Eile mit Weile

Andreas Alciatus “ Eile mit Weile “ , Emblemata ,1531

Would You Say That Your (Artistic) Practice is Political?

The various possible answers to the question seem scripted in advance – like we are arriving at this question too late.

In the second half of the twentieth century, the domain of politics was imagined to have shifted from a rarefied space (however historically constituted, i.e., the polis, the public sphere, etc.), to a decentralized and »capillary« operation within all spaces. This led to a significant blurring of boundaries, most clearly elucidated in the key mantra of Second Wave feminism: »the personal is political.« By the mid-1990s, however, locating the political was a process marked by a certain melancholy, even exhaustion. The Google Ngram below plots the use of the expression »everything is political« between 1800 and 2008

http://schloss-post.com/say-artistic-practice-political/

by Gavin Steingo

Unlearning Alphabet

Unlearning Alphabet, 2016

Wood, plywood, acrylic

250 x 80 x 7 cm 

Don’t Overthink It

Matthew B. Crawford’s first book, the best-selling Shop Class as Soulcraft (2009), established him as a polemical champion of the superiority, mental and moral, of manual labor over the kind of employment typically sought by college graduates, including any work done on a computer and in a cubicle. For some readers, the fact that the author had earned a doctorate in political philosophy and also owned a motorcycle-repair shop lent a certain kick-ass authenticity to his enterprise. Now ensconced at the University of Virginia’s Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture, Crawford is back with a heady argument against headiness, and to aid him he invokes as models a couple of artisans and an array of regular guys—short-order cooks, hockey players, and, of course, any dude who knows his way around a Harley. In The World Beyond Your Head: On Becoming an Individual in an Age of Distraction, he doesn’t just herald the soul-cleansing properties of skilled craftwork. He indicts the philosophical tradition that he believes has robbed us of the world beyond our muddled, misdirected minds. Crawford calls this tradition the Enlightenment, though his description of the European intellectual movement of the 17th and 18th centuries distorts it almost beyond recognition.


By Rebecca Newburger Goldstein

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/05/dont-overthink-it/389519/

Instructions for Happiness

Happiness can be understood as a basic human need. And the exhibition is all about the personal pursuit for happiness. But instructions for happiness?

As happiness is quite an individual matter, instructions for happiness are of course a pretty absurd promise. Regardless of whether happiness is sought after in the interpersonal, the immediate or the everyday respectively the beauty of the small things in life – the exhibition tries to question the notions of happiness.

Selected artists were invited to contribute a work, that also includes a manual: A work that – based on an instruction – invites to do something, for instance use an object, react to a situation, interact with others under certain rules, perform something for others or oneself or simply initiates a thought process. The form of the work (as well as the instruction) could take any possible shape – resulting in artworks that are as diverse and formally divergent as the technical possibilities. But the seemingly chaotic diversity also reflects a plurality of perspectives on happiness that the artist (as well as society) share.

Aside from the question of happiness in the context of today’s Athens, the exhibition also tries to reflect upon art’s possibilities of immediate effects on society. Thus the boarders of the power of the aesthetic field can be questioned in the show on one side, while tracing the notions of happiness on the other side through experiencing the works in order to maybe also find answers for oneself.

Untitled (Life without tragedy Series), 2015 

Featuring works by Anna Sophie Berger, Liudvikas Buklys, Heinrich Dunst, Simon Dybbroe Møller, Christian Falsnaes, Benjamin Hirte, Barbara Kapusta, Stelios Karamanolis, Alexandra Kostakis, Adriana Lara, Lara Nasser, Rallou Panagiotou, Natasha Papadopoulou, Angelo Plessas, Maruša Sagadin, Hans Schabus, Björn Segschneider, Socratis Socratous, Misha Stroj, Stefania Strouza, Jannis Varelas, Kostis Velonis and Salvatore Viviano; curated by Severin Dünser and Olympia Tzortzi

Opening Tuesday, 20.12.2016, 8pm

21.12. – 30.12.2016, 12pm – 8pm

Lekka 23 – 25 & Perikleous 34, Athens

Kindly supported by The Federal Chancellery of Austria, NON SPACES and KUP

The Kids Want Communism

"The Kids Want Communism” is a yearlong exhibitions project at MoBY-Museums Bat Yam that is held in conjunction with a number of different artists and institutions around the world, including exhibitions, lectures, exhibits, screenings and publications throughout the year of 2016-2017. Partner institutions include the Tranzit Prague, VCRC Kiev, Free / Slow University of Warsaw, State of Concept in Athens, Škuc Gallery in Ljubljana and MoBY.

