kokkalis

www.thenqrensemble.com

To see or download more images, please go to our flickr page. To watch videos please visit youtube part 1 & youtube part 2.

 

THE OBLONG BOX - Jannis Varelas solo exhibition  

October 22 - November 26, 2011 

   

            

The Oblong Box, Jannis Varelas, installation views - Photos by Eleanna Papathanasiadi

  

Kunsthalle Athena presented an exhibition of new works by artist Jannis Varelas, inaugurating the programme of individual presentations of acclaimed and upcoming artists. The exhibition was part of ReMap 3 and in the parallel programme of the Athens Biennale 3.

The Oblong Box exhibition was situated between two interacting levels. On the one hand, we had Jannis Varelas’ references to heroes, characters and personas found in independent horror film productions – as well as child TV shows – in the 70’s. On the other, we had the rearrangement of moral shapes embedded in the aesthetic status of these references. As the artist explains, “the meaning of the idea of the person in the dramatics of these productions, despite being of avant-garde conception, it has been associated with a weak but simultaneously blatant critique against the socio-political norms of the established class of their time, which was expressed by means of both form and plot”. However, clichés models of heroes and anti-heroes reproduced in this procedure have now been transformed from tools of social critique into stereotypical shapes. This shift was interpreted by the artist as “a transformation of the previously avant-garde forms of expression into the ashes from which today’s mass culture is being reborn”. In this context, “The Oblong Box” exhibition explored a further – and perhaps more personal – shift of these images “from the sphere of stereotypes to the sphere of internal trauma, as well as the dialectical relation between the uncanny and the recalling of a known experience”. This exploration was visually fulfilled through diverse media such as installations, videos and collages that permeated the entire space of Kunsthalle Athena. Viewers were invited to a timeless adventure with no other direction than the one of illusion. 

Jannis Varelas was born in 1977 and is a graduate of the Athens School of Fine Arts and the Royal College of Art in London. In 2007 he participated in the 1st Athens Biennial “Destroy Athens” (curated by XYZ), in the 1st International Art Biennial in the city of New Orleans in 2008 and the Cairo Biennial in 2010. In 2011, he was nominated for the DESTE prize. Jannis Varelas is represented by The Breeder Gallery.
The exhibition was curated by Marina Fokidis and the team of Kunsthalle Athena: Apostolos Vasilopoulos, Eleanna Papathanasiadi, Angeliki Roussou, Daphne Mangalousi

To see or download more images, please go to our flickr page. To watch videos please visit youtube part 1 & youtube part 2

Supported by 

 

  

SUMMER IN THE MIDDLE OF WINTER

Part of ReMap 3 -  September 12 – October 15, 2011

      

 

Vangelis Gokas, I am like a pelican in the wilderness, I am like an owl in the desert, 2010, oil on canvas, 185 x 215 cm, Courtesy of Elika Gallery, Athens 
Guido van der Werve, Nummer acht: Everything is going to be alright, 2007, 16mm to HD, duration 10'10", Courtesy of Monitor Gallery, Rome and Luhring Augustine Gallery, New York

Participating artists: Alexandra Croitoru, Greece is for Lovers, Vangelis Gokas, Jim Mangan, Rä di Martino, Dimitris Protopapas, Stefania Strouza, Vassiliea Stylianidou, Kimon Tsakiris, Guido van der Werve

Summer in the Middle of Winter exhibition played on an array of significations departing from its core concepts. Describing a power play of dynamics between these two seasons that now represent something more than a weather conditioning, the project asked whether it is summertime that breathes fragile in this symbolical and overwhelming winter or it is winter that strives to survive in this outdoor summer ambience. In Kunsthalle Athena, we imagined a country/a nation/ a land, Greece, transposed in this state. “Summer in the Middle of Winter” tried to be an estimation of where we stand currently and an effort to resort to a resilience mode and re-assess the urgency but also the possibilities of the situation. Together with the selected artists, we attempted to create an environment that stands in juxtaposition to the dominant idea of the standard and ritualised “Greek summer”. We were not set to tackle these issues through definite political gestures nor re-imagine the current political tumult in a spectacular manner. All we could possibly offer at this point was to allow or even instigate, through the properties of art, mild conflicts to resurface and present their selves. After all, we were talking about a cold summer in Greece. A sober and cerebral summer during its most severe economical crisis.

