Kappatos Athens Art Residency
From 2013 to 2016, “Kappatos Athens Art Residency” hosted acclaimed international artists such as: Martin Creed, Roy Ascott, Marie Voignier, Santiago Sierra, Clara Sfeir and Ghida Hachicho, Ann Cooper Albright, Bonnie Greer OBE, Prof Semir Zeki, Jean-Marc Cérino, Mat Chivers, Joo Yeon Park, Miriam Simun, Tim Shaw. You can find all the information in the following links:
http://athensartresidency.com/
Director: Gerasimos Kappatos
European Cultural Program NFRS
“Kappatos Athens Art Residency” was established in 2013 as the first official Art Residency in Greece and supported by a European fund (NFRS: National Strategic Reference Framework 2007–2013).
Located in the historical centre of Athens, overlooking the Parthenon, the programme supports artistic research and production for art professionals from around the world and will select established and emerging artists to share a live/work space for a six-week programme marked by intimate studio visits with, and public lectures by, distinguished leaders in contemporary art and curation and to exhibit for the following four-weeks at the Exhibition Space.
“Kappatos Athens Art Residency” is supported by the European Fund (NFRS) for the production of the project “Operation of Hosting of Artists and Personalities of the Arts and Production of Cultural Activities, Visual Artworks and the organisation of Exhibitions, Publications, Art Events and Educational Workshops and their respective publication” that offers an engaging programme, open and free of charge to the public, and that has an impact on Greek contemporary culture by addressing both local and international audiences. The residency aims to accommodate artists so as to promote international exchange of practice and knowledge in the arts (visual and sound art, architecture, performance) and to investigate points of intersection between the arts and the public sphere by means of public interventions and educational programmes.
Accommodation and Exhibition Spaces
The cultural and educational programme take place at “Pantheon’s” exhibition centre and residency (430m² venues) that are located at 12 Athinas street in the historic centre of Athens (Monastiraki).
The Art Residency is quartered in two floors of the building, the 320sq.m exhibition space is situated on the 2nd floor and the accommodation on the 7th floor a 111sq.m space with a panoramic view of Athens, in particular of the Archaeological sites of the Parthenon, of Thission and Lycabettus. The exhibition space of the residency and the space for the production of works by the artists is located on 2nd floor while on the 7th floor the art-professionals are accommodated in an astonishing flat with a 150sq.m terrace.
The Non-Profit Organisation
The organisation is actively committed to the research, development and presentation of influential contemporary art exhibitions (ROOMS, Visions, Unfair). “Pantheon” is best known for its critical contribution to contemporary art in Greece, and has presented innovative art events in public venues. The non-profit organisation is committed to the promotion of emerging artists and organises/curates the historic annual exhibition since 2000, entitled “Rooms,” in collaboration with established curators and art historians, that aims to present talented emerging artists that haven’t yet presented their work at solo exhibitions. “Pantheon” has been awarded a grant from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism for the production of the contemporary art exhibition ROOMS2012. The non-profit organisation is registered at the bureau of the Greek Ministry of Culture and is associated to Kappatos Gallery, a gallery that has introduced to the greek public acclaimed international artists such as: Marina Abramoviç, Lynda Benglis, Louise Bourgeois, Phil Collins, Nasos Daphnis, Jan Dibbets, Rebecca Horn, Roni Horn, William Kentridge, Kai Schiemenz, Penny Siopis, Theodoros Stamos.
“Kappatos Athens Art Residency” launches a distinctive programme that will appeal to the contemporary art world as a ground-breaking visual art institution and aims to enhance the Athenian cultural sector by promoting international artistic expertise and new art movements. The implementation of these objectives is a priority for all the decisions made by the board of the Residency in relation to the exhibition programme.
Artistic and Organisational Board (AOB)
The Residency’s Artistic and Organisational Board aims to safeguard the transparency of the programme its international status with regard to the quality of the provided hospitality and the production of cultural and educational programmes.
The Residency’s AOB (Artistic and Organisational Board) has the responsibility of organising the programme and of selecting members to form an honorary consulting international committee, that consists of acclaimed international art professionals: artists, art historians, collectors, curators, academics and directors of museums, art fairs and institutions such as Marina Abramovic, Lynda Benglis, Katerina Koskina and others.
The members of the committee have a significant impact on the Residency’s decision making by proposing artists, by participating at the educational programmes and by discussing with the Art Residency’s staff for the implementation of the aims of the programme.
The Residency’s AOB is also responsible for the selection of supporters and sponsors, so as to secure the effective operation, the high quality, the consistency and longevity of the programme as a institution that is culturally active in Greece and internationally.
The AOB promotes international exchange and the educational programme of the Residency by travelling abroad and by coming into personal contact and exchange with important institutions, universities and artists, so as to launch collaborative projects, conferences and academic research programmes.
The Art Residency is an original programme that advances cultural growth in the context of contemporary art and constitutes an important initiative for the introduction and establishment of a new institute for the advancement of the artistic and creative activities offered in Athens. The AOB co-ordinates the Residency and implements the educational and cultural programme.
Schedule
–The hosting of two artists or groups every year for the duration of three years, until 31/12/2015. Each resident will be accommodated for 6 weeks at the Residency space.
–Two exhibitions per year for the duration of three years until 31/12/2015. The exhibition of each artist or artist group will be organised for 4-6 weeks time in the exhibition space of the residency.
The aforementioned activities will be documented by the following ways and will be produced as a result of these processes:
-A detailed programme of the Residency, which will be available online
-A folder including the educational programmes and actions for each artist
-Photographic material and video of the artistic events
-Printed material, posters, flyers, programme of events, invitations
-Copies of Press Releases (1/event) and Press Interview
-Copies of printed material
-Copies of press cuttings (articles in newspapers and magazines) with references to the Residency
-Copies of pages from the visitor book
-Website of the residency
Selection Criteria: Emerging and of Acclaimed Artists
The AOB in collaboration with the honorary international committee is responsible for the selection of “Emerging” and “Established” artists (sculptors, painters, new media artists, installation artists, performers, etc.) The established artists are invited by Residency’s AOB.
The “Emerging” artists or artist groups/collectives (sculptors, painters, new media artists, installation artists) are invited to send their portfolio via an open call published at relevant sites and international networks.
The criteria for the selection of emerging artists are based on artistic excellence, research and practice, academic studies, contemporary art production, interdisciplinary artistic creation, interest in the development of interrelations with the local art scene and the audience of the country. In conjunction with participation to international exhibitions, festivals, “independent/alternative” art spaces and contribution to publications and editions of contemporary art.
The residency is committed to promoting and practicing diversity and equality of opportunity.
The criteria for the selection of acclaimed artists are based on their status in the international contemporary art world, the originality and importance of their work, and on their impact on contemporary thought and methodologies; furthermore, on their ability to disseminate knowledge and insights through workshops, masterclasses, and perhaps their interest in the cultural production of Greece, the history and culture of the country.
Kappatos Athens Art Residency employs scientific personnel with graduate, postgraduate or doctorate degrees in the fields of Theory/History/Philosophy of Art and Aesthetics, as well as with experience, knowledge, responsibility and expertise in the art sector.
Kappatos Athens Art Residency Team 2013-2016
Director : Gerasimos Kappatos
Artistic Director : Dr. Sozita Goudouna
Programme Associate: Foteini Vergidou, Evangelia Ledaki
A Turner Award in Athens
On the floor are spread white and black pieces of tarpaulin. In the background a sewing machine. No paints, no brushes, no threads. And most of all, not a single project is ready. Yet time is running out for the moment when Martin Kritt – the artist who won the Turner Prize in 2001, placing flashing spotlights in an empty room – will be “revealed” in front of the Greek art audience in the first of solo exhibition in Athens. “I did not want to have something specific in my mind before I came, since it is my first time in Athens,” he tells us while drinking his coffee at the Kappatos Gallery, to which he was invited as part of the artists’ program with the support of the NSRF. “I will definitely make some clothes, paintings, dancers will participate and I will compose new music for the specific exhibition”,
Will everything be ready by the opening? “The most difficult decision is to start a project. It’s like being on top of a hill and I have to dive. When I dive, I have to swim, otherwise I will drown. And the second most difficult moment is the one where I have to decide where the project ends. If you ask me what stage I am in now, I will tell you that as soon as I have wet my big toe “continues the artist who has put runners running in Tate, maintains his own band and writes music, while ringing bells, Bells and whatever else came to mind rang for three minutes – a work of his own conception – marking the start of the London Olympics.
What if he does not like his work, as happened shortly after his award, when an angry artisan threw eggs into the room where his work was exhibited? “If I do not like it, I get hurt, although I understand that not everyone can like it. If someone does not understand my work, I understand it, because many times I do not understand myself “he says and claims that he is not introduced as an artist because he feels that he does not know exactly what art is. “I think art is what each of us does and influences others, whether you are a painter or a car salesman. Everything is creation. There is no difference between a street-born creation and one born in this room. You will just pay attention to what is presented here because for this reason the space has been made “. Before saying goodbye, we ask him what his position is on the repatriation of the Parthenon Sculptures, since he is British and visited the Acropolis Museum. “Clearly, they must be returned to Greece. “I do not find a single argument for them to stay in Britain.”INFO
Martin Creed gives a lecture today at 13.00 in the amphitheater of the School of Fine Arts, Piraeus 254.
The exhibition of Martin Creed will be inaugurated on March 27
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvOwI-DljlQ&list=PLXWVULKIAkucOAulcFb6CVJXI1uxMtL-v
Martin Creed Solo Show
by Paris Spinou published at EfSYN
In 2001, Martin Creed won the Turner, Britain’s top art prize, for his groundbreaking work “Work No.227, The lights going on and off”. In a completely empty room, the lights went on and off every five seconds. The reactions were stormy. Some enjoyed lying in the center of the room with their eyes closed, while others threw eggs at the walls shouting, “this is not art, the end of painting has come.”