As part of the third round of “The Kids Want Communism” the entrance exhibits the paintings by the artist Toy Boy, who was born in Luanda, and grew up as a street kid in Angola after the Cuban war against South Africa and the United States. The unique story of this unknown war which led to the fall of the Apartheid is being told through the artist’s experiences.

Beside him, the installation of Hila Laviv and Dana Yoeli “In the Corner This Morning,” an installation poster inspired by the utopian rooms designed by the father of the Soviet constructivist art movement El Lissitzky (1890-1941). The visitors are invited to take with them a poster with a paper self-preparation model, and are encouraged to touch, cut, fold, paint, and decorate in handicrafts tradition of DIY (Do it Yourself). In this way the painting becomes an object.

On the second floor, the large-scale installation of Max Epstein “Dacha,” which was created especially for the exhibition, restores not only the traditional Russian wooden summer house, but also provides the uncanny features it involved. Tamar Nissim presents “I am Simha Sabari,” which tells the fascinating story of Sabari (1913-2004), a Jewish Communist from Yemeni descent, born an albino in the Yemenite Quarter in Tel Aviv and was active in the party in Palestine. The rich political, ideological and cultural contradictions of Sabari’s character display a complexity which seems to have disappeared today.

Mati Lahat exhibits “Titans,“ an installation created especially for the exhibition and composed of original frescoes created by Shraga Weil and Shmuel Katz in the communal dining hall of Kibbutz Ein Hamefratz in 1954. Lahat rescued the frescoes before the dining hall wall was destroyed. At MoBY he presents them against graphite drawings of the Liquidators monument in the Ukraine. These volunteers sacrificed their lives to seal the nuclear reactor at Chernobyl with concrete in 1986 in order to prevent further leakage of radioactive radiation.

Tal Gafny’s installation "Atidim” was also created especially for the exhibition. In its center is the image of Alyssa Carson, an American girl who has been practicing for the last nine years in order to participate in the first manned expedition to Mars, planned by NASA for 2033. The work represents a summary of the first chapter of the project which will accompany Alyssa on her departure to Mars in 17 years.

The exhibition “Notes on Division,” curated by Iliana Fokianaki of State of Concept in Athens, one of the international partners of "The Kids Want Communism” activities, focuses on a return to the Greek civil war of 1946-1949 and the political discourse surrounding the current economic crisis in the country. The exhibition will host six major artists from the art scene in Athens, including: Konstantinos Kotsis, Yota Ioannidou, Antonis Pittas, Yorgos Sapountzis, Kostis Velonis and Vangelis Vlahos.
In addition, the installation “Charging Station" by Nir Harel moves from the central entrance space to the top floor and spreads between spaces. The installations “Red Star” by Noa Yafe - a diorama of Mars; the incubator/sarcophagus of the “Great Soviet Encyclopedia” created by Nicole Wermers; “Structure for Rest” by Ohad Meromi of beds for daydreaming, are moving in the second floor to construct new constellations between the exhibits. The mural by Jonathan Gold showing people standing in line has been completed during the year and is now presented in its final form.

Care a lot, 2016 

Wood, marble, acrylic 

24 x 14 x 11 cm

“The Kids Want Communism” is an annual exhibitions project at MoBY-Museums of Bat Yam, and is held in conjunction with a number of different artists and institutions around the world, throughout 2016. The Kids Want Communism is organized by Iliana Fokianaki, Vladimir Vidmar, Oleksiy Radynski, Vit Havranek, Kuba Szreder and Joshua Simon.

MoBY-Museums Bat Yam 

 http://moby.org.il/en/

 December 15, 2016

Precision German Craftsmanship

It was a good day and I was about to do something important

and good, but then I unscrewed the pen I was using

to see the ink. Precision German craftsmanship.

The Germans are so persnickety and precise,

they wash their driveways. Their mountains and streams

dance around each other in a clockwork, courtly imitation

of spring. They build the Panzer tank, out of rakes

hoses and garden gnomes; they built me.

And I’ve seated myself above an avenue on the brink

of mystery, always just on the lip, with my toes over the lip

but my bowels behind.

When I replaced the ink the sky was socked in,

only one window of blue open in the north, directly over someone.

But that person was reading about Rosicrucians in the laundromat,

he was unaware as the blue window closed above him.