Curated by Eleanna Papathanasiadi, Apostolos Vasilopoulos, Assistant curators: Marina Fokidis, Angeliki Roussou, Communications: Daphne Mangalousi

To see or download more images, please go to our flickr photo set or facebook photo album. To watch videos please go to youtube part 1 , part 2 or vimeo part 1, part 2 

Supported by 

 

 

FAREWELL 

Part of Athens Festival,  June 2011

     

      

Actors: Angela Brouskou, Stefania Goulioti, Maria Panourgia, Angeliki Papoulia, Yannis Stankoglou, George Symeonidis, Ioanna Tsami, Theodora Tzimou, Yorgos Valais, Konstantina Voulgari 

Visual artists: Christina Dimitriadis, Lo-Fi, Pantelis Makkas, Alexandros Mistriotis, Pantelis Pantelopoulos, Dimitris Papadatos, Theo Prodromidis, Socratis Socratous, Dimitris Tataris, Kostis Velonis

Concept: Themis Bazaka, Curated by: Themis Bazaka, Marina Fokidis, Organised by: Athens & Epidaurus Festival, Kunsthalle Athena

Advisory board: Orestis Andreadakis, Angela Dimitrakaki, Elena Karakouli, Nikos Papastergiadis, Yorgos Tzirtzilakis

Assistant curators: Eleanna Papathanasiadi, Apostolos Vasilopoulos, Volunteers: Sofia-Teiko Ito, Daphne Mangalousi, Angeliki Roussou   

Farewell has been an exhibition-performance-experiment conducted as part of Athens & Epidaurus Festival in which ten actors were invited to collaborate with ten visual artists in order to create a number of performances responding to the concept of farewell. What prompted us is the fact that we are running a difficult period, like a watershed which in similar forms has taken place in the past and which will bring about shifts towards either a better or a worse future. However, all changes, including those that turn out promising, bring about rearrangements, a sense of disorder, a mixing-up of things as we have known them so far; a journey to an unknown land, a farewell! 

So possibly this act might be the appropriate one for the context in which we invited artists from different fields to respond collaboratively and immediately. No director or curator predetermined any groups or couples. The only given invariable was the collaboration between artists of different backgrounds. What constituted an area of interest apart from what emerged from the various collaborations has been the way in which the performances, as separate components, interacted with and actually entered one another (something that the architecture of the space almost imposed) and ultimately completed the space. In this case, the act of “farewell” became the material for a broadened elaboration on the “farewell” secret, which the act bears as its sentimental condition. The binaries of joy and sorrow, freedom and separation, redemption and fear, longing and nostalgia, hope and disappointment, habit and change, old and new world (not in a linear timeline, but in relentless loop), life and death, are ultimately some of the elements that seem to be included in the archetypical “gesture” of farewell- the sense of taking part with. 

The works were meant to explore the sentimental as well as the sociopolitical dimension of farewell in its broadened conceptual spectrum - an artistic need that emerged organically through the on-site interaction between the various artists. Some of the images that influenced the final works include death, sexual and family relationships, crime, political and sociopolitical turbulences, time passing, immigration, violent dislocation, wander, travel, a walk, a visit, a tendency to escape. Those final “acts” were performed live on site for two days and for five hours per day. The participating visual artists were also there with us, into the ephemeral worlds that opened up with their contribution, from the undisputed and serious farewells to the latent and impalpable ones that elude us in our daily lives. 

What inspired Themis Bazaka to conceive this concept is the space chosen for the performances – a half-abandoned neoclassical building blatantly bearing the traces of its history and being currently used as a distinctive art centre (Kunsthalle Athena), which the artistic youth of Athens collectively perceives as a free zone of expression and production. The various live acts took place scattered in the entire space, some lasting five hours in a row and thus occuring in parallel and others being repeated periodically. The visitors were free to choose their own route inside the space.

www.greekfestival.gr

To see or download more images, please go to our flickr photo set or facebook photo album.