Since then, Greed has become the first news in art publications with conceptual, post-minimalist works that combine painting with multimedia, ordinary materials with dance and music that he writes, urging the overall art experience. He has made large neon constructions with words like “Mothers”, “Feelings”, which create positive energy, he has filled rooms with balloons, turning cold spaces into “playgrounds”. He has runners running up and down the Tate Britain, surprising – or frightening – the visitors, who were standing in front of the paintings. He also called on his compatriots to ring bells and bells with the song “All the bells in the country rung as quickly and as loudly as possible for three minutes”, which marked the start of the 2012 Olympic Games.
I believe that emotions dominate the world. Thought and logic is a desperate attempt to manage emotions, to put them under control. But, in the end, emotions always win. Because it is magic. The problem when I work is that I have to be reasonable enough. For example, to come to Athens I had to get on a plane and then get organized where I live, think about what I will do, find the materials … I had not decided anything in advance. It would be very restrictive, very boring! In the end, a job is good when it is “alive”, that is, the opposite of logic.
Are you anxious every time to show something different?
I try to do new things, but many times this is a way to solve an old problem. At this stage I try to be more direct as I implement an idea. I do not want to be complicated. When I play music I want the stage and the audience to become one, as well as my exhibitions, to be in direct communication with the world.
Is it easy to communicate with the public, especially if they are not familiar with contemporary art?
I believe that spectators are always involved even when they are standing and looking at a painting. You go to a museum, to a gallery and you walk, you look, you breathe, you think. Paintings are not static, because people move, so art is kinetic. I try to intensify the energy, when, say, I make them walk between balloons, I seek their participation and an experience that makes you ask and wonder.
And what role does music play in your works?
I play with my band often, and other times alone. My music works both independently and in relation to a project. I grew up with classical music at my parents’ house and then got into pop and folk, which is popular in Scotland. I like Johnny Cass and the simplicity of country, but especially Bob Dylan, because he managed to stay true and honest.
How much has the Turner Prize changed your life?
He definitely changed it … it had an effect on me, but also on those around me, because I no longer had to introduce myself. If you win such an award, others trust your work, you do not need to try to prove it. I noticed, however, that the younger curators did not include me in their reports, because I suddenly became part of an established, even though I was young. Maybe they found me boring …
Does the award keep its momentum today?
When I got it I was constantly on the channels with hourly tributes and interviews. It was considered something “big” then, but now it does not surprise much and does not make so much noise. However, he has created a great art scene, to which I am glad to belong.
Do you think that some Turner Prize winners or nominees, such as Damien Hirst or Tracy Emin, used it to promote themselves more than their work?
The truth is that some British artists, especially Brit Art representatives, have escaped, become ostentatious. Of course, artists by definition seek the attention of others, narcissism is innate. It’s ridiculous, perhaps, that what you do is so important that it has to go into a gallery. It is an illusion that you must control. The best works I have seen have been done by vulnerable, sensitive people and reveal humanity.
Has the criticism that you have received from the media, both praiseworthy and sometimes negative, affected you?
I have not read anything written about me for two years. When I read them I was very upset. I think writing about art is creative, but also dangerous because words are a means in themselves. When I watch the news on TV I feel it is dangerous, because words do not really tell what is happening. A story based on reality comes out, but it is not reality, it is an interpretation of it, a fabricated story.
Last year was your first retrospective exhibition at the Hayward Gallery. What is it like to choose and see 25-year-old works together?
The choice was difficult and finally when the exhibition opened I felt as if they were not the same works I had done. For example, a painting from when I was 15 years old and was in my parents’ room, when I saw it in the museum I thought it was something completely different, as if someone made an exact copy.
Would you describe your work as autobiographical?
I do not separate life from art. I feel that my art is the way I live. My works show a simple, clean approach to life and help me survive in a chaotic world.
Martin Creed 2015
Kappatos Athens Art Residency is pleased to invite you to the opening of the spring cycle of the first official residency programme in Athens under the auspices of the Ministry of Culture and Sports, supported by a European fund (NSRF: National Strategic Reference Framework 2007 – 2013) and the first solo exhibition of the British Artist-in-Residence Martin Creed curated by the programme’s artistic director art historian Dr. Sozita Goudouna and independent curator Nefeli Skarmea.
Martin Creed (born 1968) is a British artist and musician. He won the Turner Prize in 2001 for Work No. 227, The Lights Going On and Off. He studied art at the Slade School of Art at University College London from 1986 to 1990. Creed’s work is often a small intervention in the world, making use of existing materials or situations rather than bringing new material into the world. He uses whichever medium seems suitable.
For Creed there is no difference between making music and making art. Like his Work No. 850, in which runners ran through the Tate Gallery in 2008, his music is disarmingly simple but makes an immediate impact. In 2010, he provided the cover art for a Futuristic Retro Champions single, while supporting its launch with an appearance with his own band. His UK wide piece Work No. 1197 All the bells in the country rung as quickly and as loudly as possible for three minutes was commissioned to herald the start of the 2012 Summer Olympics.
In 2009, Creed wrote and choreographed Work No. 1020, Ballet, a live performance of his own music, ballet, words and film, originally produced by Sadler’s Wells, London and premiered in the Lilian Baylis Studio, while later shown on Sadler’s Wells main stage. In 2010, Work No. 1020: Ballet was performed at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh as part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and most recently at the Royal Festival Hall as part of his first retrospective at the Hayward Gallery, which was inaugurated in January 2014, a major survey looking at the past 25 years of his work. To coincide with the exhibition at the Hayward Gallery, Sounthbank Centre also commissioned Martin Creed’s new organ work Face to Face with Bach.
With respect to Creed’s international presence, his work has been exhibited and is collected by venues including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Moscow Museum of Modern Art; the Centre Pompidou–Metz, France; Tate Modern, London; Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, Netherlands; and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago.
Martin Creed NEON Understanding
Martin Creed: It’s exciting to be naughty
When Martin Creed won the Turner Prize in 2001, the British media had a party. The most important distinction for contemporary art in Britain has always flirted with eccentricity and the unexpected
by Astrapellou Marilena published at TOVIMA
March 27, 2015, 12:20 pm Updated: March 29, 2015, 05:45
When Martin Creed won the Turner Prize in 2001, the British media had a party. The most important distinction for contemporary art in Britain has always flirted with eccentricity and the unexpected, but the work “Work No. 227: The lights going on and off ”by the then 33-year-old Scotsman had taken the challenge a step further: in a room at the Tate Gallery a timer flashed the lights every five seconds and the space was filled with light and darkness. An intelligent sketch in a newspaper gave the instructions for the construction and assembly of the project by showing a finger pressing a switch. Taxi drivers in London were finally catching up with their customers: “But is this art, my friend?” Martin Creed remembers them and laughs.“I would not have admitted it then, but I had a lot of fun. “It’s exciting to be naughty.” He has finally stopped running up and down and giving instructions to his assistant at Kappatos Gallery in Monastiraki, he has done his psychoanalysis via Skype and can finally concentrate on our conversation.Outside the room the activity continues, young artists paint the walls at his suggestion, the seamstress he works with has embroidered the logos from local pharmacy bags, the three dancers who painted paintings with their foot press on the noses with the point and wait to rehearse the choreography that Crit has taught them. In this monthly residency, on his first visit to Athens and Greece, the artist, musician and choreographer Creed is full of ideas and intends to fill the gallery with his playful art. New and different works – after all, Creed is rarely repeated -, from ideas that were conceived while walking “dreaming in Monastiraki and the surrounding areas” or while zapping on television.“How impressive the actors come out of a palette!” Creed will say about the finale of the movie “Girls for kissing”, which as it will be shown on a wall of the gallery will be tangential with a neon sign. A material he insists on loving as he adds nuances to the words he illuminates, such as the blissfully reassuring “Everything is going to be alright” hung on the front of Scotland’s National Gallery of Modern Art. As Voutsas and Tzanetakos quarrel, the word “Understanding”, written in Greek, will convey the playful way in which the artist sees not only the Greek musical and Greece but also the world around him. As a child who does not stop running in the meanders of his mind and stops only to raise his hand and enthusiastically show what he has discovered in there.
“I create because it makes my life better, exciting, because I want to find things that amuse me,” admits Creed. But when I think that there are people who do not have enough money to live on, I wonder: “What is the point of what I do?” At times like these I feel like my job is a luxury. But then I think, “No, there are more things in life than survival.” “I want to try to do the things I love.”
Crit does exactly what he wants. For example, he puts runners running inside the Tate Gallery or invites the British to ring any bell they want at the exact same minute as part of the opening ceremony of the London Olympics. Pressing on a series of movements of the artistic avant-garde, he crosses the rapid but turbid waters of contemporary art and comes out on the opposite bank with his post-minimalist work with conceptual flashes, having stooped with tenderness and devilish humor over the everyday and the commonplace. Yves Klein dared it in ’58 by introducing the concept of empty space with his work “The Void” and John Cage with his silent piece that invited the public to listen to the ignored sounds of everyday life.“Art” – I find it difficult to use even the word – does not have a strictly defined purpose. Art is like love, it makes the world go round. Just as love cannot be defined, something similar happens with art, with emotions, with beauty. Much of our lives can not be easily put into words and I think it is important to work in those areas where ambiguity prevails. Because, if we do not, if we try to interpret everything with logic, life is shorter. “The madness of throwing a sandwich on the wall and then projecting the videotaped image in slow motion is like the madness of life.”
