Sunday, June 30, 2019

‘The Idea of Others’

‘The Idea of Others’ A Poem by Brenda Shaughnessy
An animal is scritching in the wall behind my bed. At first I thought it was some kind of water crackling in a heating pipe but what kind of water stops when you thump the wall? I don’t mean to be mean, I mean to make it scurry off, to send it to scritch somewhere I can’t hear.
No, I’m not afraid—it is small, by the sound of its scritch. I’m not in Room 101, not worried about a gnarled whiskered rodent face chewing my eyelids in my sleep. I know these small animals, if it is an animal,
are generally afraid of big, intelligent me so far up the food chain, capable of terrible violence if frightened. I know they know they can never physically get me and are only after a crumb or a drop, like everyone really.
No, I’m trying to protect my peace of mind, my inner life, my pest-free dreams, from these unseen labors in a frenzy in the wall behind my bed. I was going to say it drives me mad and that is its fault, or was I going to say who am I to judge the urges and intensities of another species?
What I’ll say instead is that I am part of the universe, privy to sounds parallel but unreachable, and on some other level, that I know I am alive, factually, unloving and alone.
Excerpted from The Octopus MuseumCopyright © 2019 by Brenda Shaughnessy.

2019 ~ Sunday June 30: Roaming Assembly#25 ~ RADIO MUTINY



Convened by iLiana Fokianaki
&
The participants of DAI’s Factory "Island Partisans, Anarchists, Bandits and Pirates: Local histories as a guide for politically conscious practices": 
Clara Saito, Dorothy Hunter, Elien Ronse, Emma de Filippo, Francisco Mojica, Harun Morrison, Hasan Özgür Top, Jasmin Schädler, Joannie Baumgärtner, Jose Iglesias Ga-Arenal, Lea Rüegg, Nine Postma, Olivia Abächerli, Raphael Daibert, Sara Benaglia, Sara Cattin, Wilf Speller, Zoe Scoglio.
INTRODUCTION
Roaming Assembly #25 - Radio Mutiny, is inspired by the local and global histories of pirates, bandits, anarchists, poets and all other female figures that conjure resistance. We occupy the technology of signalling or communicating through this radio wave. Radio waves that can act as transporters, but also borders; that can be simultaneous, or in different frequencies and languages, that connect and divide; just like the waves of the waters that contour Europe. This is a one-day radio act, a mutiny act, conspired by a group of people, a crew of some kind, to openly oppose through sounds, words and silences the authorities, under which heteronormative, conservative, nationalist, xenophobic, neocolonial and racist discourses, legislations and consciences are built, in a Europe that is slowly sinking. Our mutiny is indeed a conspiracy, but one that remains in waves. It aims to agitate and propagate for informed and activated listeners. Through this transmission we transport our thinking processes, our positions and oppositions, our sounds and voices, our tongues and silences, our testimonies and our open-ended conclusions. 
With contributions from:
Tabita Rezaire (in absentia)


Planetary Campus is an innovative conceptual space (without walls) where the MA curriculum "DAI Art Praxis" meets with a wide variety of external parties. A welcoming space where we want to host a fleeting, "affective community", where we generously share art and research, where complexity can be embraced and intellectual intra-actions are fostered, aiming to endow our praxes, wherever they are operational. As an infrastructure Planetary Campus is the container for several activities initiated by the DAI.
One of them is the Roaming  Assembly, a recurring public symposium scheduled to take place four to five times per year, functioning as it were as the DAI-week's 'centerfold' event. This state-of-the-art speculative and hybrid program explores specific themes and topics of contemporary relevance to the thinking of art in the world today. 