Supported by:

                           

 

 

 

 

THE PING PONG LAB - Art Athina 2011

May 2011

   

Ping Pong Lab at Art Athina 2011, Photos by Stathis Mamalakis

The first phase of the Ping Pong Lab entitled Ping Pong Diplomacy has taken place with great success, a success we valued and acknowledged only in the light of your uninhibited participation. In short, Ping Pong Diplomacy was a self-mocking ping pong tournament happened during the days of Art Athina 2011. It stood as a means to decipher the profane nature and mobility of an international art fair. This would occur in an allegoric manner, by ways of assessing the degree of implication of every team-profession in our funny project and not their actual victories. In that way, we would estimate the most potent presence-profession in the art world. Staying on track with this absurd dimension in our act, the final results justified once again for us the two major components that make the art world go round, the artists and the “audience”, with all the others remaining in their light and in a stable, though minor, orbit. Specifically, the exact results of this poetic and naïve tournament were:

Visitors 165 Artists 90 Exhibitors 64 Art-Athina’s organising members 14 Press 14  Collectors 8 Curators 6 Art critics-theoreticians 1

It was our pleasure to meet and play with you. We would also like to thank everyone who didn’t play but showed a genuine interest in this event and Kunsthalle Athena in general. The next incarnation of the Ping Pong Lab will happen in the summer, this time outside of the laboratory, in the heavily debated public space of the Athens’ downtown, a experiment in natural light and no institutional guarantees. 

To see or download more images, please go to our flickr photo set or facebook photo album. 

 

1,001 CHAIRS FOR AI WEIWEI: ATHENS

April 17, 2011 - Chinese Embassy in Athens 

       

1,001 Chairs for Ai Weiwei - Athens, Photos by Spyros Staveris

The Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei is an internationally acclaimed artist. Throughout the course of his distinct career he has been a great supporter of the artistic freedom of speech. Additionally, he has envisioned and modulated works according to a more fair society model.

Ai Weiwei is missing since his arrest on the 3rd of April of 2011, in Beijing.

The curator Steven Holmes inspired by a debate on facebook and thus, he proposed a representation of the project Fairytale: 1,001 Qing dynasty wooden chairs. Namely, an installation that consisted of 1,001 wooden chairs of the last dynasty of the Ming and Qing, exhibited at the Documenta 12 in 2007 in Kassel, Germany - in fornt of Chinese Embassies and consulates of the world.

Therefore, on Sunday, 17th of April at 1pm sharp, Kunsthalle Athena also participated in the same event from Athens, 1,001 chairs for Ai Weiwei, by bringing up numerous chairs right outside the Chinese Embassy in Athens.

The event was photographed and communicated around the world. The pictures were taken by Spyros Staveris.

For more info: http://freeaiweiwei.org/

To see or download more images, please go to our facebook photo album.

 

 

 

MOUNTAIN / HOPE
Launch of “Mountain” fanzine - Exhibition with original sources from the fanzine - Exhibition with street posters by HOPE

 December 4, 2010 - February 2011

      

      

MOUNTAIN / HOPE - Kunsthalle Athena, photos by Spyros Staveris

      

      

Kevin Lemoine, Untitled, 2010, MOUNTAIN / ΗΟΡΕ - Kunsthalle Athena, Copyright: Kevin Lemoine

 

Participating Artists: Alvaro Sebastian, Christopher Snow, ΔεΡΙΖαματζορ Προμπλεμ Ιναουστραλια, Farah Abed,Fumihiro Hayashi a.k.a. Charlie Brown, Giorgos Kakanakis, Haris Laspas, Hercules Renieris, Iris Touliatou, Isa Lange, jar moFF, Kareem Lotfy, Kathy Grayson, Kevin Lemoine, Kristine Hymøller, Lizzi Bougatsos / Spencer Sweeney, Maurits de Bruijn, MCPM (Marc Charpentier Peintre Moderne), Miltos Manetas, Óscar Benassini, Petros Touloudis, Poka-Yio, Socrates Mitsios / Actually Huizenga, Socratis Socratous, Spyros Staveris, Terence Koh, Thanasis Totsikas, The Race Behind The Hill & Photoharrie, Vicky Ntagka