However, these are “crazes” that are paid dearly. The very tradition of the Turner Prize that promoted Crit has the tendency to contribute to the commercialization of art and make it synonymous with pop culture. Let’s not forget that Krit was awarded by Madonna. “Money is neutral. “If someone wants to buy something, why not?” will say. “I think it’s probably good that art is becoming part of pop culture. Art is on TV, in magazines, along with fashion and music, people are filling museums. It did not happen the same when I was in ’86 at the Slade School of Art “.The need for a Maradona
Beethoven, Talking Heads, Klimt, Schiele
In Glasgow, where his family moved when he was three, Critt was introduced to the art early. He learned violin and piano and was nurtured with the belief that “the most important things in life are of a spiritual and not a material nature and that art is the highest, noble pursuit”. In adolescence he rebelled and began learning the guitar by cheating on his loved ones Beethoven and Mozart with Johnny Cass, Bob Dylan and then punk rock and Talking Heads. Art entered his life around the same time and took the form of works by Klimt and Schiele.“I was thrilled with the Viennese secession, perhaps because I loved the architecture of the Scottish René McIntosh, who was associated with the movement. I was very interested in the relationship between decorative and fine arts because my father is a silversmith and we always talked at home about the ways they are connected. I do not think you can draw a clear line between them. “Maybe that’s why my works are so successful in Japan, where even drinking tea is an art form.”
when & where:“Like water at a buffet” curated by Sozita Goudouna and Nefeli Skarmea, in the framework of Kappatos Athens Art Residency (Athinas 12) and the NSRF of the “Attiki” OP, under the auspices of the Ministry of Culture and Sports. Until 16/5
Martin Creed Exhibition Review
Spanning the gallery, Creed’s works incorporate an assemblage of paintings, graffiti, video installation, a neon sign, and sculpture. Situated on the second floor of a building block in central Athens, the gallery has vistas of the neighbouring dense urban settings, encompassing the streets and local shops that seemingly stimulated the artist’s inspiration from around the city.
Installation view | Courtesy the artist and Kappatos Athens Art Residency. Upon entering the gallery, I was struck by déjà vu. Wall paintings in the space reminded me of the eggs thrown at Tate Gallery’s walls by a visitor back in 2001 in protest of Creed’s winning minimalist submission for the Turner Prize, Work No 227: The lights going on and off. Not quite the case this time—rather, I was tricked, yet still intrigued by the footprints and other naïve-styled drawings that were scattered on the gallery walls, the majority of which were the products of a live performance held during the exhibition’s opening.
Live performance | Courtesy the artist and Kappatos Athens Art ResidencyCreed instructed three female dancers wearing costumes that he designed himself (and are henceforth displayed on mannequins) to conduct a series of kinetic movements. Departing from the traditional ballet vocabulary, the dancers performed an unorthodox motion routine where abstract drawings emerged by paintbrushes attached to their toes. We are informed by the show’s accompanying literature that this alternative choreography was based on Creed’s own lyrics “One step forwards, Two steps backwards, Laugh once, Cry twice”.
Live performance | Courtesy the artist and Kappatos Athens Art ResidencyCreed is well known for his song writing. In 2011, he launched his own record label, Telephone Records, where he released his single Thinking/Not Thinking the same year (followed by more at a later time), which he sang recently during a coinciding talk at the Athens School of Fine Arts. There, in place of hosting a lecture, in the traditional meaning of the word, he engaged with his audience through a performance of music and poetry.During his residency, Creed, amongst other activities, developed an interest in movies produced by the Greek film industry of the 1960s where he, unavoidably, found inspiration for the video installation (Work No 2212 Athens Film), of music and prose presented on the opening of his show. A series of small paintings render celebrated Greek personalities such as Demis Roussos and Maria Callas, whose portraits are created without the artist previously seeing them and are executed purely after an oral descriptive process regulated by a colleague. Evocative of forensic art practices embracing facial composites and facial approximation that reproduce an eyewitness’s memory, this piece presents a riveting concept that could potentially stand as a separate body of work interweaved with a performative element.
Installation view | Courtesy the artist and Kappatos Athens Art ResidencyA striking presence of graffiti in black paint invasively spreads between the surface of a window and the nearby wall, reading “WATER”. Perhaps extracted from his lyrics, yet also reminiscent of protest graffiti slogans sprayed around the streets of central Athens, Creed attempts to capture the crux of socio-economic malfunction and cultural breakdown of a country undergoing a major multifaceted crisis. Although, admittedly, water is the only commodity not being included in a Greek’s protest repertoire, the artist probably senses the essence of the general political consensus of the country he is visiting and the uniqueness of the audience he is dealing with.On another wall, Creed’s colourful neon piece advertises “ΚΑΤΑΝΟΗΣΗ”, a term that can be interpreted as understanding and comprehension, but also as empathy; an emotionally charged word implying someone’s capacity and aptitude to fathom what the other is experiencing on a corporeal and spiritual level. Is this word compressing the moral of Creed’s Athenian narrative, or is it a reflection of anxiety and disquietude manifesting the artist’s discomfort towards an enchanting non-existent dreamland?
Installation view | Courtesy the artist and Kappatos Athens Art ResidencyThe Kappatos Athens Art Residency programme (and all projects alike) succeeds in merging together artistic practices and personalities from diverse cultural and socio-economical backgrounds— challenge these forces in a collision of narratives and meaningful esoteric explorations. Giving international artists the opportunity to investigate new territories, while concurrently providing local audiences with thought provoking artistic practices, generates a subliminal exchange of ideas, emotions and reactions. It is a complex recipe that is hard to accomplish, but it can prove extremely useful and resourceful when all of these components are assembled in right proportions.
Like Water At A Buffet runs through May 16, 2015.
https://theseenjournal.org/martin-creed-kappatos-gallery-athens/
Santiago Sierra ~ Solo Show 2013-2015
18/06/2015
Kappatos Athens Art Residency presents until June 27 the first solo exhibition in Greece of the Spanish Artist Santiago Sierra, curated by the artistic director of the program Dr. Sozita Gudouna. The exhibition entitled “The Trilogy Of Pigs Eating Peninsulas” is part of the Second Round of the Program for Hosting Artists and Art Personalities in Athens within the NSRF of the OP. “Attica” under the auspices of the Ministry of Culture and Sports.
Santiago Sierra was born in Madrid in 1966, where he still lives today. He studied Fine Arts in Mexico, Madrid and Hamburg with Franz Erhard Walther. Since the mid-1990s, Sierra has carried out a large number of projects, which are aggressively aimed at repression and exploitation, as he encounters them in different parts of the world.
Sierra’s work stems from a critical re-examination of minimalism with a vivid sculptural practice to the core of its engagement, accompanied by photographs, videos and films. Some of his most notable and controversial works come from collaborations with institutions such as Magasin3 Stockholm Konsthall (2009), Kestnergesellschaft Hannover (2005) and Kunsthaus Bregenz (2004).
Sierra uses a clear allegory to denounce the fact that European and international economic elites are literally “eating” the lands of the Mediterranean countries.
In his work, Santiago Sierra often deals with the structures of power as they function in our daily lives. The artist’s work intervenes in these structures by exposing situations of exploitation and marginalization, as he had famously hired people from disadvantaged groups, who, in exchange for a sum of money, were willing to take on unnecessary or unpleasant tasks. Sierra’s work never repeats reality, but challenges it by exposing its inherent mechanisms.
The essence of his work is often located in the tension that is created and maintained between the event or its documentation, and the viewer, who is exposed to a formal and poetic voice of all these social groups, which are usually marginalized or deprived of politics. their rights.
The play is dedicated to the stray dogs Canello and Sausage who stood by the protesters
Regarding the international presence of Santiago Sierra, his work has been exhibited and included in the collections of many important art organizations such as the Museum of Contemporary Art in Helsinki, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Frankfurt, the Tate Britain, the MoMA PS1 in New York, Reykjavik Art Museum; at ARTIUM, Vitoria-Gasteiz, at the Museo MADRE, at the I Kochi-Muziris Biennale in India and at the Spanish National Pavilion at the Venice Biennale.
The exhibition presents for the first time internationally the series “Pigs that devour the Greek, Italian, and Iberian peninsula.” The artist created this series of videos, films and photos from activities that began in 2012 in Hamburg, where pigs “devoured” the Greek Peninsula, then in Luca in Italy where pigs “devoured” the Italian Peninsula and then in Spain where pigs “devoured” the Spanish and Portuguese Peninsula. Sierra uses a clear allegory to denounce the fact that European and international economic elites are literally “eating” the lands of the Mediterranean countries.
During his stay in Athens, the artist also created a new work that took place in the public space in the city center. The play is dedicated to the stray dogs Canello and Sausage who stood by the protesters. The “Athens Stray Dogs Project” invites us to understand the suffering of stray dogs in Attica. Warm advocates in tackling the problems faced by strays are animal welfare associations and associations, as well as individual volunteers who play an important role in improving the quality of life of animals.
Information
Exhibition Duration: May 28 – June 27, 2015
Opening Hours: Tuesday – Friday 12-20.00pm & Saturday 12-4pm
Athinas 12, 2nd floor, Monastiraki, Athens
Santiago Sierra ~ Solo Show 2013-2015
Two emblematic figures of modern Athens: The well-to-do and the dog-protester. Santiago Sierra could land in Athens even saying “podemos”. Why can his exhibition, which starts today at Athens Art Residency – until June 27 – mockingly discuss the coastal classification of the countries of the Crisis from the Market Economy in the Pigs category, but turns a blind eye to the subtle irony and sarcasm with which it must be dealt with. In general, however, the work of Santiago Sierra often deals with the structures of power as they function in our daily lives. The artist’s work intervenes in these structures by exposing situations of exploitation and marginalization. In the past, Sierra has been almost obsessed with exploiting people on the brink of extinction. A native of Madrid, Sierra in his exhibition will present for the first time internationally the series “Pigs that devour the Peninsula.” The artist created this series of videos, films and photos from activities that began in 2012 in Hamburg, where pigs “devoured” the Greek Peninsula, then in Luca in Italy where pigs “devoured” the Italian Peninsula and then in the Iberian Peninsula where pigs “devoured” Spain and Portugal. Sierra’s work often deals with the structures of power as they operate in our daily lives and intervenes in these structures by exposing situations of exploitation and marginalization. Sierra uses a clear allegory to denounce the fact that European and international economic elites are almost literally “eating” the lands of the Mediterranean countries. Special guest stars during the stay of the Spanish artist in Athens will be the celebrity stray dogs of the capital: The artist will also create a new work that will take place in the public space in the city center. The play is dedicated to the stray dogs Canello and Sausage who stood by the protesters, in the episodic nights of the recent past. SANTIAGO SIERRA “THE TRILOGY OF PIGS EATING PENINSULAS ” Kappatos Athens Art Residency Athinas 12, 2nd floor, Monastiraki, Athens athensartresidency.org
Thursday 28 May – 27 June 2015Ω Opening Hours: Tuesday – Friday 12-20.004 & Saturday
The exhibition will also include: – Screening of Santiago Sierra’s film “No, Global Tour”. Microcosm, Friday 29 May 9.30 pm – “Athens Stray Dogs Project” Action of Santiago Sierra in Athens, 26/5/2015 – 10/6/2015 The action of Sierra starring the strays of Athens makes its world premiere. Finally, it is obvious that so far the PIGS are not devouring, but are being devoured. As the poet would say: “They thought of you as a man – they said ‘friend’ – you were nothing but a dog”…
Πηγή : Andro.gr [ https://www.andro.gr/empneusi/sierra-stray-dogs-kapatos/ ]
Santiago Sierra ~ Solo Show 2013-2015
Art writes its own history in streets and squares
June 21, 2015, 7:45 p.m.