Joaquín Torres García : Obra Viva


An unprecedented exhibition in Chile brings together the work and legacy of Joaquín Torres García



View of Joaquín Torres García, Obra Viva, Centro Cultural La Moneda, Santiago, Chile, 2019

Centro Cultural La Moneda (CCLM), a space inaugurated in January 2006, constitutes a landmark within Santiago de Chile’s civic quarters. Its programming includes contemporary art and heritage exhibitions, concerts, conferences and seminars, film programs and a variety of activities which display the insights and interests of our times. From April through late July of the present year, one of its main galleries presents Joaquín Torres García. Obra Viva, an exhibition that surveys the legacy of the multifaceted Uruguayan artist, one of the most influential representatives of the 20th-century avant-garde movements in Latin America.
The exhibition’s approach is unprecedented, product of a co-curatorship between Alejandro Díaz, director of the Museo Torres García de Montevideo—institution that houses most of the artist’s work—and the CCLM team, headed by Beatriz Bustos Oyanedel. Interwined troughout ten chapters and over 150 works are glimpses of the artist’s complementary facets as a painter, mentor, and father, accurately reflecting the wide span of his intellectual ideas.
Works form his early period, closer to pictorial tradition, such as Retrato del Señor Gandelbeu (made when he was 12 years old), are featured in dialogue with other paintings executed on canvas, paper, cardboard and wood; collages; articulated toys; letters; conferences; photographs; publications; and the desk that supported his creative process.
Joaquín Torres García (1874-1949) was born in Montevideo and emigrated to Barcelona with his parents at the age of 17. His life was marked by travel and constant uprooting: Madrid, Paris, and New York gave him new perspectives on the city and on modern ways of life. His experience becomes resonant within our current times, marked by the phenomenon of migration.
Curatorial journey
One of the personal aspects that Torres García nurtured early on was his admiration for childhood and his interest in education. Since 1907 he became part of one of the most forward-thinking reforming processes in Spanish pedagogy. He made several contributions through Didáctica del Arte (Art Didactic), and came to the conclusion that artists ought to learn from children and not the other way round. His aim to turn his material explorations into the manufacturing of wooden toys led him to subsequently establish Aladdin Toys company in New York, which would serve as the sustenance of his family, made up of his wife Manolita Piña de Rubies, and their children Olimpia, Augusto, Ifigenia and Horacio.     
This playful and intimate dimension of Torres García is reflected in the CCLM exhibition in with works such as Teatrito, a theatre stage with interchangeable set decorations and characters, that also held a didactic role during the upbringing of his children. Replicas of some of these toys were specially made for the exhibition so that attending public could manipulate them, stimulating creativity, ingenuity, and problem-solving skills in children, and embracing play as an impulse for art.
The exhibition’s curatorship is approached as a journey within the universe of this ground-breaking artist, who challenged the language of his time. Torres García championed the autonomy of art, its formal and plastic independence, but remained in close connection with what were its inherently human aspects. Embracing the artwork as a structure, he pursued a synthesis within it, one that could combine reality, human emotions and intellect. From this union, in harmonious existence with the cosmos, emerged the movement he would entitle Universalismo Constructivo [Constructive Universalism].
After an extensive vital journey with his family, he returned to Uruguay in 1934, settling into a period of dissemination of his artistic thought and ideas. He brought together creators and intellectuals, and organized over 500 conferences in six years, all within the scope of his “Curso para la formación de la conciencia artística” (Course for the formation of artistic consciousness). It was in one of these gatherings in 1935 where he presented his own version of the map of America, inverting the traditional representation so that the South faced upwards and the North, downwards. In this way he introduced his now well-known aphorism “Nuestro Norte es el Sur” (Our North is the South), which transgressed—literally and symbolically—the hegemonic language of that moment in time, and particularly, the hegemonic relationship between Europe and America as it was then understood.   
Featured in the exhibition is also the emblematic artwork América Invertida (1943); the eloquent drawing summarizes his postulates and represents an invitation for artists to emphatically observe the aesthetic production of indigenous people and, only from there—looking at Latin America from Latin America—to create and advance an avant-garde that is genuinely new for the continent. Also, in 1943 he created Taller Torres García (Torres García Studio) where he recruited upcoming generations; disciples that yielded continuity both to this space and to his thought, well beyond his lifespan.   
Through his own production and the imprint transmitted in his ideas, Torres García’s oeuvre connects us with local history and contingency, acting as a reminder of the need to rewrite the narratives of Latin American art history. The close collaboration between CCLM and Museo Torres García of Montevideo also enabled several Chilean and Uruguayan institutions to contribute by lending artwork from their own collections, with the aim of achieving a thorough and comprehensive exhibition.