The rest of us are limp and damp,

I see a button in front of us that says “spin cycle.”

I’m going to push it.

Matthew Rohrer, 2001

Zur Grund- und Bodenlosigkeit der Kunst

The title Zur Grund- und Bodenlosigkeit der Kunst (On the Groundlessness and Bottomlessness of Art) refers first and foremost to a number of characterizations of modern art, assigned both from the outside and from within. Perhaps groundlessness/bottomlessness are even a characteristic attribute of modern art, between scandal and nihilism, different modes of constructivism and negative critique, universalist projects and experiments with the laws of visual perception. As far as contemporary art is concerned, however, other associations present themselves. Is it not an attribute of contemporary art to pull the ground out from under everyday perceptions in the sense of an ontological destabilization? Doesn’t contemporary art constantly have to subvert traditional, normative concepts of reality in order to open up the grounds of reality construction and representation for experimentation?

Anselm Franke is a curator and writer based in Berlin. He is Head of Visual Art and Film at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt, where he co-curated The Anthropocene Project (2013–2014), and several exhibitions including Ape Culture (2015) and Nervous Systems (2016). 

In cooperation with Kunstakademie Münster and Freunde der Kunstakademie e.V. Münster Lecture

Anselm Franke, Zur Grund- und Bodenlosigkeit der Kunst

Tuesday, 6 December 2016, 6 pm

Kunstakademie Münster, Hörsaal 1

www.kunstakademie-muenster.de 

Genii Loci

Μέσα από την παρουσίαση 100 δημιουργών και την επιλογή 147 αντιπροσωπευτικών έργων από τις συλλογές της Εθνικής Πινακοθήκης-Μουσείου Αλεξάνδρου Σούτζου, του Εθνικού Μουσείου Σύγχρονης Τέχνης, του Κρατικού Μουσείου Σύγχρονης Τέχνης καθώς και σημαντικές ιδιωτικές συλλογές της χώρας, η έκθεση επιχειρεί να αναδείξει τη βιωματική και πνευματική σχέση των καλλιτεχνών με τον τόπο, καθώς και τον τρόπο με τον οποίο, μέσω της καλλιτεχνικής έκφρασης, ο τόπος φορτίζεται με ένα πλήθος νοημάτων και συμβόλων που προβάλλουν την ιδιαιτερότητά του και καθορίζουν το πνεύμα, τον χαρακτήρα και την ψυχή του.

Η εννοιολογική διάρθρωση των ενοτήτων της έκθεσης βασίζεται στην κατανόηση των φαινομένων, μέσα από τον συσχετισμό, τον σχολιασμό και την αντιπαραβολή τού χθες με το σήμερα, κι έχει ως κεντρικό ζητούμενο το πώς κάθε φορά η ελληνική καλλιτεχνική παραγωγή συνδιαλέγεται με το παρελθόν και τα διεθνή νεωτεριστικά πρότυπα.

Η έκθεση δομείται εννοιολογικά σε τρεις μεγάλες ενότητες. Η πρώτη πραγματεύεται την έννοια της ταυτότητας και το αίτημα της ελληνικότητας όπως αυτό διατυπώθηκε τη δεκαετία του ‘30 και τη μεταπολεμική περίοδο. Η δεύτερη αναφέρεται στην έννοια της αμφισβήτησης και στην αισθητική και πολιτική ρήξη των δεκαετιών του ’60 και του ’70, ενώ η τρίτη στην έννοια της αναζήτησης και στις μεταμορφώσεις που συντελούνται στη σύγχρονη ελληνική τέχνη σε σχέση με την παράδοση και τη μνήμη, τη διερεύνηση υπαρξιακών πεδίων και τις κοινωνικοπολιτικές εξελίξεις από τη δεκαετία του ’80 έως σήμερα.

Επιμελητές της έκθεσης είναι οι ιστορικοί τέχνης Έφη Αγαθονίκου, Τίνα Πανδή, Θοδωρής Μάρκογλου και Σπύρος Μάκκας, ενώ τον αρχιτεκτονικό-μουσειογραφικό σχεδιασμό έχει αναλάβει ο αρχιτέκτονας Αλέξανδρος Ξενάκης.