A work – a tribute to the famous, stray comrades of the protesters Canelo and Sausage, a burning piano that after healing operations was transformed into a sculptural slogan against violence, as well as the first visual
Public space work inspired and dedicated to the “Crisis”, they tell their own story through their creators, capturing the personal and collective memory.
Santiago Sierra: Canelos and Loukanikos are role models
An aggressive creator of repression and exploitation, the Spaniard Santiago Sierra was recently in Athens to present a series of his videotaped works at the Kappatos Gallery until June 27, entitled “Pigs devouring Greek, Italian, and Iberian peninsula. ” But mainly he came to create a “new work” dedicated to Canelos and Loukanikos, the famous homeless comrades of protesters and outraged citizens in Athens during the crisis. The project involved a series of photographic snapshots of stray dogs in selected parts of the city, such as in front of banks or in front of Parliament, on streets and parks, which were “dressed” with the slogan “I have no money”, printed on black cloth . “I wanted to pay tribute to Canelos and Loukanikos who stood next to the protesters. In ancient Athens, a person who was not involved in the affairs of the city was rebuked. These dogs instinctively took the side of the citizens who fed and cared for them. They are citizen models “, explains Santiago Sierra, answering how this project was inspired – action and intervention in the public space of Athens.
He creates art that is characterized by a political attitude and has a strong interventionist character. Asked if and to what extent he believes that art can interfere in the political and social structures of today’s reality, the Spanish artist replies that “politics uses art, which is why more public awareness is needed. Art is often pure but also demagogic, like politics. Depending on how we use our art, we serve the tyrant or emancipation. “points out. Regarding his work “Pigs devouring the Greek, Italian, and Iberian peninsulas”, the Spaniard explains that it was created as a response to swindlers, who not only rob our countries, but are allowed to call us PIGS. “My answer is that they are pigs, they are the capitalist pigs.”
Santiago Sierra
Thursday, June 4, 2015
Santiago Sierra: I pay tribute to Loukanikos
by Paris Spinos
The 49-year-old artist, who is in Athens as part of the hospitality program of the Kappatos Gallery, defends the political role of art with a bold, aggressive, groundbreaking work and speech. He studied art in Madrid, where he was born, in Mexico and Hamburg, and since the mid-1990s has been working around the world on works that bring to the fore issues such as repression, exploitation, and oppression.
Equally powerful as a punch in the stomach is the black-and-white video for the “Pigs Eating Peninsulas” trilogy now on display at the Kappatos Gallery, where groups of pigs eat a natural map of the peninsulas of Greece, Italy and the Iberian.
• Is this an allegory of the consequences of the financial crisis?
It is an objective and realistic trilogy that one can enjoy as a family. I believe that the Greek public will weep with sadness when they see her. I made large maps from animal feed, and the pigs were celebrating. When they ate the Greek peninsula it was calm and elegant, beautiful and clean, and they were not in a hurry at all. The pigs that ate the Italian peninsula were playful, rummaged through Naples or Tuscany, took shape and fell gliding happily. They even ate whatever was under the map or the plaster on the walls of the room, so that in the end Italy looked like a painting by Jackson Pollock. The pigs that ate the Iberian Peninsula were the most violent. They were on Barcelona, peeing on Lisbon and fighting in Madrid; some vomited …
• I imagine there are references to the PIGS tip and other labels that cultivate differences between southern and northern Europeans …
Typically, the villains who rule the world present the victims as guilty: the Indians were savages, the Palestinians are snakes, the blacks are stupid and lustful – they all deserve the worst. Now it’s our turn and suddenly they call us pigs, while they even steal our dishes. However, from the perspective of the people, there are no bigger pigs than the capitalists and their friends. And this is exactly what I am telling with the video of my trilogy. There are people everywhere, both in the South and in the North, who are very similar, and do nothing but work to make the tyrants rich. I will not play this game, because the French are like that and the Croats are like that; the differences do not matter, they are tricks to distract you. For me there is only one Europe, of stateless elites,
• Why do you dedicate the “Athens stray dogs” project to the protest dogs, Loukanikos and Canellos?
You can not talk or reconcile with dogs, they have no ideology and therefore are guided by their instinct. At recent social struggles in Athens, dogs were clear when it came to choosing between the world and the extremely violent robocops, what I call “forces of chaos.” The Athenian dogs did not doubt whose place it would be. I really like Athenian dogs, and with this work I pay tribute to them. They are heroic and died from the effects of chemicals and wood. We have made T-shirts with the slogan “I have no money” and we distribute them to the homeless in the city with the help of people who love animals, take care of them and protect them. I know that it is obvious and therefore unnecessary to say that dogs do not have money, nor do they need it.
• Would you characterize your art as politics, an intervention in the issues that concern modern society?
I do not understand the intervention. I actually make art that I think the viewer may be interested in. I always think about who my audience is and I try to do projects thinking that it will be worth it for people to come and see them. I am also a part of the art audience and it bothers me when an artist exhibits to show me his introversion. I am not talking about myself, but about us, the world.
• What are usually the reactions of the people to your works?
Except for “beautiful”, I have been told everything. But it is natural and it matters who says it. Obviously, a magazine that has ads on its main pages for prostitutes and bank and car ads, which is listed on the Stock Exchange and supports the wars of the empire, will not praise my work. I’m proud that he will not do it. “They bark, that means we are galloping,” Don Quixote would say to Sancho Panza. However, I make friends in the places I travel, but they are less noisy than me.
Pirate Club the European Union
• You came back to Greece in 2007 and took part in the Athens Biennale. What differences do you see in the city and in society as we went from growth to recession?
Fortunately, I never saw in Athens a servile and obedient society. Greeks are unruly, like Mexicans or Basques, and that has not changed. It is a city full of anarchists and the anarchists, if they have anything, are right. When I first came to Greece, it was at the height of a time when leaders were stealthily stealing the future. One of my plans that never came to fruition was very prophetic: I wanted to place a banner reading “No to the future” high in a building. I’m afraid we have reached this future that we then deny and now we have to defend ourselves.
• Of course, now we have another government, for the first time Left. Do you think it can build a better future?
It seems like a group of patriots and that’s good, it can help. But the only solution to the world’s problems is self-organization, the self-management of public affairs, for the people to take power without looking at or following another leader. Do not assign anything to anyone. The European Union is a pirate club and we need to get out of there as soon as possible.
INFO:
Exhibition duration until June 27. Kappatos Gallery, Athenas 12, 2nd floor, Monastiraki. Tuesday-Friday 12.00-20.00 & Saturday 12.00-16.00.
Art Resident
Lynda Benglis at Kappatos Athens Art Residency
The new long-awaited exhibition “LYNDA BENGLIS” of Kappatos Athens Art Residency, will present for the first time worldwide the two new sculptures made of bronze by the artist.In these two works, Benglis continues to explore and reformulate the boundaries between material and sculpture, surface and volume, image and content. Through the concentration of energy indicated by the use of bronze, not only because of its permanence but mainly because of its inherent characteristics (such as its reflective surface), Benglis ultimately aims at a “collapse of space” as it states itself. .
The Lynda Benglis is one of the most prominent and important artists of our time. He was born in Louisiana, USA in 1941 to an American mother and a father of Greek descent, from Kastelorizo. From the late 1960s, when she debuted on the New York art scene , she was noted for her radical artwork and strong critical disposition.
Living among the pioneering artists of the time, she drew on elements from the first American Abstract Expressionists, combined her personal ideological stance with the currents and socio-political actions of the time, and articulated a very personal and dynamic discourse in an international arena. She became known for her opposition and ironic attitude towards the dominant male role models and with her personal artistic research she immediately stood out from the artists of her generation and was ranked among the prominent “process” artists.
She has received many awards for her work, has been presented in many of the most important Museums of Contemporary Art, has taught at many Universities and has participated in major exhibitions around the world.
Her works are in great collections and Museums such as: Guggenheim Museum New York, Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Museum of Modern Art, New York; The National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.
An international retrospective exhibition of her work was presented in 2010-11 at Museums: The Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; The Van Abbe Museum, Eindhoven; Le Consortium, Dijon; New Museum, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.
source here: http: //www.ert.gr/lynda-benglis-nea-atomiki-ekthesi-sto-kappatos-athens-art-residency/
C (L) ASH
At Kappatos Athens Art Residency
C (L) ASH is a curatorial contemporary art project which offers an interest in current artistic production with regard to the social, political and cultural situation in Europe. A reflection on the relations that exist between art, the economic and political environment of its deployment and the production of artistic discourses in an international context marked by deep disparities and a series of unprecedented economic, political and cultural crises.
C (L) ASH brings together artists from Switzerland and Greece around an exhibition, Twisting Crash , presented in the two cities of Athens and Geneva in 2015 and 2016. These two events will be the occasion to confuse the glances artists from different cultures and realities, but also to reflect on the context in which the work was produced, its reception framework as well as the mechanisms of aesthetic legitimation.