Joaquín Torres García 
Obra Viva 
April 12–July 28, 2019 

Centro Cultural La Moneda 
Chile 
www.ccplm.cl 

Thinking on Your Feet (Partial Reconstruction of Joaquin Torres Garcia Toy Figures as an Instrument of Research for Politics)

Kostis Velonis, Thinking on Your Feet (Partial Reconstruction of Joaquin Torres Garcia Toy Figures
as an Instrument of Research for Politics), 2017
Wood, acrylic, stucco, cement 
172 x 30 x 47 cm 

When Whales and Humans Talk

When Whales and Humans Talk




Sometime in the late 19th century, an Iñupiaq carver fashioned this amulet for an umiak out of driftwood, carving the likeness of a bowhead whale, its blowhole symbolized with a piece of obsidian. As with other whaling amulets Erica Hill has examined, this object may have also functioned as part of the boat’s structure. Photo by Department of Anthropology, Smithsonian Institute (Cat. A347918)
Harry Brower Sr. was lying in a hospital bed in Anchorage, Alaska, close to death, when he was visited by a baby whale.
Although Brower’s body remained in Anchorage, the young bowhead took him more than 1,000 kilometers north to Barrow (now Utqiaġvik), where Brower’s family lived. They traveled together through the town and past the indistinct edge where the tundra gives way to the Arctic Ocean. There, in the ice-blue underwater world, Brower saw Iñupiat hunters in a sealskin boat closing in on the calf’s mother.
Brower felt the shuddering harpoon enter the whale’s body. He looked at the faces of the men in the umiak, including those of his own sons. When he awoke in his hospital bed as if from a trance, he knew precisely which man had made the kill, how the whale had died, and whose ice cellar the meat was stored in. He turned out to be right on all three counts.
Brower lived six years after the episode, dying in 1992 at the age of 67. In his final years, he discussed what he had witnessed with Christian ministers and Utqiaġvik’s whaling captains. The conversations ultimately led him to hand down new rules to govern hunting female whales with offspring, meant to communicate respect to whales and signal that people were aware of their feelings and needs. “[The whale] talked to me,” Brower recalls in a collection of his stories, The Whales, They Give Themselves. “He told me all the stories about where they had all this trouble out there on the ice.”
Not long ago, non-Indigenous scientists might have dismissed Brower’s experience as a dream or the inchoate ramblings of a sick man. But he and other Iñupiat are part of a deep history of Arctic and subarctic peoples who believe humans and whales can talk and share a reciprocal relationship that goes far beyond that of predator and prey. Today, as Western scientists try to better understand Indigenous peoples’ relationships with animals—as well as animals’ own capacity for thoughts and feelings—such beliefs are gaining wider recognition, giving archaeologists a better understanding of ancient northern cultures.
“If you start looking at the relationship between humans and animals from the perspective that Indigenous people themselves may have had, it reveals a rich new universe,” says Matthew Betts, an archaeologist with the Canadian Museum of History who studies Paleo-Eskimo cultures in the Canadian Arctic. “What a beautiful way to view the world.”

Saturday, June 29, 2019

Pattern Radio: Whale Songs

Pattern Radio: Whale Songs

Hello! A few of us at Google, in collaboration with research oceanographer Ann Allen at National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center (PIFSC), created a website called Pattern Radio: Whale Songs. We put this post together to help answer questions about the project. Many thanks to our collaborators — the scientists, musicians, and educators who inspired us and taught us so much. If you have a question that’s not answered here, feel free to drop us a line at patternradio-support@google.com.


Friday, June 28, 2019

Einmal


                           Paul Celan

Sunday, June 23, 2019

ΑΓΑΛΜΑ [Δαυίδ-του Μιχαήλ Άγγελου]

ΑΓΑΛΜΑ [Δαυίδ-του Μιχαήλ Άγγελου]

Όταν έμπλεξα με τη σιωπή
Το άγαλμα γύρισε το κεφάλι του.



