Anastasia Ax
Apostolos Georgiou
Borrowing its title from the lyrics of the famous song by Talking Heads, the exhibition This is Not My Beautiful House will bring 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.
The
everyday here in Greece seems like a leaky vessel. And while the
water level is dropping, ideas on how to survive in the
post-capitalism desert do not come easily. The scenario is pretty
ruthless, yet life seems to go on, seeking its best outcome, under
the warm sun.
As
we are experiencing this period of change, where everything is in
flux, the space loses its shape and transforms into nothingness.
Athens reveals itself as a utopian place: a space for the impossible
and for ‘everything that is possible’. Amidst all these we find
ourselves in limbo. Unaccustomed to the speed of change as well as to
the density of events that occur in multiple layers all at once we
become alien to all our own given assumptions.
In
terms of the best of the worse, the daily routine is not the daily
routine we knew anymore; the city is not the city we knew anymore;
the politics are not the politics we can recognise anymore; our
belongings do not belong to us anymore; and the public space does not
belong to us either, although private space is negotiable, if there
still is one. We are an entity in transfer, a country on sale, in
which nothing is familiar anymore. We are living through a rapture.
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
serves 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 has surely been
interpreted and felt in many different ways by many different people.
In the case of this exhibition, it becomes a parable for the
contemporary state of social and existential alienation. This
is Not My Beautiful House
refers 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.
Kunsthalle
Athena chooses to focus this year once more on Greek artists. With
the exception of Anastasia Ax, who is an artist with duel houses and
duel exiles, and vividly experiences the Greek situation via family
and relatives, the other artists insist on living in Athens, despite
the difficult situation and the fact that their international careers
might have provided them with a way to leave.
Participants
: Anastasia Ax, Apostolos Georgiou, Socratis Socratous and Kostis
Velonis
Kunsthalle
Athena
May
16 - September 11, 2014
