Politics of Art

The exhibition begins by a dominant nowadays museum principle under which we are asked to manage the collection as a constantly changing field of new relationships among works, revealing new narratives and meanings but also a wider understanding of the contemporary, international and intercultural. In this framework, past and present are being restructured one within the other, and the contemporary art practice is understood in dialectical relation to the totality of global culture that transcends national, geographic or racial limitations.

The exhibition aims to explore through different perspectives on the works which directly or suggestively indicate political, economic and social phenomena and events, the political dynamics of contemporary art, its possibility to act as a lever of criticism and alternative political thought and action. Political uses of the public space, situations and experiences of oppression, discrimination and violent political and social conflicts, economic globalization and the politics of space in their ecological and social dimensions, reconstituation of collective memory and the restoration of a collective social space, are some of the issues that works in the exhibition will explore, looking for alternative political collective action and artistic activism, as well as a new interactive relationship between the artist and the community, local and global.


Kendell Geers
Αkropolis Redux (The Director’s Cut)
2004
Situation Security fencing, steel shelves

Participating artists: Dimitris Alithinos, Andreas Angelidakis, Sadie Benning, Andrea Bowers, Richard Brouillette, Costantin (Dikos) Byzantios, Vlassis Caniaris, Paul Chan, Eirene Efstathiou, Koken Ergun, Makis Faros, Kendell Geers, Jean – Luc Godard & Anne-Marie Mieville, Ivan Grubanov, George Hadjimichalis, Yiorgos Harvalias, Mona Hatoum, Emily Jacir, Yael Kanarek, Carlos Motta, Antonio Muntadas, Shirin Neshat, George Osodi, Jannis Psychopedis, Walid Ra’ad & The Atlas Group, [+RAM TV], Oliver Ressler, Martha Rosler, Jayce Salloum & Walid Ra’ad, Allan Sekula, Danae Stratou, Theodoros, Iris Touliatou, Stefanos Tsivopoulos, Kostis Velonis, Bill Viola, Vangelis Vlahos, xurban_collective, Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries (YHCHI).


"Politics of Art", National Museum of Contemporary Art
Curated by: Anna Kafetsi
Duration: 13/10/2010- 30/1/2011