Μαρίκα Συμεωνίδου

Friday, June 21, 2019

Landlord Colors: On Art, Economy, and Materiality



This weekend marks the opening of our landmark exhibition Landlord Colors: On Art, Economy, and Materiality. This large-scale exhibition and public engagement series brings together artworks from five international art scenes that have experienced economic and societal upheaval: Italy (1960s-80s), Korea (1970s-80s), Cuba (1990s-present), Greece (2009-present), Detroit, USA (1967-present). It will be on view at Cranbrook Art Museum from June 22 through October 6, 2019, with a special preview celebration on June 21. 

It is a rare opportunity for metro Detroiters to see seminal historic works from around the world along with new commissions from contemporary artists such as Reynier Leyva Novo, Zoë Paul, Kostis Velonis, Matthew Angelo Harrison, and Scott Hocking. 

In Detroit, Cranbrook Art Museum Senior Curator Laura Mott has partnered with Taylor Renee-Aldridge (co-founder of ARTS.BLACK) and Ryan Myers-Johnson (Executive Director of Sidewalk Detroit) to offer a free four-month engagement series that is designed to connect art to history and contemporary life across Detroit. See the full list of events here.

Join us THIS WEEKEND for the opening events!

Friday, June 21, 2019
ArtMembers Preview Party
6–9pm

Cranbrook Art Museum
Free for ArtMembers, $20 at the door
Meet artists Elizabet Cerviño, Olayami Dabls, Tyree Guyton, Jennifer Harge, Carole Harris, Matthew Angelo Harrison, Patrick Hill, Scott Hocking, Addie Langford, Kylie Lockwood, Billy Mark, Tiff Massey, Allie McGhee, Jason Murphy, Reynier Leyva Novo, Zoë Paul, Susana Pilar, Anders Ruhwald, Chris Schanck, Socratis Socratous, and Elizabeth Youngblood, among others. 
Special performance by Elizabet Cerviño at 7:30pm.

Saturday, June 22, 2019
Material Detroit Events Open to the Public
The full schedule can be found here. Special events include:

Dawn to Dusk: Billy Mark Wind Installation. Mark will create a participatory site-specific installation in his neighborhood of Detroit’s North End, featuring a handmade hoodie with 25-foot arms affixed to three flagpoles. Each morning from June 22–July 28, Mark will raise the arms of the sweatshirts at dawn and lower them at dusk. Visitors are invited to put themselves in the garment. Location: 858 Blaine St., Detroit.

3pm: Susana Pilar Alma (Soul) Performance.* The Havana-based Afro-Cuban artist will present a performance that draws upon a true story from the Detroit 1967 Rebellion. In collaboration with local musicians, Pilar will create a performance that honors the music of The Dramatics, whose founding member, Cleveland Larry Reed, survived the police siege on The Algiers Motel in 1967. Location: 8301 Woodward, Detroit.
*In the event of rain, the performance will be moved to Sunday at 3pm at the same location. Please visit our website and social media channels for the most up-to-date information.

1–6pm: Scott Hocking Bone Black Installation. A monumental installation near Atwater Beach utilizes a collection of the metaphorical ‘bones’ of Detroit’s once prosperous economy – the many boats abandoned throughout the city. Theatrically presented as a suspended fleet, Hocking applies “Bone Black” paint to the boats, an industrial pigment from crushed animal bones that has been produced in Detroit since the 19th century. Location: 900 Guoin St., Detroit (entrance on Guoin between Chene and Joseph Campau).

Noon–4pm: Anders Ruhwald Unit 1: 3583 Dubois Installation. Ruhwald will launch this ongoing project that will occupy an entire apartment in Detroit’s Eastern Market neighborhood. The artist investigates themes of transformation and memory through this installation of black ceramic, charred wood, molten glass, and perceptual environments. Location: Unit 1, 3583 Dubois St., Detroit.