 
Kunsthalle Athena had the honour to host the artist HOPE with his project MOUNTAIN / ΗΟΡΕ for the first time in its space. Embarking on the intentions of KUNSTHALLE ATHENA to encourage international artistic synergies that do not intend to promote states or national –hypothetical– attitudes but rather advocate specific localities, like neighbourhoods, and the contact between them, we were in the pleasant position to host the project MOUNTAIN / ΗΟΡΕ. The project involved on one hand the presentation of HOPE’s visual work, who in the latter years operates in the streets of Metaxourgeio and adapts this specific topography as his thematic axis and on the other hand the zine MOUNTAIN, in which the artist invited kindred artists from Athens and other localities of the world. HOPE invited visual artists, writers and musicians to create an artwork, to write a text or even lyrics reflecting the idea of a mountain. These works were all collected in a publication that bears the title “MOUNTAIN”. At the same time with the publication’s presentation an exhibition was held at KUNSTHALLE ATHENA with the original works from this edition. The circulation of the zine started from the building of KUNSTHALLE ATHENA as a gesture of reinforcement of the relationship between exterior spaces of circulation and indoor spaces.

Moreover, there was an exhibition of posters by HOPE, originally featured on walls of buildings around the district of Metaxourgeio. The exhibition location proved to be an essential criterion when it came to select the exhibits. There was an essential link between the place where the exhibition was mounted and the very form of the exhibition, since HOPE’s work was already presented and encountered at several spots around the Metaxourgeio area in a spirit of giving away things to strangers. Thus, the series of posters inside the exhibition space constituted a sequence which traces the visitor’s path around the exhibition and invited her/him from the interior to another potential route outside the building of Kunsthalle Athena, into the outdoors. Therefore, the specific exhibition space was rendered “unimportant”.

The images in HOPE’s work were playing on a system of oppositions and dualities: public / private space, black-and-white / colour, inside / outside. As a result, the inside and outside of buildings as qualities were open to intervention, making it thus hard to distinguish between public and private space. “The urban ugliness”, as the artist stated, “becomes a positive quality. And this accordingly evokes a MOUNTAIN.”

In duration of the evening, a performance titled “CARGO” also took place. In this performance, “the body of the artist becomes the load for a sarcophagus”. The sculpture of the performance was designed and constructed by HOPE and Petros Touloudis, while the video work and music was by HOPE. The event was accompanied by music from Lolek and Mary, while ABSOLUT VODKA kindly offered cocktails and drinks.

To see or download more images, please go to our facebook photo album or flickr photo set.

Bar sponsor:

 

 

CRISIS, ART AND SYSTEMS OF KNOWLEDGE

December 8 - December 11, 2010

A series of four screenings and seminars led by Angela Dimitrakaki, art historian and writer (University of Edinburgh, UK)

Renzo Martens, Episode III - Enjoy Poverty, 2008, film still  

Project 1

Capitalism and the Aesthetics of Knowledge in the 21st century: Uses of the Social Document in Contemporary Visual Art. 

(Athens School of Fine Arts (ASFA), Peiraios 256, Rentis, Athens, Greece,  www.asfa.gr )

Kunsthalle Athena announced the launch of Crisis, Art and Systems of Knowledge, a series of workshops, seminars, screenings, presentations and round tables intended to expand the dialogue on art as a field of research addressing historical processes and social issues. Today more than ever before art practice and theory face the social demand for alternative, open, dialogical ways of learning as a challenge to formal educational structures. A growing, global student movement against the privatisation of education and the disenfranchisement of arts and humanities makes apparent the need to expand access to critical positions concerning the production of knowledge, especially with regard to social space. The series aimed to explore if, and how, art responds to this demand. The series opened with four screenings and seminars entitled Capitalism and the Aesthetics of Knowledge in the 21st Century: Uses of the Social Document in Contemporary Visual Art. Focusing on artists’ film & video in the past fifteen years, art historian and writer Angela Dimitrakaki discussed the diverse ways in which a critical use of the lens engages a global space produced by capital and situated forms of resistance to capital’s rule. The selected works exemplified contemporary art’s shift to the document and documentation as a means to map imaginatively a wide range of social, economic and cultural sites associated with various forms of crisis. 