Commissioner
Madeleine Amsler
Séverin Guelpa
Vana Kostayola
Coordination and production
Jeanne Quattropani
Artists
Nikos Arvanitis, Sofia Bempeza, Nataza Biza, FYTA, Florence Jung, San Keller, Jérôme Leuba, Gabriela Löffel, Delphine Reist, Nicolas Savary, Tilo Steireif, Lina Theodorou, Poka-Yio
Seven Deaths
Marina Abramovic’s homage to ‘Seven Deaths’
By Ioanna Blatsou
Marina Abramovic loves Greece and is a regular visitor to the country, which reminds the artist of her homeland, Serbia. Abramovic also loves Maria Callas, both in terms of the imprint of the diva’s oeuvre on the field of opera performance, as well as on her own life, which has been filled with grief.
“Callas said that when you perform, half of your brain
has to be extremely conscious and the other half extremely free. That really struck a chord. Callas’s statement has opened a whole universe for me and I thought I should do a project about ‘La Divina,’” the Serbian performance artist told a packed auditorium during a master class at the Onassis Cultural Center recently. Indeed, her project is being realized in the form of a film. Titled “Seven Deaths,” the production focuses on seven opera heroines, among them Tosca, Madame Butterfly and Medea, all of whom die from the kind of love that Callas embodied.According to the Greek producers of the film, which is expected to be largely shot in Greece, Abramovic adores Callas, almost identifies with her, especially in terms of the heartache that she has experienced as a woman. They added that Abramovic’s research into the project started three years ago.
Seven video performances
Abramovic will not only embody Callas but also the opera heroines that the Greek soprano so uniquely personified on stage. The original film production will consist of seven 10-minute video performances that focus on the operatic death scene of each heroine in every libretto. The production is based on a modular structure, while the seven distinct art films are interrelated via a shared narrative, a kind of common thread. Each 10-minute video performance will be overseen by a different director, photography director, set and costume designer. Abramovic is expected to work with internationally acclaimed directors such as Roman Polanski and Pedro Almodovar, while the Greek production team would like to see a Greek director included as well.In addition to the aforementioned artists, the roster of directors could also include Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Lars von Trier and Wes Anderson, among others, although the list has yet to be confirmed.
The production team might very well wish to engage the talents of Yorgos Lanthimos, Alexandros Avranas or Athina Rachel Tsangari, given that all three Greek directors have attained significant accomplishments abroad. The project could also be an ideal commission for the Greek master of physical theater, Theodoros Terzopoulos, internationally renowned for his distinctive performance method. Ultimately, however, the decision will rest with Abramovic. What is certain is that among the international collaborators of this ambitious production is Italian fashion designer Riccardo Tisci, creative director of Givenchy womenswear and haute couture collections and a close friend of Abramovic, who will design the costumes for one of the films.
The film will also make use of new technologies in impressive ways, similar to productions such as “Gravity.” Most of the shooting, which is scheduled to commence next spring, will take place in Greece, at emblematic sites that bear a connection to Callas as well as the seven operas.
Gerasimos Kappatos, who has represented Abramovic in Greece for over 20 years, is in charge of the film’s production, together with his associate Dr Sozita Goudouna. The two also asked Thanos Argyropoulos, a film producer who is currently in Los Angeles working on the project, to join them. Another member of team is Italian Max Brun, who is acting as production associate. Funding the movie are eminent diaspora Greeks as well as international art and film foundations.
The producers told Kathimerini that Abramovic would like to see part of the film’s revenues support a Greek institution related to Maria Callas and provides scholarships to emerging opera artists, adding that they are also in contact with the Greek Ministry of Culture’s general secretary, Lina Mendoni. “‘Seven Deaths’ is perhaps the largest international film production ever to take place in Greece, which is why we would like to have the support of these public institutes institutions,” they said.
London project
Meanwhile, starting on June 9, Abramovic is scheduled to start a series of appearances at London’s Serpentine Gallery. She will spend eight hours there every day for 65 days in her first major performance following her 2010 stint at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in a work called “The Artist is Present.” In London, she will push the artistic boundaries of her performance even further and encounter the audience in an empty space. In contrast to the MoMA performance, she will not confront individual spectators but the audience as a whole. No one knows how this new performance, “The Current,” will evolve, but it will be based on improvisation. Gearing up for the performance, Abramovic is currently being taught by shaman healers whom she often meets in Brazil. She meditates with them, practices detox therapies in complete self-isolation and silence, while also exploring human energy meridians that enable the body to perform its natural healing process. In addition, she teaches magnetic energy practices and magnetic therapy to her students and through this process prepares herself for her new artistic projects.
The performer’s new creative dream is the Marina Abramovic Institute (www.mai-hudson.org), a nonprofit platform for immaterial art and long durational work located in Hudson, New York, and whose realization will cost about 31 million dollars. She has already raised 600,000 dollars through crowdfunding – the largest amount ever raised for a cultural project via Kickstarter. Despite the fact that the building set to host MAI has yet to be renovated, the accomplished artist is ready to move in and start working on her famous Abramovic Method.
“When Abramovich took me by the hand”
Kathimerini
“With this project I am scared, I feel the absolute panic. I do not know what I will do, how I will do it. Today, at three in the morning, I woke up in a chair. My God, I thought, I will fail! I took a breath. Fine, let me fail! But if I succeed? Does performance in the 21st century finally begin or arise from “nothing”? If the material is only the spectator and the performer? Marina Abramovich is standing in front of me, dressed in her favorite black “outfit” (black shirt and pants, white shirt, black men’s sneakers). I am in the space of the performance “512 Hours” at the Serpentine Gallery, one day before its official presentation, invited by the Art Professionals In Athens Residency of Gerasimos Kappatos, Sozita Gudouna and the Marina Abramovic Institute (MAI). My interlocutor’s speech is torrent, direct: “So far all my work, my every move was perfectly organized. There is nothing here. Only me and you. And the energy between us. “And we have to let go, trust each other and see what comes out of it.”
In her new “experiment”, as she calls it, Marina Abramovich will be at the London Gallery from 10.00 to 18.00, 6 days a week, a total of 64 days and 512 hours (from June 11 to August 25 ). And we, after three quarters in the queue, will finally see for ourselves what will emerge from this new bet. As soon as we arrive at the entrance, our employee seals the wrist of his left hand with the title of the performance (“512 Hours”) and the date of arrival. In the reception area, in special lockers, we will leave our personal belongings and enter the building “free from technological burdens and expectations of immortalizing an event that has not yet happened”, as the 68-year-old artist had stressed the day before at our meeting.
Entering the first white room of the gallery, I see Bianca Jagger, Mick Jagger’s ex-wife, a fanatical artist and collector of contemporary art, coming out. Nick Rhodes, Duran Duran’s boardman, is already roaming the area. Abramovich and her “assistants”, as she calls them, have been chosen by a spectator, have intertwined their fingers and are proceeding with the same step coordination in different directions. It’s my turn. Marina Abramovich takes me by the hand and leads me in front of a white wall, between two other spectators who are already standing there. “Stay here. Do not talk. Do what you feel “. These are her instructions. I look furtively at the girl on my right. He has approached the wall and is praying. The power of self-submission is great, I think. The situation is rather awkward at first. I do not know what to do and I start experimenting with my vision in relation to the proximity of the white surface in front of me. My presbyopic eyes receive strange stimuli. When I get too close to the white surface and stay steady, I almost trance. I walk away and turn to see what is happening behind me, in space. Some spectators watch us turn on the wall, others continue to be led by the artist and her assistants to new places.
Everyone stays as long as they want. And he can repeat the experience as many times as he wants, every day something different happens (the next day, as I learned, there were paints on the walls and folding beds in the center of the room). I enjoyed with her for three hours. Also, the experience is free. “Because the essence of art has nothing to do with money. “Only with the availability of the artist and the spectator”, as Marina Abramovic observes.
info : Check out Marina Abramovich’s video diaries, in which she records her eight-hour experience daily: www.serpentinegalleries.org/exhibitions-events / marina-midnight-serpentine-diaries
The first stream of its programme involving Art and Curatorial Practices in the Public Sphere. The programme features leading figures from the arts, visual and sound artists, dancers, choreographers and architects that will participate in happenings, interventions, installations and actions in relation to the material/social conditions of public space in Athens.
Kappatos Athens Art Residency incorporates public art into its official programme so as to activate public space and uses art as a medium to engage with citizens and communities and influence the development of the city’s cultural identity.The programme initiates, develops and presents major projects that provide creative collaborations between artists and institutes achieving high artistic outcomes.
Kappatos Athens Art Residency commissions each site-specific artwork either in collaboration with the artist-in-residence or/and through open calls to artists and focuses on interdisciplinary art practice and processes. By bringing international artists from a wide range of disciplines our programme enables the exchange of ideas and approaches that help catalyse new cultural and social perspectives. The projects may consist of any art form including but not limited to projections, sculpture, durational live art, or other visual or performative mediums, architecture, dance pieces and multimedia installations.
Kappatos Athens Art Residency shall contribute to ongoing urgent discussions concerning contemporary urban life in the historical centre of Athens. It is expected of the artists who participate in the residency programme to research the political, social and historical context of Greece and to integrate this research into their production.
The programme provides free live/work space to selected artists and art professionals who work, research, and immerse themselves in the cultural life of Athens. The programme also co-ordinates visits to art centres, galleries and museums, dinners, and discussions, providing support and feedback throughout the duration of the programme. The public is also invited to attend free public lectures by esteemed guests of the programme.
The programme is launched on the 23rd of November 6pm at Monastiraki Square Central Athens. Kappatos Athens Art Residency presents the multimedia project by Mat Chivers, Choreography Iris Karayan, Sound: Yorgos Simeonidis, Artistic direction: Dr. Sozita Goudouna.
Kappatos Athens Art Residency supports artistic research and production for artists from around the world and will select established and emerging artists to share a live/work space for a four-week programme marked by intimate studio visits with, and public lectures by, distinguished leaders in contemporary art and curation and to exhibit their work for the following four-weeks.The new Artist/Curator/Collector-in-Residence in Athens is supported by NSRF (National Strategic Reference Framework 2007–2013) and represents a great opportunity for cross-border connection between emergent and more established artists.