3–6pm: Dabls’ MBAD African Bead Museum. A city-block-sized installation by Olayami Dabls that has been a cultural nexus in Detroit since the late 1990s will celebrate the launch of a new storytelling and exhibition space created in partnership with Lorcan O’Herlihy Architects (LOHA). Speakers will include Olayami Dabls (MBAD), Lorcan O’Herlihy (LOHA), Brittney Hoszkiw (Michigan Economic Development Corp.), and others, as well as a live musical performance by Efe Bes’s group iBm. The Material Detroit curators have organized the debut exhibition by Detroit-based artist Elizabeth Youngblood entitled, mat|ter. Set within the installation’s gallery space, the exhibition will serve as a momentary companion to this longstanding creative pillar. Location: 6559 Grand River Ave., Detroit.

Tuesday, June 18, 2019

Summer Pop Up


Kostis Velonis, Assembling the Self, 2018 
Wood, concrete, pencil and acrylic 
120 x 23 x 50 cm 

An international exhibition in the heart of Athens, signifying what is to come at Art Athina 2019 (Zappeion Mansion, 13th-16th September 2019). 

Located in the ample empty spaces of an office building on 48-50 Aiolou St., galleries from Greece, United Kingdom, USA, Sweden and Austria will prepare the city’s art audience for Art Athina 2019. In total, Art Athina Summer Pop Up will include 34 Greek galleries, exhibiting one artist each, and 6 international galleries, visiting from abroad. 


Participations from Greece include: a. antonopoulou.art with Stefania Strouza, Agathi Kartalos with Filippos Fotiades, Alibi with Iakovos Volkov, Alma Contemporary Art Gallery with Vana Fertaki, Art Prisma with Katerina Kokkinaki, Astrolavos with George Papamarkezis, CAN Christina Androulidaki with Efi Chaliori, Cheapart with Babis Kartalis, Citronne with George Lappas, Cube with Makis Kiriakopoulos, Ikastikos Kiklos Sianti with Cacao Rocks, ekfrasi-yianna grammatopoulou with Aggelos Skourtis, Elika Gallery with Vaggelis Gkokas, EPsilon Art Gallery with Evi Kirmakidou, Gallery "7" with Konstantinos Archaniotis, Gallery Ersi with Dimitris Chiotopoulos, Gallery Genesis with Stratigoula Gianikopoulou, kaplanon5 art gallery with Dimitris Athanasiou, Kappatos Gallery with Marina Abramovic, Miharalias Art with Chryssa, Papatzikou Art Gallery with Kostis (Triantafillou), PeriTechnon Karteris art gallery with George Giotsas, Rebecca Camhi Gallery with Morris Ganis, Skoufa Gallery with Panagiotis Beldekos, Zina Athanasiadou Gallery with George Giparakis, Art Appel Gallery with Nikos Giavropoulos, Art Ζone 42 with Konstantinos TheMonk, The Breeder with Aristides Lappas, Crux Galerie with Ilias Papailiakis, Kalfayan Galleries with Kostis Velonis, Rodeo with Tamara Henderson, Artforum Gallery with Panagiotis Tanimanides, Technohoros with Stathis Betenides and Allouche Benias with Vassilis H. 
The international programme of Art Athina Summer Pop Up includes Edel Assanti gallery from London and Anat Ebgi gallery from Los Angeles, showing two solo shows by artists Dale Lewis and Neil Raitt accordingly. Both artists spent a month in Athens producing artworks inspired by the city, which will be displayed at Art Athina Summer Pop Up. This initiative was realised with the support of the Municipality of Athens and Athens Culture Net. Loyal Gallery (Stockholm) participates with Jim Thorell, while Soft Opening (London) presents artists Alix Vernet and Ryan Driscoll. Vienna based gallery Sophie Tappeiner hosts the photographer Sophie Thun (supported by the Austrian Embassy) and the sculptor Sydney Shen. Finally, Zeller Van Almsick (Vienna), also from the austrian capital presents the work of Jonny Niesche. 