At the end of the demonstration day, 2009

Συμμετέχοντες Καλλιτέχνες

Αβραμίδης Ιωάννης, Αγγελιδάκης Ανδρέας, Ακριθάκης Αλέξης, Αλεξίου Νίκος, Αληθεινός Δημήτρης, Αντωνάκος Στήβεν, Απάρτης Θανάσης, Απέργης Αχιλλέας, Αστεριάδης Αγήνωρ, Βακιρτζής Γεώργιος, Βαρώτσος Κώστας, Βασιλείου Σπύρος, Βελώνης Κωστής, Βλάχος Βαγγέλης, Γαΐτης Γιάννης, Γερόλυμπος Γιώργης, Γεωργίου Απόστολος, Γουναρόπουλος Γεώργιος, Δαμπασίνα Λυδία, Δανιήλ (Παναγόπουλος), Διαμαντόπουλος Διαμαντής, Δίγκα Κλεοπάτρα, Διοχάντη, Εγγονόπουλος Νίκος, Ευθυμιάδη-Μενεγάκη Φρόσω, Ζογγολόπουλος Γιώργος, Ζούνη (Σαρπάκη) Όπυ, Θόδωρος, Καλλιγά Λίζη, Καναγκίνη Νίκη, Κανιάρης Βλάσης, Καπράλος Χρήστος, Κατζουράκης Κυριάκος, Κατζουράκης Μιχάλης, Κατράκη Βάσω, Κεσσανλής Νίκος, Κοκκινιάς Πάνος, Κοκκινίδης Δημοσθένης, Κόντογλου Φώτης, Κοντόπουλος Αλέκος, Κοντός Δημήτρης, Κουνέλλης Γιάννης, Λαζόγκας Γιώργος, Λάππας Γιώργος, Λοϊζίδου Μαρία, Λογοθέτης Στάθης, Μαγγιώρου Λουκία, Μανουσάκης Μιχάλης, Μόραλης Γιάννης, Μποκόρος Χρήστος, Μπότσογλου Χρόνης, Μπουτέας Γιάννης, Μυταράς Δημήτρης, Ναυρίδης Νίκος, Νικολάου Νίκος, Ντάβου Μπία, Ξαγοράρης Ζάφος, Ξαγοράρης Παντελής, Ξενός Γιώργος, Παπαδημητρίου Μαρία, Παπαηλιάκης Ηλίας, Παπακωνσταντίνου Λήδα, Παπακωνσταντίνου Νίνα, Παπαλουκάς Σπύρος, Παπασπύρου Ρένα, Παρθένης Κωνσταντίνος, Παρμακέλης Γιάννης, Πάστρα Ναυσικά, Πεντζίκης Νίκος Γαβριήλ, Ρόρρης Γιώργος, Ρωμανού Χρύσα, Σαμαράς Λουκάς, Σεμερτζίδης Βάλιας, Σικελιώτης Γιώργος, Σκυλάκος Βασίλης, Σπαχής Άγγελος, Σπηλιόπουλος Μάριος, Σπυρόπουλος Γιάννης, Στάμος Θεόδωρος, Στέρης Γεράσιμος, Σόρογκας Σωτήρης, Σούλου Χριστιάννα, Στραπατσάκη Μαριάννα, Σώχος Αντώνιος, Τάκις (Βασιλάκης Παναγιώτης), Τάσσος Α., Τέτσης Παναγιώτης, Τσαγκάρης Πάνος, Τσαρούχης Γιάννης, Τσιβόπουλος Στέφανος, Τσόκλης Κώστας, Φαϊτάκης Στέλιος, Φασιανός Αλέκος, Χαραλάμπους Πάνος, Χατζηκυριάκος-Γκίκας Νίκος, Χατζημιχάλης Γιώργος, Χριστάκης Τάσος, Χρύσα, Ψυχοπαίδης Γιάννης, Ψυχούλης Αλέξανδρος

30 Νοεμβριου - 8 Ιανουαριου : "Genii Loci. Ελληνική Τέχνη από το 1930 έως σήμερα"

Κρατικό Μουσείο Manege, Αγ.Πετρούπολη,

http://www.manege.spb.ru/en/

Ένα Σημείο στο Κέντρο

Whistle While you Work

At the NOVA sector of Art Basel | Miami Beach (2016), Kalfayan Galleries present a curated solo exhibition of Kostis Velonis (b.1968), a thought-provoking research on sociopolitical theories reflecting the artist's Greek heritage and his recent experiences in Mexico.