Each work was introduced by Angela Dimitrakaki, who also led the post-screening discussion. Screenings: Johan Grimonprez, Dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y, 1997, 68', Courtesy of The Dakis Joannou Collection, Athens. A hugely influential film by the Belgian artist concerning a global visual culture centered on airplane hijacking and terrorism. Ursula Biemann, Black Sea Files, 2005, 43', Courtesy of the artist. A video essay by the Swiss artist, theorist and curator addressing the ‘secondary’ social sites of the oil–informed geography of the Caspian Sea and whether knowledge produced in the ‘front line’ differs from that produced in libraries. Renzo Martens, Episode III: Enjoy Poverty, 2008, 88', Courtesy of Wilkinson Gallery, London. One of the Berlin Biennale 2010 highlights, the film considers how the West can teach Africa the profitable ‘management’ of poverty. A caustic (self)-critique of the contemporary artist’s social role. Allan Sekula, The Lottery of the Sea, 2006, 179', Courtesy of Galerie Michel Rein, Paris. A monumental video essay by the leading American artist investigating our relationship with the sea in contemporary capitalism. Kunsthalle Athena would like to thank Angela Dimitrakaki, the artists, the lenders, the Fine Arts School directors, the Fine Arts School students, the student occupation commitee and the public-participants to these seminars. There have been four exceptional nights full of interesting comments and fruitful dialogue that would not have happened without you.

Please, find and stream the FULL SEMINAR DISCUSSIONS in AUDIO form and available only in greek on our Vimeo account, searching simply for “Kunsthalle Athena”. Thank you.

To see or download more images, please go to our facebook photo album.

 

 

 

B.Y.O.B. - BRING YOUR OWN BEAMER

October 23, 2010

         

         

Participating Artists: Alexandros Georgiou, Alexandros Psychoulis, Aliki Panagiotopoulou, Andreas Angelidakis, Angelo Plessas, Anne de Vries, Billy Rennekamp, Dimitris Foutris, Dimitris Papadatos, Dionisis Kavallieratos, Eftihis Patsourakis, Emile Zile, Irini Karayannopoulou, Ioanna Myrka, Georgia Sagri, Katerina Kana, Kostis Velonis, Lakis & Aris Ionas / The Callas, Mai Ueda, Makis Faros, Mano Plizzi, Maria Papadimitriou, Natasha Papadopoulou, Pantelis Pantelopoulos, Pegy Zali, Petros Moris, Poka-Yio, Rafaël Rozendaal, Sifis Lykakis, Spiros Hadjidjanos, The Erasers, Theo Michael, Theodoros D Giannakis, This is Amateur, Vassilis Patmios Karouk

Curated by: Angelo Plessas

A night of projections and performances in Kunsthalle Athena.

Kunsthalle Athena, hosted on October 23 the BYOB exhibition (an acronym for bring your own beamer), an evening of simultaneous projections and selective performances. Following a personal invitation by artist Angelo Plessas, 33 artists proceeded in a collective installation in the temporary exhibition space of Kunsthalle Athena, based exclusively on their own projecting equipment and labour. BYOB, as an “autonomous” event of projections, is based on a concept by artist Rafaël Rozendaal. It first took place in Berlin, while, after its second stop in Athens, it continued in New York, in Los Angeles, in Milan and in any other possible destination.

The conscious absence of a solid thematic around the set of the projections during BYOB revealed from the beginning the fundamental experimental nature of the event and at the same time gave way to two productive side-effects. To begin with, it set the terms for a direct, momentary, almost “metaphysical” conversation to evolve among the participating artists. Thus, the exhibition was constructed on these grounds and not around linear narratives. The artists installed their works with a mood of regulating the exhibition space beyond the rigid need of a catholic narration, while at the same time they attempted collectively to articulate an artistic premise that would underline the links and contrasts between the works. This non-predetermined consensus over the aesthetic outcome of the exhibition resulted thankfully in a non-manipulative apperception of the exhibition both by artists and visitors, a risk that is always contained in every curatorial approach, even in the extensively structured exhibitions. In other words, artists and visitors had the chance to navigate in an ephemeral, “unsure” visual landscape that formed its respectively ephemeral identity in the moment of its habitation by the audience, in absolute real time. This open and almost “accidental” character of the exhibition highlighted the unforced terms of communication that were set first by the artists and their reflective response to the challenge of redefining the exhibition space with their works and then, these terms became the very ambience that quietly invested the works and the whole exhibition space in which the visitors wandered.