Sunday, June 16, 2019

H Ανασκαφή: Πρακτικές μιας κοσμολογικής αρχαιολογίας στη σύγχρονη εικαστική πρακτική (Β΄ μέρος )



Στο πρώτο μέρος του κειμένου διερωτήθηκα με ποιο τρόπο η σύγχρονη τέχνη παράγει ένα νόημα που διατηρεί την προσωκρατική σκέψη. Κατά τη γνώμη μου, αρχαιολογικές πρακτικές (οι «βυθίσεις» της ανασκαφής, η ανάσυρση του μέλους και του αποσπάσματος, η συσχέτιση και η απόπειρα επανασυναρμολόγησης των ευρημάτων) μεταφέρουν την crafty, χειροποίητη γοητεία του προσωκρατικού στοχασμού. Όμως, με κάποιες ελάχιστες εξαιρέσεις, η πλειοψηφία των εικαστικών την ασπάζεται οργανικά χωρίς να την χρησιμοποιεί στο λόγο της. 
Όπως ανέφερα, οι καλλιτέχνες αυτοί δεν αντιλαμβάνονται την «καταγωγή» της τεχνικής με όρους διατύπωσης κάποιων ερωτημάτων, που ιστορικά έχουν απαντηθεί και η διαρκής βελτίωση της τεχνολογίας δεν αποτελεί καθοριστικό παράγοντα για την συνέχιση της έρευνάς τους. Αν επιλέγουν να κάνουν χρήση μιας πρόσφατης τεχνικής, είναι επειδή διευρύνουν αυτό που φαίνεται ότι προϋπάρχει στον φυσικό κόσμο. 
Αν η επιστήμη και οι εφαρμογές της εντάσσονται στους μύθους της νεωτερικότητας, τότε η «αγρία» φιλοσοφία των προσωκρατικών είναι το ιδανικό σχήμα. Οι αφηγήσεις που εξηγούν τη σύσταση του κόσμου και που απαντώνται στους μύθους αντιστοιχούν στις μορφολογικές εικασίες τους. Κατά κάποιο τρόπο, η προέλευση είναι και η κατάληξη.