Following the artist's three-month residency in 2016 at Casa Maauad in Mexico City Velonis' solo  show titled 'Part Company' explored antithetical approaches to community living and social participation by two distinct figures of Mexican Modernism, Greek-Mexican activist Plotino Rhodakanaty (1828-1892) and Mexican artist of German origin Mathias Goeritz (1915-1990).

Velonis work explores a broader context around class identity and the beauty of the trivial, through an emergency sculpture, encompassing rather than isolating aesthetics and politics. Kostis Velonis' solo presentation at NOVA consists mainly of new works, specifically created for the Art Basel Miami Beach: works on canvas from the "Trade Union Conflicts" series are juxtaposed to sculptures from the "Puppetry for Long Distance People" series and sculptures/ paintings from the series titled "Whistle While you Work". His work interrogates the ideological orientations of avant-garde movements during the 20th century, which saw art as a practice for social purposes. Velonis' work reminds us domesticity which was easily dismissed as it was in the heyday of modernism, when it was considered a failed and outdated value system among the upper and middle classes. Apart from historical connotations, the playful narrations and "awkward" craftsmanship of Velonis' sculptures demythicize the "revolutionary" rhetoric and ideological taboos of contemporary "political art". At the same time they are opening themselves to narratives of rural life and determine a time line prior to but also parallel to modernity.

Velonis' construction materials remain raw - often unpainted pine boards or humble construction materials scavenged from suburban areas, placed alongside readymade unidentified objects. The practices of scavenging, DIY and bricolage offer experiences related to the cultivation of anonymous folk design, drawing from already existing forms and structures. Revealing his training as an architect, the works sometimes represent carefully designed – almost monumental, one could say – responses in wood and brick and other times challenge the vertical structure of sculptural construction revealing its formless and primitive shape with remnants of steel reinforced concrete, clay and marble.

In dialogue with constructions that make visible conditions of ephemerality are paintings from the artist's series titled "Whistle While you Work" (from Walt Disney's 1937 film, "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs"), a colorful socio political commentary on contemporary work ethic and the apotheosis of workers' productivity. These paintings, evoking an ironic optimism about the improvement of worker's performance while whistling in their workplace, are combined with Velonis' sculptures, like studies on issues of a controversial life between the pursuit of happiness and the experience of suffering. Velonis in his most recent production of paintings and sculptures borrows his stylistic vocabulary from modern masters of abstraction reconceptualising their appetite for formalism towards a Mediterranean trope with motifs from Greek folklore, inventing a  literature of the South focused on self-sufficiency and simplicity of rural life.

Art Basel

Miami Beach, Dec.1-4

Kostis Velonis

Nova section /Booth N28

Persnickety

Persnickety (Precision German Craftsmanship series), 2016

Plywood, acrylic

100 x 117 x 3 cm

The Filmed Apartment: Biopolitics of Domesticity in Modern Athens

The postwar development of Athens was an important step in the modernization of Greece. The economic boom, the emergence of a new middle class, and the urbanization process, took place in a very short period. Contrary to what has happened in most European countries, urbanization in Greece was not based on top- down urban planning, but on the ad-hoc repetition of a single building type: the polykatoikia (i.e. apartment building). The polykatoikia had a significant contribution in the urban and economic development of the country. Moreover, it had a dominant role in the formation of modern subjectivity in Greece. The workshop focuses on the development of Greek modernism through the architecture of middle class housing and the representations of urban dwelling in cinema. The analysis of architectural design takes into consideration the layout of the typical apartment, and the way that the repetition of a single building type has produced the city. The film analysis takes place in three ways: First, as a cinematic archaeology that renders visible social and urban transformations of the past; second, through the understanding of the methods that cinema has promoted, or put into question, specific lifestyles and ideologies; and finally, through film form and the analysis of its cultural significance.

Workshop by Panos Dragonas

University of Patras Stanley J. Seeger Visiting Research Fellow, Hellenic Studies

Respondent: M. Christine Boyer, Architecture

Seeger Center for Hellenic Studies-Princeton University

Friday, November 18, 2016 1:30 p.m 

http://www.princeton.edu/hellenic/ 

Sculpture mouvante ou La France

Man Ray, Sculpture mouvante ou La France, 1920

Musée national d’Art moderne, Centre Pompidou, Paris, dation en 1994

La Barricade de la rue Saint-Maur-Popincourt avant l’attaque par les troupes du général Lamoricière

Thibault, La Barricade de la rue Saint-Maur-Popincourt avant l’attaque par les troupes du général Lamoricière, le dimanche 25 juin 1848

Graffitis de prisonniers

Voula Papaioannou, Graffitis de prisonniers sur les murs de la prison allemande de la rue Merlin à Athènes, 1944

Soulèvements

Ce parcours propose vingt-cinq images sélectionnées et commentées par Benjamin Bardinet et Ève Lepaon, conférenciers-formateurs au Jeu de Paume. Il est articulé en cinq sections introduites par Georges Didi-Huberman, commissaire de l’exposition : Éléments (déchaînés), Gestes (intenses), Mots (exclamés), Conflits (embrasés), Désirs (indestructibles).