Moreover, this ephemeral network of projections stood as a condensed commentary on the moving image as information and the moving image as a central dimension of our cultural experience, while it reflected the broader image of a forest of browser windows. The works held their own imaginary circles of effect, in some occasions coinciding, in others concentric and contiguous, but in any case provided the opportunity to enter without any inhibition into momentary, ever-changing worlds. We believe that this problematic led through a highly experimental and precarious condition to a comment on one hand on the politics of the moving image as information and the internet as a self-existent mode of life, and on the other hand to the affirmation that everything finally refers to a substantial need of communication, as a dynamic field of collaboration, initiative and co-presence.

Indicative of the impact that the exhibition had, the immediate visitors were estimated close to 2,500, resulting thus to a spontaneous wider community beyond our initial expectations. The success of the event, both in terms of attendance and dynamic, made us optimistic and hopeful. It became apparent that even in this uncertain era for the socioeconomic reality in Greece and for its culture mostly, artistic initiatives along with the major audience that follows and sustains them will not be vanished. 

BYOB - worldwide

To see or download more images, please go to our flickr photo set or facebook photo album.

Bar sponsor:

 

THE BAR

May - August, 2010

      

      

Manolis Baboussis - Untitled, 1994 - Courtesy of Ileanna Tounta Center of Contemporary Art - Photo by Robert Pettena

Gert & Uwe Tobias - Untitled, 2010 - Courtesy of The Breeder gallery - Photo by Robert Pettena

Alexandros Mistriotis - While Dreams Die, 2010 - Courtesy of the artist - Photo by Dimitris Papadopoulos

         

      

      

Penelope Georgiou, Petunia, 1980, Courtesy of the artist, Photo by Eleni Malami & Kiki Xandra

Lydia Dambassina                                                                             Pantelis Pantelopoulos
Alle Wege Sind Verschlossen (All Ways are Closed), 2010             Relief room, 2010
Courtesy of the artist                                                                         Courtesy of the artist
Photo by Robert Pettena                                                                    Photo by Dimitris Papadopoulos

   

Joulia Strauss                                                                                           

Koúros Narkotikós, a Monument to the Junkies of Omonia, 2010           
Courtesy of Beton7 art space                                                                   
Photo by Giota Karatzetlou                                                                       

      

Socratis Socratous - The School, 2007 - Courtesy of the artist - Photo by Dimitris Papadopoulos

Juliette Bonneviot - Series of prospective, virtual, virtualized painted images - 2010 - courtesy of the artist - photo by Dimitris Papadopoulos

Kostas Tsioukas dance company - performance, 2010 - Courtesy of the artist - Photo by Anneta Papadatou

   

Paul Zografakis                                                   This is Amateur  
Illuminations, 2010                                              Acid Amour Set, 2010
Courtesy of the artist                                           Courtesy of the artists
Photo by Dimitris Papadopoulos                         Photo by Socrates Socratous

   

Yorgos Stamkopoulos                                            Yorgos Sapountzis 
Untitled, 2010                                                          Courage, 2010
Courtesy of the artist                                              Courtesy of Loraini Alimantiri gazonrouge
Photo by Robert Pettena                                         Photo by Giota Karatzetzou

      

Heinrich Spaeth - Fantasia - Courtesy of the artist - Photo by Dimitris Papadopoulos

Warren Neidich - In the MInd's I, 2009-2010 - Courtesy of Edward Mitterand Gallery - Photo by Danai Parouniadi

Ylva Ogland - We are the Master of Ceremonies MC, 2010- Courtesy of Bernier-Eliades - Photo by Dimitris Papadopoulos

      

Helga Wretman - Fire Performance, 2010 - Courtesy of the artist - Photo by Dimitris Papadopoulos

Panos Koutras - L'Attaque de la Moussaka Geante - Courtesy of the artist - Photo by Robert Pettena 

Robert Pettena - Jungle Junction, 2010 - Courtesy of the artist - Photo by Robert Pettena

Participating Artists: Aids-3D, Alexandros Georgiou, Penelope Georgiou, Alexandros Mistriotis, This is Amateur, Andreas Angelidakis, Angelo Plessas, Annika Larsson, Christina Dimitriadis, Christos Lialios, Dimitra Vamiali, Forte, Gert & Uwe Tobias, Helga Wretman, Iraklis Renieris, Lo-Fi, Hior Chronik, Jenny Marketou, Joulia Strauss, Juliette Bonneviot, Kostas Tsioukas, Lydia Dambassina, Manolis Baboussis, Marc Bijl, Matthieu Laurette, Olaf Nicolai, Panos Koutras, Pantelis Pantelopoulos, Paul Zografakis, Heinrich Spaeth, Rafaël Rozendaal, Robert Pettena, Socratis Socratous, Warren Neidich, Ylva Ogland, Yorgos Sapountzis, Yorgos Stamkopoulos.