Η έκδηλη «προσωκρατική» τάση των καλλιτεχνών αυτών εμφανίζεται με τη στροφή στα τέσσερα πρωταρχικά και αρχετυπικά φυσικά στοιχεία, το νερό, τη φωτιά, τον αέρα και τη γη. Κάποιες φορές, προσεγγίζουν «αστρονομικά» θέματα, όταν για παράδειγμα παρουσιάζουν μορφές που ακολουθούν το σχήμα των πλανητών, όπως της γης στη συσχέτισή της με άλλα ουράνια σώματα, άλλοτε σύμφωνα με τη λογική της δυσδιάστατης αναπαράστασης (Πάνος Τσαγκάρης, Λητώ Κάττου, Γιάννης Παπαδόπουλος) και, άλλοτε, με την ρητορική της μεταστοιχείωσης της «αγενούς» ύλης μέσω της χρήσης του φωτός, του ηλεκτρισμού της αστραπής η του ηλεκτρομαγνητικού σύμπαντος (Χρήστος Τζίβελος, Κωστής Τριανταφύλλου, Τάκης). Άλλες φορές η τάση αυτή προδίδεται με την επιμονή σ’ ένα συγκεκριμένο υλικό που το ίδιο προφέρει απλόχερα τις αφηγήσεις του, επιστρατεύοντας τεχνικές όπως η κεραμική, η προπλάσματα για κάθε μέθοδο χύτευσης (Αλέξανδρος Τζάννης, Γιώργος Τσεριώνης, Αθανάσιος Αργιανάς, Στεφανία Στρούζα, Μαλβίνα Παναγιωτίδη, Ηλίας Κοέν κ.ά.).
Σε άλλες, πάλι, περιπτώσεις προκρίνεται η χειρονομία της εκσκαφής και της ανεύρεσης. Αναφέρομαι στις εκσκαφές του Δημήτρη Αληθινού, στους χωμάτινους κύβους του Νίκου Τζιώτη, στο κάλεσμα μιας αρχαϊκής εντοπιότητας με στοιχεία του αστικού πολιτισμού στις κατασκευές της Μάρως Φασουλή, του Αλέξανδρου Ψυχούλη και του Πέτρου Τουλούδη, στ’ ανάγλυφα με τις συνθέσεις οστών στις γύψινες μάζες της Μαρίας Γεωργούλα, στην ψηφιακή ανάδυση του σπάνιου και άχρηστου αντικειμένου στο έργο του Στέφανου Καμάρη.
Εκείνα τα έργα που μεταφέρουν την εμπειρία του αέρα, την αίσθηση της επίπλευσης όπως και του μετεωρισμού ακολουθούν την ίδια κατεύθυνση. Μπορώ να θυμηθώ τις «ανάσες» του Νίκου Ναυρίδη ως είδος μέτρησης της ανθρώπινης γεωμετρίας, το πέρασμα του ανέμου στις δικτυωτές διατάξεις των πλεγμάτων και των ιστίων της Μπίας Ντάβου, τα περιβάλλοντα με τα υφάσματα και τα πανιά του Γιώργου Λαζόγκα.
Σε κάποιες ακόμα περιπτώσεις η διαπίστωση του εφήμερου του υλικού οδηγεί στη φωτογραφική μαρτυρία και στην χρήση κάποιου απροσδιορίστου αινιγματικού κώδικα και του κρυμμένου ευρήματος (Μαργαρίτα Μυρογιάννη, Γιάννης Θεοδωρόπουλος, Κύριλλος Σαρρής, Νίκος Χατζημιχάλης)[1]. Βασική έγνοια σε όλα τα παραδείγματα που προανέφερα είναι ο προσδιορισμός της φύσης των πράγματων (rerum natura), ακόμη και αν αυτή είναι ευμετάβολη και αφορά τη συνεχή αλλαγή με την τυπική έννοια του Ηράκλειτου. Επίσης, ανταποκρίνεται στη στροφή προς μια χειροτεχνική αντίληψη του απείρου, η οποία ταιριάζει και στην ερμηνεία του κόσμου από τον Αναξίμανδρο. 
Κάποιος θα αναρωτιόταν αν η σύσταση ενός «ανθρωπολογικού» τρόπου κατανόησης της ύλης από τους παραπάνω εικαστικούς απουσιάζει, από τη στιγμή που αυτή λειτουργεί συμβολικά και προβάλλει όσα οι προσωκρατικοί αντιλαμβάνονταν για την κοσμική ύλη. Η τελευταία υφίσταται πέρα από κάθε γήινη εμπειρία, εκεί που με τη νιτσεϊκή ορολογία θα αποκαλούσαμε hinterwelt, στην άφαντη δηλαδή πλευρά του κόσμου, σ’ ένα επέκεινα. Όμως, αυτή η μεταφυσική και θραυσματοποιημένη γνώση επιστρέφει στον γήινο ορίζοντα μέσω της αρχαιολογίας, της εκσκαφής, της ανεύρεσης και της συγκομιδής.
Ήρθε η στιγμή να αντιστρέψουμε ή να ταρακουνήσουμε το γενεαλογικό αυτό δέντρο, ώστε τα φρούτα και οι καρποί του να πέσουν, να σκορπιστούν άτακτα εδώ και κει στο έδαφος και να συνομιλήσουν μεταξύ τους διαμορφώνοντας νέες απτές σχέσεις και συνάφειες. Από εδώ και στο εξής μπορούμε να υποθέσουμε ότι τα στοιχεία της αρχαίας κοσμογονίας δεν προκαλούν τόσο αντιθέσεις αλλά λειτουργούν πρωτίστως ως ελκτικά και συμπληρωματικά στοιχεία. 

Ο Κωστής Βελώνης είναι εικαστικός καλλιτέχνης


[1] H Maria Torok και ο Nicolas Abraham με κύριο αντικείμενο την ψυχαναλυτική θεωρία χρησιμοποιούν την έννοια της «κρύπτης», προσφέροντας ενδιαφέροντα παραδείγματα που αφορούν την διαδικασία της ανασυρσης του κρυμμένου ευρήματος από την κρυψώνα του. Ενδεικτικά προτείνω το Le Verbier de l'Homme aux loups : cryptonymie (Paris, Aubier : Flammarion, 1976).