Se soulever, comme lorsqu’on dit « une tempête se lève, se soulève ». Renverser la pesanteur qui nous clouait au sol. Alors, ce sont les lois de l’atmosphère tout entière qui seront contredites. Surfaces – draps, drapés, drapeaux – qui volent au vent. Lumières qui explosent en feux d’artifice. Poussière qui sort de ses recoins, qui s’élève. Temps qui sort de ses gonds. Monde sens dessus dessous. De Victor Hugo à Eisenstein et au-delà, les soulèvements seront souvent comparés à des ouragans ou à de grandes vagues déferlantes. Parce qu’alors les éléments (de l’histoire) se déchaînent.

On se soulève d’abord en exerçant son imagination, fût-ce dans ses « caprices » ou ses « disparates », comme disait Goya. L’imagination soulève des montagnes. Et lorsqu’on se soulève depuis un « désastre » réel, cela veut dire qu’à ce qui nous oppresse, à ceux qui veulent nous rendre les mouvements impossibles, on oppose la résistance de forces qui sont désirs et imaginations d’abord, c’est-à-dire forces psychiques de déchaînement et réouvertures des possibles. (G. D.-H.)

http://soulevements.jeudepaume.org/parcours/

Values of Happiness

Text by Harry Walker, Iza Kavedžija

http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/64837/1/Walker_Value%20of%20Happiness.pdf

Le soleil

C.Tarkos, “Caisses”.

Why bother with poetry?

Text by A.E. Stallings 

http://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/public/why-bother-with-poetry/

Malevich's Coffin

Nikolai Suetin’s arkhitekton coffin for Malevich (1935)

Down with the World

Text by Tony Chakar

http://www.e-flux.com/architecture/superhumanity/68725/down-with-the-world/

Urgent Conversations: Athens – Antwerp

Little wooden seats and the woman of his dreams, 2006

Wood mdf, plywood, metal, lamp, cd, cd player, 2 speakers, amplifier.

Dimensions variable.

The first exhibition that will inaugurate the temporary exhibition spaces of EMST simultaneously with the Program EMST in the World is a coproduction of EMST and the Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp (M HKA).

The exhibition entitled Urgent Conversations: Athens – Antwerp will be inaugurated on October 31, 2016 and last until January 29, 2017, essentially restarting the temporary exhibition activities of the Museum, which had been suspended in 2015 due to the relocation at its permanent home and due to the activities that were taking place for the operation and receipt of the new building.

The exhibition aims to be a theoretical and visual dialogue, based on works from the collections of both Museums, which includes more than 70 works and is structured in 22 thematic units. In April 2017, the exhibition will travel to Belgium on a smaller scale.

Curated by: Bart De Baere, Katerina Koskina, assistant Curators: Stamatis Schizakis, Jan De Vree

         Dimitris Alithinos - Luc Deleu - Allan Sekula-Goshka Macuga - Theodoros - Wout Vercammen-Vlassis Caniaris - Jef Geys - Cady Noland-François Curlet - N.S.Harsha - Costas Varotsos- Costis - Paul De Vree - Sarenco-Jimmie Durham - Danny Matthys- Kostis Velonis-Ilias Papailiakis - Wilhelm Sasnal - Luc Tuymans-Marina Abramović & Ulay - Bernd Lohaus-Stefanos Tsivopoulos-Vlad Monroe - Eleni Mylonas - Hugo Roelandt-Marlene Dumas - Apostolos Georgiou - Koen van den Broek-Bia Davou -Alevtina Kakhidze - Anne-Mie Van Kerckhoven-Guillaume Bijl - Chryssa - Johanna Kandl-Kimsooja - Ria Pacquée - Danae Stratou-Hicham Benohoud - Wim Delvoye - Costas Tsoclis-Nikos Alexiou - Yael Kanarek - Guy Rombouts-Douglas Gordon - Jacques Lizène - Lucas Samaras-Francis Alÿs - Charif Benhelima - Nina Papaconstantinou-Rustam Khalfin & Yuliya Tikhonova - Guy Mees - Rena Papaspyrou-Nicos Baikas - Thierry De Cordier - Ivan Kožarić-Stephen Antonakos - James Lee Byars - Philippe Van Snick-Jan Henderikse - Nikos Kessanlis - Panamarenko-Jan Fabre - Almagul Menlibayeva - Maria Papadimitriou