Kappatos Athens Art Residency commissions new work via an expression of interest process posted at the official site of the residency (www.athensartresidency.com) and seeks to be open, fair, transparent and accountable at all stages.The programme partners with Art Institutes, Museums, Embassies, National Councils, Fine Art Schools, Art Critics Foundations, to administer competitions for the selection of art proposals. The collaboration of artists with these institutes can produce extraordinary outcomes.
Its mission to provide the citizens of Athens open access to the arts and to promote participation and artistic expression as a right of all citizens. The programme will bring together artists and people that do not usually engage with the arts to influence the development of the city’s culture. The programme will also contribute to the natural and built environment of the city through the production of site-specific works related to aesthetics and ecology.
Education Stream
For its 2013–14 residencies, the programme is seeking proposals for projects to be produced within the non-profit organization”’s Education Programme. We welcome proposals from artists, and art educators engaged in innovative art projects from a wide range of disciplines that are taking into consideration the contemporary unique context of Greece.
The programme endorses multidisciplinary, international practice and is designed to support artists, the creative process, and the development of new, important work. The programme provides opportunities for research, experimentation, professional development, and peer-to-peer exchange – and ultimately aims to foster creative breakthroughs and new modes of working and thinking.
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In The Studio #145 Mat Chivers
Mat Chivers for today’s Greece
Grand opening
By Ioanna Gomouza - 
16/10/2013
With the crisis attracting foreign artists for Athenian residencies, from 17/10 the Kappatos gallery presents its first guest. Drawing inspiration from the proportions of the bilateral symmetry of the human body and its asymmetric expression in the world, the British Mat Chivers will attempt to interpret the Greek socio-political topicality, with emphasis on the elements that can contribute to unity. The exhibition will open with the event-installation “Roots”, composed by musician George Symeonidis and choreographer Iris Karagian, a performance which will be presented on 23/11 at Pl. Monastiraki, thus inaugurating the parallel program of the residency “PublicScapes: Contemporary art and curatorial practices in the public space”.
Tim Shaw RA | Solo Exhibition
Athens Art Residency
Time Got Kicked Around
Exhibition: 20 November – 20 December 2014
Opening: 20 November, 8 – 11 pm
Tim Shaw Lecture: Wednesday 19 November, 12 pm, Athens School of Fine Art, Nikos Navridis’ Studio
Kappatos Athens Art Residency is pleased to invite you to the opening of the second cycle of the residency programme for Art Professionals in Athens under the auspices of the Ministry of Culture and Sports, supported by a European fund (NSRF: National Strategic Reference Framework 2007 – 2013) and the first solo exhibition of the Irish artist Tim Shaw R.A entitled “Time Got Kicked Around”, curated by Dr. Sozita Goudouna.
The new series of artworks produced by the Royal Academician during the course of his stay at Kappatos Athens Art Residency and presented from 20 November until 20 December, are based on the belief that the regulatory principle governing the whole of reality is not order and consistency, but constant change and rupture.
Mother the Air is blue The Air is Dangerous 3Mother the Air is blue The Air is Dangerous
Tim Shaw, born in Belfast in 1964, is one of the most acclaimed artists of his generation lauded for his politically charged sculptures and installations that dare to mix epic narratives, confrontational subject matter and lo-fi punk aesthetics amplified on a monumental scale. Uncompromisingly unafraid to directly discuss such issues as the Iraq war brutalities. Tim Shaw’s new installation at Art Professionals-in-Athens Residency entitled ” Mother, The Air is Blue, the Air is Dangerous” is a composition of “readymade” objects that encapsulates his troubled childhood growing up during the IRA bombings of the early 70s, as well as his engagement with politics, both topical and historical. Tim Shaw’s personal experience becomes the means of exploring the fragile conditions of our existence in everyday life and the overthrow of order and regularity.
The installation narrates the experience of the artist in the early 70’s; when he was with his mother in a restaurant and a bomb exploded in the basement of the building, following the explosion of three bombs in the wider region. The bombing caused a deafening bang that was an overwhelming and haunting experience for the artist. As described by Shaw ‘everything vibrated and people ran like panicked animals, just after the third bomb, the air that was formed seemed to turn petrol blue and to expand like a very large balloon ready to burst. Time seemed to be suspended and with it, dinner trays floated slowly through the air. People appeared to dissolve into moving grey shadows.’
Shaw’s installation is dominated by shadows that, unlike the shadows in the allegory of the Cave in Plato’s Republic, do not represent unreal forms or deceptive shadows of reality. Shaw’s shadows do not refer to a world of illusions and virtual reality, on the contrary they represent real people who lived the events of a merciless war.
The artist can’t forget the impact of his memories and senses. The historical event of “Bloody Friday,” (19/7/72), namely, the day IRA detonated twenty bombs at a lateral of five kilometers at the city center of Belfast, killing nine people and injuring one hundred and thirty more, is recollected by the artist as an opportunity to explore the fragility of the conditions of human existence.
Shaw’s anti-war approach does not divide the two sides (nationalist and protestant communities) during the “Troubles” (the period of conflict in Northern Ireland), and although he is aware of origin of the conflicts, he is treating both sides (nationalist and protestant communities) as the victims of an exogenous division. The exhibition ‘Time Got Kicked Around’ resists general interpretations by focusing on the importance of individual experience and perception during a social condition whether it relates to war or to the economic crisis.
Marie Voignier
Kappatos Athens Art Residency is pleased to present a representative video of the exhibition “one by one” by French video artist, Marie Voignier, who stayed in Athens in February 2014 and completed filming the homonymous film, which constitutes the central piece of the exhibition. During her stay in Athens, the second resident of the programme “Art Professionals-In-Athens Residency,” created in collaboration with visual artist, Vassilis Salpistis, the film entitled “one by one.” Marie Voignier’s solo exhibition is curated by Dr Sozita Goudouna and includes three video pieces. “One by one” is a fifteen minutes experimental moving images-collage, composed by a number of testimonies and texts relating to significant historical events such as : death, phantoms, the crisis, and the relationship between water and fire. The assemblage converges the exploration of contemporary applications of the function of myth. For the most part the film consists of filmed photographs, and even when they are in motion, the images suggest the stillness of a steady shot. The director employs techniques of juxtaposition in the form of an atlas of representations, divergent and at the same time literal, the images shift the narrative to the direction of the creation of a visual essay. The exhibition also presents Marie Voignier’s film “Un peu comme un miroir (Kind of like a mirror)” and “Les immobiles (Standing still).” “Un peu comme un miroir” has been shot in the psychiatric hospital of Montperrin in Aix en Provence and encounters a cook, a nurse, and a former patient. In Les immobiles the myth of the white colonialist finds its most destructive embodiment: the hunting guide. Hesitating, in the threshold of impulsive violence and its religious imitations, he utters the most economical remarks about death images that assess the game of violence and culture. A sacralised game that is lost to a sacrificing vestige to unite women’s and men’s hearts in an arbitrary and violent resolution.
Miriam Simun
Opening Reception: 27/3/14 8pm-11pm
Exhibition Dates: 27/3/14 – 3/5/14
Prior to Miriam Simun’s arrival in Athens for the residency she planned to develop a series of rituals for the ‘eco-city.’ Exploring possibilities for how the human can exist within the urban ecology, these gestures would make use of the individual citizen to provide for the urban ecological environment. Miriam envisioned a series of acts – physical, material, located somewhere between love and futility, in which the human sublimates her own body to care for the larger urban ecological body in which she exists.
Upon her arrival in Athens Miriam Simun immediately began walking the streets. She was absorbing the place, exploring the ecology and collecting debris – a sort of excavation of contemporary archeological artifacts. Certain locations proved particularly fruitful archeological sites, and as my daily route emerged, she encountered the other regulars making the rounds. People expertly sifting and collecting cardboard in shopping carts, rummaging in dumpsters for discarded clothes, carefully searching the trash cans for discarded food. Young and old, disheveled and well-dressed, friendly and scowling, foreign and Greek, serious and drunk, all of these Athenians scavenge daily. In physical, material ways, they forage in the urban ecology to nourish their own bodies. A sort of ‘living off the urban land.’
The work thus adapted, to portray a symbiotic relationship between human organism and lived environment of city streets. At the intersection of ecological and financial crisis, the relationship between the urban body and the human body is shaken. It is restructuring, rearranging, and rife, simultaneously, with despair and possibility. It is within this context that Simun locates a series of rituals for city life.
Miriam Simun creates the series “Three Rituals for the Eco-City.”
Rituals are among the first symbols of culture, often used to perform the human experience of ecological processes, such as birth and death; eating and drinking; markers of time whether passing to adulthood or the change of seasons. Simun interested in exploring the relationship between ecology, human ritual (and the ideology and culture it signifies), and the performance of multi-species bodies in urban space.
For “Three Rituals for the Eco-City,” each ritual proposes a way of being in the world that challenges our conceptions of what it means to ‘live ecologically’ and to build and participate in ‘eco-cities.’ Building on recent work by Bruno Latour, Timothy Morton, and Slavoj Zizek, these rituals reject the concept of ‘nature’ in favor of a more holistic understanding of ecology. According to this thinking, whether or not we accept ’nature’ as inextricably linked to ourselves, the very conceptualization of ‘nature’ positions ecological forces in opposition to the human and human-built ‘civilization.’
‘Nature’ is thus positioned as something other than human. “Three Rituals for the Eco-City” takes a systemic approach to viewing the natural world, understanding the human species (including human industry, artifice and pollution) as a fundamental part of the global ecological system.
“Three Rituals for the Eco-City” imagines three daily personal rituals for a world without nature. Three rituals – intimate and personal activities – are re-imagined as bodily performances that not only perform their human function but address the actions’ greater ramifications on the ecological system within which they reside. Thus the ritual incorporates action/performance, meaning/symbol, and reflection/re-action, displaying an intentionality and corporeality towards not only the human action but a redress to its ecological effect.
During the course of the residency Miriam performs and documents each ritual. Each ritual will involve an object, a performance, and will result in a video piece. The ritual object serves a functional purpose for the action, existing as a physical connection between the human body that performs, and the other urban bodies that are cared for, during the ritual performance. Some performances may include participation of invited audience or passers-by. Each piece will perform a ritual for living in the new eco-city: a ritual for eating, a ritual for cleaning, and a ritual for mourning.