A series of events took place in the Opening Party which was held with The Breeder Gallery and Amateurboyz.

KUNSTHALLE ATHENA’s launching project, THE BAR emerged out of the need to set up an open space for informal dialogue between locally based artists, curators and other experts, the public and visiting practitioners and scholars from around the world. During the 2010 IKT Congress in Athens (13-16 May), when a large number of curators and art world professionals visited the city, KUNSTHALLE ATHENA - THE BAR was initiated in Metaxourgeio-Kerameikos, the emerging gallery area of downtown Athens. Since then it 's operating as an alternative, temporary, living space, activated and nurtured by its transient inhabitants. Assuming the form of entertainment, its first exhibition THE BAR became an experiment on how to stimulate intellectual exchange and facilitate communication beyond productivity quotas and networking obligations, just for the fun of it! Athens’ new, nomadic art institution, KUNSTHALLE ATHENA aspires to acquire concrete form as a welcoming, material and symbolic art venue. During the IKT Congress, KUNSTHALLE ATHENA -THE BAR fostered an ambience of hospitality for visitors and Athenians alike, who had the chance to pursue an alternative, more sensually oriented way, of relating to art. KUNSTHALLE ATHENA aspired to be a crossroad where art and theory can be ‘practised’ live, with no strings attached. Visitors also had the opportunity to find out about art projects that address Athens in its urban specificity.

Locals and frequent visitors to the city are aware that Athens enjoys a thriving bar culture. In this city, bleak days of hard work transform into serene or raucous, music-filled bar nights, and THE BAR acknowledges the significance of the complex social dynamic that Athens bar culture generates. KUNSTHALLE ATHENA wants to learn from it. But also art encounters beyond the canon require a departure from normative interaction and rules of behaviour. Think of Cubism’s birth in bars, Warhol’s Factory or Diderot writing his Encyclopedia in Café Procope. Looking beyond the ‘white box’ and yet complementary to it, KUNSTHALLE ATHENA -THE BAR participated in the ongoing recasting of curatorial activity, from its former understanding as a study into the poetics and politics of display, as part of an open-ended art event.

KUNSTHALLE ATHENA - THE BAR hosted a variety of events related both to the city of Athens and the newly launched Kunsthalle: Site and conceptually specific works, responsive public performances, screenings, as well as Athenian pop archives, an Athens book archive dj-sets and concerts, selected Athenian blogs, magazine launches, even an artwork–taxi service, will come together with DIY catering activity within the specially designed interior (one of the artworks) of the venue. The content of this event-cum-exhibition - or better, the bar itself- was the outcome of what can only be described as a collective offer: that of artists, curators, theoreticians, choreographers, friends of KUNSTHALLE ATHENA, and hopefully the public, in order to put ideas into orbit.

Merging everyday life and art can take many different forms. KUNSTHALLE ATHENA - THE BAR prefers the form of a fleeting get-together. This is the moment to say what you think and think what you say, a moment to make friends and a moment to repeat. You are invited to be part of it as you make it happen!

(Text by Marina Fokidis, Sotiris Bahtsetzis and Angela Dimitrakaki) 

Exhibition organiser: Anneta Papadatou

To see or download more images, please go to our flickr page. 

 

 

 

 

 

To see or download MORE PHOTOS, please go to: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kunsthalleathena/sets/ or http://www.facebook.com/media/albums/?id=100000818899895

To watch more VIDEOS, please visit: http://www.youtube.com/kunsthalleathena or http://vimeo.com/kunsthalleathena

 

    

 

Kunsthalle Athena

Address: 28, Kerameikou str., Kerameikos - Metaxourgeio, Athens (map)

Closest Metro station: Metaxourgeio

Διεύθυνση: Κεραμεικού 28, Κεραμεικός - Μεταξουργείο (χάρτης)

Πλησιέστερος σταθμός μετρό: Μεταξουργείο