http://www.muhka.be/en/programme/detail/663-urgent-conversations-athens-antwerp

http://www.emst.gr/

In the Carpet

Ida Kerkovius, Landscape, around 1947, handwoven carpet,125 x 135 cm, Courtesy of Kunstmuseum Stuttgart

The Essay In the Carpet by the curators Salma Lahlou, Mouna Mekouar and Alya Sebti of the exhibition of the same name tells the story of reciprocal historical and cultural influences between the European and Moroccan crafts of carpet making from early Avantgarde and Fauvism to contemporary artists’passion for Berber carpets and Moroccan Pictorial Modernity. The story evolves around Sheila Hicks, a former scholar of Joseph Albers and one of the pioneers of textile art who was invited to Morocco, in the 1970s where the redefinition of the artistic value of traditional arts was at the center of discussion.

Text by Salma Lahlou, Mouna Mekouar & Alya Sebti — Oct 25, 2016

http://schloss-post.com/carpet-polysemic-notion/

http://www.ifa.de/en/visual-arts/ifa-galleries/exhibitions/in-the-carpet.html

The Bungler

You glow in my heart

Like the flames of uncontrolled candles.

But when I go to warm my hands,

My clumsiness overturns the light,

and then I stumble

Against the tables and chairs. 

Amy Lowell

Artistic Practices: Housing as social agreement Οngoing archive

Kosmonaut House, 2007. Wood, acrylic, 68 x70 x 27 cm. 

Postwar capitalism in the West has promoted its growth on the ideal of house ownership (with recent catastrophic financial effects) in a process of commodification of necessities of life. Commodification of housing though, more than being just a method of capital accumulation, resulted in the reconceptualisation of public and private space. Pierre Bourdieu describes a person’s existential relation to their position in terms of the social status conferred by the appropriation/possession of a particular extent of physical space: “Each agent may be characterized by the place where he or she is situated more or less permanently, that is, by her place of residence (those who are “without hearth or home,” without “permanent residence” … have almost no social existence—see the political status of the homeless) … It is also characterized by the place it legally occupies in space through properties (houses and apartments or offices, land for cultivation or residential development, etc.) which are more or less congesting … . It follows that the locus and the place occupied by an agent in appropriated social space are excellent indicators of his or her position in social space.

Nowadays, in the wake of the recent housing crises which have subverted the notion of housing as a consumer commodity, co-housing and community projects emerge as answers to the “Housing Question”. This shift towards collective solutions has been addressed by artistic, architectural and curatorial initiatives that over the past five decade have variously depicted and intervened into this unevenly developing urban condition.

“Artistic Practices: Housing as social agreement” is an ongoing archive aiming to unfold a cartography of approaches by artists to the notion of the house, investigate and challenge the ways in which housing is not only imagined, but also effectuated by artists. Furthermore intends to point out the ways in which forms of cultural production can be reclaimed as tools with which to design, defend and reinvent social space.

The works featured in the archive are organized around four leitmotifs :‘Housing as utopia”, highlights the transformative, disruptive potential of housing in the social imagination, as the first step to a radical autonomy.“Housing as uneven development “raises the issues of inequalities in the distribution of the right to housing. “Housing as dystopic construction” illustrated by a series of projects that explore the conflicts and correlations between the represented space of and the social and political action. “Housing as community building” explores the role of artist as social designer, the statial practices of commons, and arts based revitalization of under-resourced urban areas.