(1) A ritual for mourning: This is a performance developed in New York, that will be adapted for an Athenian context. The urban mourning ritual is re-imagined through an exercise regimen that cares for the living human body and monitors other species’ living bodies while attending to the memory of the dead. Understanding the city cemetery to be a biodiversity hotspot in urban areas, mourners wear video-headbands in a regimen that combines regular exercise, memory, and monitoring of local biodiversity levels. The ritual object is the video-headband, modeled after the sport headband used to collect sweat, but with the addition of video camera to collect images of, and thus monitor, the surrounding species. I will create new video-headbands during the residency (NYC versions already exist), and document this performance in an Athenian cemetery.
(2) A ritual for cleaning: This performance will be further developed and performed during the residency. In ancient Athens, the cleaning ritual was an important social activity in addition to a personal bodily practice. In 3 Rituals for the Eco-city, the bodily cleaning ritual is re-imagined to once again include a multi-species social function. Incorporating not only the fresh water we use to clean our bodies, this ritual makes use of our bodies also to dispose of the used (grey) water in a way that feeds the greater ecological system. How do we maintain our bodies while maintaing the bodies of the others around us? This performance begins in the shower and ends in the street. The ritual object is a water sack that turns the human body into a watering can. Used water collected during the shower is later carried in the street by the clean body, to be distributed to plants within the city through bodily exercises that turn the human body upside down. The ritual ‘watering’ exercises will be developed during the residency. One example might be standing on the head or the hands in places where plants are growing, tipping the water sack so some water is poured on the ground, and thus ‘feeding’ urban plant bodies with water collected during the cleaning of the human body.
(3) A ritual for eating: This ritual will be developed during the residency. I would like to spend some time doing research into the rituals of the Symposium and the Syssitia, as well of the Orphicist and Pythagorean religions, and compare them with contemporary rituals of Athenians eating in public spaces and in the street. From this research I will create an ‘eating in public’ ritual, also with the incorporation of a ritual object.
Artistic Director: Sozita Goudouna
Programme Associate: Evangelia Ledaki
Residency Videos
2:45Marie Voignier & Vassilis Salpistis | ENA ENA | Kappatos Athens Art Residency | May 2014
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHecbzWpGSQg5C1bHrG_6_Q
3:22Santiago Sierra | The Trilogy of Pigs Eating Peninsulas | Kappatos Athens Art Residency | May 2015
3:22Santiago Sierra | The Trilogy of Pigs Eating Peninsulas | Kappatos Athens Art Residency | May 2015
Joo Yeon Park
Today is the first solo exhibition of Joo Yeon Park at Kappatos Athens Art Residency
DECEMBER 21, 2015
The first solo exhibition in Greece of the Korean artist Joo Yeon Park entitled “O” at the Kappatos Athens Art Residency opens tonight at 8 pm, curated by Sozita Gudouna. Performances with singers will take place throughout the building throughout the opening.The Kappatos Athens Art Residency presents the third cycle of the Program Hospitality Artists and Personalities Art in Athens under the NSRF OP “Attica” under the auspices of the Ministries of Culture of Greece and Korea.Joo Yeon Park ‘s solo exhibition “O” refers to the Greek phoneme omicron and captures the constant commitment of the visual arts with the repetitive mechanisms of words, images and sound in different languages. The reading of the classic Greek myth “Narcissus and Hcho” continues to be in dialogue with the new texts, drawings, videos and performances of the visual arts.However, in the “O” report the emphasis shifts from the repetition of images and words to the repetition of sound. The demand for a “pure” voice free from the conventional linguistic systems of writing and sound, manifests itself in the form of imaginary vowels in the texts-designs and in their perpetual pronunciation by singers.
Phonen, the text-design series explores the writing gesture as a form of drawing, or the drawing gesture as a writing form produced from egg tempera and ink.The works in the exhibition correspond to the curvilinear aspects of the Greek and English vowels and to the discreetly straightforward aspects of the Korean vowels, which consist only of vertical and horizontal lines at right angles.The installation incorporates steel bars and glass sheets, allowing viewers to read the texts – drawings from any direction.The texts-drawings are rendered in a performance with three voices on the circular staircase of the building. A circular melody of the same note, composed by musicians Nikos Vittis and Nasos Sopylis , is performed by the singers ( Zozefina Terzopoulou, Natalia Kotsani and Kandia Bouzioti ) who start at different times and different floors. However, due to the different performance of the “imaginary vowels” by the singers, the notes will be repeated without the sounds of the voices, thus avoiding the meaning that diffuses from the language.The exhibition “O” as well as the hosting of the visual arts at Kappatos Athens Art Residency were held with the kind sponsorship of the Arts Council Korea .
Creative Writing School | British Council at Kappatos Athens Art Residency
In partnership with the Kingston Writing School, we’re proud to announce the second annual International Creative Writing Summer School.
This year the International Creative Writing Summer School will be bigger and better, with specialist workshops for anyone wishing to enhance their skills and talent as a writer. Established writers and Kingston University professors will work in small groups with writers from across the world on an intensive programme, which will involve workshops, a range of writing activities, group discussions, readings and one-to-one tutorials.
Courses on offer will include fiction, poetry, non-fiction, literary translation and a mixed genre course. A series of lectures on contemporary British literature and art in Greece will also take place as part of the summer school.
The International Creative Writing Summer School aims to give writers the opportunity to explore and develop their imaginative and expressive potential, and to raise their awareness of the technical and compositional issues associated with writing.
Courses will be held in English and are suitable for writers at all levels. They will take place every day from Monday to Friday between 18.30 and 21.00 in Athens and Thessaloniki. See below for dates and provisional course details.
Registration opens on 11 March 2014.
ATHENS
Fiction/Flash Fiction Writing Course
Two-week course: 2–14 June 2014
with Adam Baron and Aimee Parkison
designed for aspiring and accomplished writers alike who want to develop and enhance their prose writing skills
combines precise comments in peer-led workshops with individual feedback on written drafts
helps students develop and enhance their authentic voice
Non-fiction Writing Course
Two-week course: 2–14 June 2014
with Maurice Walsh and Norma Clarke
designed for writers working in all types of non-fiction, including life writing (memoir and autobiography), biography, journalism, diaries and personal essay
includes close reading of each student’s work, analysis of examples from literature, classroom exercises, writing time, group discussion and debate
examines and records the students’ own personal experiences as well as the life experiences of others, and explores the benefits of studying all in the context of the other
Mixed Genre Writing Course
Three-week course: 2–21 June 2014
with Bonnie Greer, Catherine Smith and Jonathan Barnes
designed for writers of all levels working across genres, including novels, poetry, screenwriting, playwriting, short stories, flash fiction, non-fiction and radio plays
builds students’ confidence and encourages them to discuss and develop their work, and to improve their critical abilities
provides precise, editorial comments and professional advice about the wider direction and ideas of the students’ work
looks at a range of elements and forms related to various genres including form, structure, characterisation, dramatic setting, rhythm, pacing, concision, expansion, tone, point of view, editing, reading and performance
Poetry Writing Course
Two-week course: 16–28 June 2014
with Jane Yeh and Paul Perry
designed for students primarily interested in exploring poetry and language
provides precise, editorial comments as well as advice about the wider direction and ideas of students’ work
emphasises dramatic monologue, syllabic verse, the prose poem, ars poetica, docu-poetry, and contemporary poetics and poetry
Fiction Writing Course
Two-week course: 16–28 June 2014
with Julia Stuart and Dr James Miller
designed primarily for aspiring and established writers who want to develop and enhance their prose writing skills
combines precise comments in peer-led workshop sessions with individual feedback on written drafts
emphasises discussions and exercises that will help students to discover, explore and enhance their personal style and vision
Literary Translation Course
Two-week course: 16–28 June 2014
with David Connolly, Nicole Miller and Simos Zeniou
involves practice in translating literary texts to a professional level
provides theoretical input concerning the strategies for dealing with the problems that arise in literary translation
Lecture Series: British Literature and Art in Greece
Every Saturday: 31 May–28 June 2014 (31 May, 7 June, 14 June, 21 June & 28 June)
This series of five early afternoon lectures (PDF, 89 kb) will explore a range of topics related to British literature and art in Greece. Designed to raise as many questions at they answer, the lectures will examine the complex relationships between British writers and artists in various Greek contexts, including ethnicity, fiction, memoir and photography. Writers will read from their work as well as engage with audiences in a relaxed atmosphere of stimulating critical reflection.
Details
Location British Council, 17 Kolonaki Square, 106 73 Athens
and Kappatos Athens Art Residency, 12 s st, 2nd and 7th Floor, 12 Athinas st, 10554, Monastiraki, Athens
Four Lectures will take place at Kappatos Athens Art Residency
31 May 2014 | Bonnie Greer
7 June 2014 | Paul Bailey
14 June 2014 | Barbara Taylor
21 June | Paul Perry
28 June | Lindsay Smith
Teaching staff
Bonnie Greer, OBE, is an American-British playwright, novelist and critic. She is also the Chancellor of Kingston University. Her novels include Hanging by Her Teeth, Entropy, and Obama Music. She has also published Langston Hughes: the Value Of Contradiction and the following plays: Munda Negra, Dancing On Blackwater and Jitterbug.
Paul Perry Paul Perry is the author of acclaimed books including The Drowning of the Saints, Goldsmith’s Ghost, 108 Moons, The Orchid Keeper and most recently The Last Falcon and Small Ordinance. A winner of The Hennessy Award for Irish Literature, he is Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing for Kingston University, London and editor of Beyond the Workshop (KUP). With Karen Gillece, he writes ‘Karen Perry’ thrillers, forthcoming with Penguin UK. Holt US.