Thursday, June 13, 2019

Landlord Colors: On Art, Economy, and Materiality

Landlord Colors: On Art, Economy, and Materiality reconsiders periods of economic and social collapse through the lens of artistic innovations and material-driven narratives. It examines five art scenes generated during heightened periods of upheaval: America’s Detroit from the 1967 rebellion to the present; the cultural climate of the Italian avant-garde during the 1960s-1980s; authoritarian-ruled South Korea of the 1970s; Cuba since the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s to the present; and contemporary Greece since the financial crisis of 2009. Featuring more than sixty artists, Landlord Colors is a landmark exhibition, publication, and public art and performance series. While the project unearths microhistories and vernaculars specific to place, it also examines a powerful global dialogue communicated through materiality. Landlord Colors discovers textured and unexpected relationships between these artists whose investigations share themes of ingenuity, resourcefulness, and resistance.
Material Detroit is a series of public programs around Detroit that complement the themes and artists of the Landlord Colors exhibition. This robust public art and performance series is a collaboration between three Detroit curators and institutions: Laura Mott, Senior Curator at Cranbrook Art Museum; Taylor Renee Aldridge, Founder of ARTS.BLACK; and Ryan Myers-Johnson, Director of Sidewalk Festival. Material Detroit will engage residents as it connects art to vortexes of history and contemporary life across Detroit during summer 2019.

Artists in the exhibition:
(Italy)Giovanni Anselmo, Pier Paolo Calzolari, Riccardo Dalisi, Lucio Fontana, Jannis Kounellis, Maria Lai, Mario Merz, Marisa Merz, Giulio Paolini, Michelangelo Pistoletto (Korea) Ha Chong-Hyun, Kwon Young-Woo, Lee Ufan, Park Hyun-Ki, Park Seo-Bo, Yun Hyong-Keun (Cuba) Belkis Ayón, Tania Bruguera, Yoan Capote, Elizabet Cerviño, Julio Llópiz-Casal, Reynier Leyva Novo, Eduardo Ponjuán, Wilfredo Prieto, Diana Fonseca Quiñones, Ezequiel O. Suárez; (Greece)Andreas Angelidakis, Dora Economou, Andreas Lolis, Panos Papadopoulos, Zoë Paul, Socratis Socratous, Kostis Velonis; (Detroit, USA) Cay Bahnmiller, Kevin Beasley, James Lee Byars, Olayami Dabls, Brenda Goodman, Tyree Guyton, Carole Harris, Matthew Angelo Harrison, Patrick Hill, Scott Hocking, Addie Langford, Kylie Lockwood, Alvin Loving, Michael Luchs, Tiff Massey, Charles McGee, Allie McGhee, Jason Murphy, Gordon Newton, Chris Schanck, and Gilda Snowden.
Artists in Material Detroit:
(Installations) Dabls’ MBAD African Bead Museum, Jennifer Harge, Scott Hocking, Billy Mark, Anders Ruhwald, The Fringe Society, Elizabeth Youngblood. (Performances/Events) Big Red Wall Dance Company, Susana Pilar, Michelangelo Pistoletto (Third Paradise performance and a Detroit Rebirth Forum), Sterling Toles. The project culminates with the Landlord Colors Symposium at Cranbrook Art Museum in the fall.

Landlord Colors: On Art, Economy, and Materiality is organized by Cranbrook Art Museum and curated by Laura Mott, Senior Curator of Contemporary Art and Design. The project is generously supported by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the Maxine and Stuart Frankel Foundation, The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, The National Endowment for the Arts, and donors to the Detroit Initiatives Fund for Cranbrook

Monday, June 10, 2019

Governor’s Island





Life Without Tragedy,2019 
 Picnic Point, Governor’s Island 
Developed by Christian Kotzamanis, commissioned and produced by Onassis Culture, as part of the Onassis Festival 2019: Democracy is Coming, co-presented by Onassis USA and The Public Theater, cur. by Meredith Johnson, USA

Sunday, June 9, 2019

Goat Song

Untitled ('Life without tragedy' series), 2015 (plywood, wood, acrylics) 



            Goat Song, 2019 (Metal, wood, acrylics, textile) 


 Bag of Wind, 2018-19 (Wood, metal, leather, acrylic)