Curated by Giorgos Papadatos & Sofia Dona

Featured works byRebecca Agnes / Jonas Dahlberg / Giorgos Gyparakis / Tea Mäkipää / Artemis Potamianou / Kostis Velonis / Erwin Wurm /Angela Ferreira / Eugenio Tibaldi / Yiannis Theodoropoulos / Mona Vatamanu Florin Tudor / Giorgos Papadatos / Dorit Margreiter / Errands / Taysir Batniji/Kimsooja / Michael Rakowitz / Nicos Charalambidis / Róza El-Hassan / Tudor Bratu / Teddy Cruz / Raumlabor/Ahmet Öğüt / Sofia Dona / Marjetica Potrč / Zafos Xagoraris / Rick Lowe/ Project Row Houses

Parallel to the workshop Co-housing practices/ Ιnventing Prototypes for Athens

organized by Co-Hab Athens & NetHood (Zurich) & INURA Zurich & Athens

Hosted by Greek Pavilion, Giardini.

26 October – 27 November 2016

15^th International Architecture Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia

http://thisisaco-op.gr/en/

Hungry Pinocchio

Hungry Pinocchio, 2016

Wood, acrylic, ceramic 

125 x 50 x 8 cm

Το πέταγμα της γλαύκας: Μορφές πρόσληψης της αρχαίας ελληνικής φιλοσοφίας στη Γερμανία.

Το ΑΠΘ ("Εργαστήριο Φιλοσοφίας: Κείμενα και Ερμηνείες"), ο Δήμος Θεσσαλονίκης και το γερμανικό ίδρυμα Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung διοργανώνουν ελληνο-τουρκικό φιλοσοφικό συνέδριο (Humboldt-Kolleg) με θέμα

''Το πέταγμα της γλαύκας: Μορφές πρόσληψης της αρχαίας ελληνικής φιλοσοφίας στη Γερμανία''.

Το συνέδριο θα διεξαχθεί στη Θεσσαλονίκη το τριήμερο 7-9 Οκτωβρίου 2016 και αναμένεται να αποτελέσει ένα μείζον φιλοσοφικό γεγονός, αλλά και να λειτουργήσει ως δίαυλος επικοινωνίας ανάμεσα στην ελληνική και την τουρκική φιλοσοφική κοινότητα.
Θέμα του συνεδρίου είναι η πορεία και πρόσληψη της αρχαίας ελληνικής φιλοσοφίας στον γερμανικό χώρο. Στόχος είναι να αναδειχθεί η παγκόσμια και καθολική σημασία της, χωρίς τις στενώσεις που επιφέρουν οι αξιώσεις ‘κληρονόμησής’ της. Οι ανακοινώσεις θα αναφέρονται σε ολόκληρο το φάσμα πρόσληψης και παραγωγικής οικειοποίησης της ελληνικής σκέψης από τη γερμανική φιλοσοφία: από τον 18ο αιώνα και τον γερμανικό ιδεαλισμό μέχρι το τέλος του 20ού αιώνα. Επιστημονική Επιτροπή:Παναγιώτης Θανασάς (ΑΠΘ) Sanem Yazicioğlu (Istanbul)

http://www.edlit.auth.gr/en/Humboldt-Kolleg

Southern California Architectural History: Living Lightly on the Land: Bernard Judge's "Tripo...

Southern California Architectural History: Living Lightly on the Land: Bernard Judge's "Tripo...: (Click on images to enlarge)  Bernard Judge Residence, Durand Dr., Hollywood, 1960-1, MacMasters, Dan, "A Bubble on a Hilltop,&qu...

Text By John Crosse

For a New Liberty

Murray N. Rothbard proposes a once-and-for-all escape from the two major political parties, the ideologies they embrace, and their central plans for using state power against people. Libertarianism is Rothbard's radical alternative that says state power is unworkable and immoral and ought to be curbed and finally abolished

https://mises.org/sites/default/files/For%20a%20New%20Liberty%20The%20Libertarian%20Manifesto_3.pdf

Staying There

Staying There, 2016

Concrete, felt

30 x 23 x 30 cm

Aside

In Berkshire somewhere 1970

I hid in a laurel bush outside a house,

Planted in gravel I think.

I stopped running and just pushed open

Its oilskin flaps and settled down

In some kind of waiting room, whose scarred boughs

Had clearly been leaning and kneeling there

For a long time. They were bright black.

I remember this Museum of Twilight

Was low-ceilinged and hear-through

As through a bedroom window

One hears the zone of someone’s afternoon

Being shouted and shouted in, but by now

I was too evergreen to answer, watching

The woodlice at work in hard hats

Taking their trolleys up and down.

Through longer and longer interims

A dead leaf fell, rigidly yellow and slow.

So by degrees I became invisible

In that spotted sick-room light

And nobody found me there.

The hour has not yet ended in which

Under a cloth of Laurel

I sat quite still.

Alice Oswald