Barbara Tayloris a Canadian-born British-based historian and historical author specialising in Enlightenment History, Gender Studies and the History of Subjectivity. She is Professor of Humanities at Queen Mary University of London England. She wrote a biography of Mary Wollstonecarft (1759-1797), the early English feminist and republican and continues to speak on her life, for example in 2009 at Newington Green Unitarian Church as part of the 250th anniversary celebrations of Wollstonecraft’s birth. Her memoir “The Last Asylum: A Memoir of Madness in Our Times” was published in February 2014.
Paul Bailey is one of the most esteemed British novelists who has taught creative writing at major universities in the UK and US. He is the author of eleven novels, two of which, Peter Smart’s Confessions (1977) and Gabriel’s Lament (1986), were nominated for the Booker Prize for Fiction, and four books of non-fiction. His latest novel, The Prince’s Boy, will be published this spring by Bloomsbury. He currently teaches creative writing at Kingston University.
Lindsay Smith is professor of English at the University of Sussex and co-director of the Sussex Centre for Visual fields. A specialist in 19th century non-fictional prose, painting, and photography as well as visual perception, photography theory and early 20th century British literature and art, she is the author of many influential articles. Her books include Victorian Photography, Painting and Poetry; The Politics of Focus: Women, Children and Nineteenth-century Photography; Pre-Raphaelistism: Poetry and Painting. Her next book on the photographs of Lewis Carroll will be published by Reakton Press. Her current research focuses on British photographs of Athens and the Acropolis.
Martin Creed: “Art makes life more exciting and therefore more tolerable”
By Despina Zefkili - 
13/03/2015
Martin Creed at the Kappatos Gallery just before … jumped off a cliff, he says.
One of the most important and interesting British artists of the last decades, the artist who won the Turner Prize by opening and closing the lights of Tate has been a guest at the Kappatos Athens Art Residency for a few days now and the work he will create will be presented in his first solo exhibition. in our country from 27/3. Despina Zefkili met him in the loft of the Kappatos gallery, in the middle of stretched canvases and a sewing machine, and they discussed his work but also our city and the new government, fooling from above the traffic on Athena Street.
What are your first impressions of Athens?
I’m been here a week. I like Athens, I feel like a place where it is easy to live, it is not alienated. I like museums, small shops where you can see that people still make things by hand. It reminds me of Italy ten years ago. I was living there when Italy switched to the euro and I felt the change, how small businesses became massive and disappeared. There is still personal character here.
How do you feel about being here at this historic moment?
I like this government that comes from the other side and dares to say something different. I do not know how they can do it but someone has to suggest something other than what prevails in Europe. But it seems very difficult to me, because in this homogenized environment there is no room for private personality in politics.
“I say to make some clothes and paintings, but also a dance-music work.”
What are you preparing here?
Do not know yet. Let’s see what comes out. I say to make some clothes and paintings, but also a dance-musical work. I work with some people, a dancer, a seamstress. I want to work with the dance movement and its relationship with the body and painting. And of course the clothes that cover the body. I try to use the materials without cutting them.
How did you choose the materials?
This is always a big problem, the choice of materials. It’s like expressing a judgment and I do not like to judge. That’s why I chose canvas which is a material that can be used for both painting and clothes, so I do not have to decide.
Work No. 1461, 2013 (detail), 2-inch wide adhesive tapes, Overall dimensions variable. Permanent installation in Hauser & Wirth New York.
I do not remember having worked much with painting.
No I have. When I was in the School of Fine Arts I was very involved in painting, like everyone else. Then I stopped. I like paintings because they are a mysterious combination of what we see on the wall and our own movement in space. They have something magical, looking at a painting and trying to understand something. I think I went back to painting for the same reason I left it. I thought you could not completely separate anything in the world. That every attempt to separate had something violent, artificial. On the premises the whole room is the project.
But in the end, you can not see a painting without seeing what is around it. My desire to work with what is around me led me to the facilities and then to the projects that involve people in a process. My problem is that I never know where to stop. Should I stop at the gallery door? I find it boring. This drives me crazy. I feel like I have to control the whole world, which is impossible. So I went back to painting, saying, “Okay, I’m not going to control everyone.” It’s a way to understand my size and ability. Do you have a paper or at least something that has a perimeter. With this in mind it is easy to start painting. Why not; A piece of paper is like a room. You can move around it. Of course it has technical difficulties. With the facilities you do not have to worry about transporting them, you do not need to pay attention to them. At least with the facilities I make!
Martin Creed, Work No. 503: Sick film, 2006 Courtesy the artist and Hauser © Martin Creed
You work a lot with performance as well.
I do not separate works that have to do with music or movement from the rest. I always think of an exhibition as a theatrical event. A show where you can move freely in space in contrast to the theater that usually puts you in the condition of a fixed position. I like galleries, the fact that people can go in and out freely. In the theater, at least in what I consider a good play, you feel imprisoned.
Looking back, what would you say is the central idea of your project, what interests you most.
My God, I do not know! I would love to make something that reaches life. Life is full of different things. It has incredible beauty and excitement, but also incredible difficulties. What scares me is not to be fake, not to make fun of myself. I do not know how else to say it. I feel that if you want to do something, especially an exhibition, you have to fool yourself even a little bit. You have to fight with yourself not to make fun of him, you do not have to trust him. You are your worst enemy in terms of how you hide your flaws. Art is like body language. How you feel comes out. Others will see it easily, but you yourself will not. You do not have to worry about looking stupid, you just have to be more discriminating with the help you render toward other people. A good performer for me is the one who lets things get out of hand,
«Work No.227, The Lights Going On and Off» Installation at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA, 2007. © Martin Creed. Image courtesy Hauser
In your recent retrospective exhibition at the Hayward Gallery you had many references to art history. Are you interested in the past?
Yes; I did not do it consciously. Artists like to be inspired. I remember at school I was working hard on an idea and then I was reading a magazine and I saw that someone else had already done something similar and I was saying “oh, I can’t do that either”. Now I find it stupid. Everyone is different. Thinking like that stops you from doing things. Why not do something with neon thinking e.g. that Bruce Nauman has worked with it. Who cares about neon? The important thing is that Nauman’s work is very good. It is like saying that the descriptions of the works help you to understand them. Bourdes! A description is a creative work of an author. When I was in school we were under a lot of pressure to talk about our projects. I think that’s why I started making projects that I can talk about. Like “Work No.227, The Lights Going On and Off ». You can easily talk about it. Much easier than for a painting. It depends on the project of course. I like the words. I carry them with me. It helps to have Shakespeare or Hemingway with me. I try to give lectures (on Wednesday 18/3 I will give one to the School of Fine Arts of Athens and another will follow) in which I combine song, dance, photos.
Would you call them performative lectures?
I do not like the word performance. It implies that you are setting up something. We keep giving performance and the meaning of good performance for me is to try not to give the feeling that you are impersonating. Whatever you do off stage, do it on it as well.
Martin Creed Work No. 247 Half the air in a given space 2000 Light-blue balloons Multiple parts, each balloon 16 in / 40.6 diameter; overall dimensions variable Installation view, MARCO Museo de Arte Contemporánea de Vigo, Pontevedra, Spain © Martin Creed. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Marta G. Brea
Your works often have a strong sense of humor.
I like the things that make me smile. But here we are entering a difficult area. I can not make a project look funny about it. I would not know how to do it. So you have to try to be honest with yourself. You often have to wait a long time and when the right time comes to grab her like a thief and run.
Why did you choose the title “What’s the point of it?” (What does it mean?) »For your retrospective on Hayward?
They really pushed me a lot to put a title and they came up with different ideas. It is the title of a song I have written. And something I often ask myself.
And what do you answer?
I really do not know. But I keep wondering. Certainly art is something that makes life more exciting and therefore more tolerable. It is like sitting on the edge of a rock and wanting to jump into the sea. I do not know if it is just excitement or even the fear of death, of just sitting and watching the world go by. But then you have to swim. This is how I feel with this new project. I’m still on the rock, I’ve not jumped yet. Then will come the hard work. But what else can you do? Sit and watch TV. This is good too, but it ends up being boring.
On Wednesday 18/3, at 1-2 p.m. British artist Martin Creed will talk about his work at the School of Fine Arts (256 Piraeus, Tavros).
MARTIN CREED “LIKE WATER AT A BUFFET”
On March 27 at Kappatos Athens Art Residency the inauguration of the second cycle of the Program for Hospitality of Artists and Art Personalities in Athens took place within the NSRF of the OP “Attiki” under the auspices of the Ministry of Culture and Sports. This is the first solo exhibition in Greece of the Scottish artist Martin Creed and is entitled “Like Water On A Buffet”. The artistic director of the program, Dr. Sozita Goudouna, and the independent curator, Nefeli Skarmea, have taken care of it .
Awarded the Turner Prize, the most prestigious award for visual arts in Britain, and recognized for his personal perception and conceptual approach to the sculpture, painting, fashion and different materials he uses in his work, Creed explores the ways in which which the representation of a structure, which initially consists in one medium (drawing, painting, sculpture), is mapped to another structure, to another medium (dance) and vice versa.
The correlations between design, sculpture, dance and music are reflected in the movement and action of the human body, as directed and choreographed by the artist during the creation of new paintings and costumes. Creed designs special canvas costumes and directs with idiosyncratic methodology and instructions three dancers who create paintings and drawings on the wall with their ends. By placing a brush on the toes, the dancers create shapes on the canvas and then represent the structure of their designs with body movements.
At the same time, Creed overturns the public’s approach to ballet as a kind of high-tech only. He choreographs the movements of the performers using the structural composition of the ballet (its steps and movements), but as part of a minimalist kinesiological process during which the dancers are asked to perform techniques, including vertical movement resting on the toes ( en pointe ) and other classical pozision (s) such as plie (PLIE).
The artist explores the concept of movement as a transition from possibility to reality and his choreography focuses on the dialectic between control and non-control of body movements, posture and alignment. The choreography teaching is enough in the minimalist movement: “One step forward, two steps back,” with the musical accompaniment of the song in its own lyrics: “One step forwards, Two steps backwards, Laugh once, Cry twice.”
The solo exhibition will also feature portraits of prominent Greek personalities such as: Maria Callas , Melina Mercouri , Demis Roussos and Aliki Vougiouklaki . The depiction of these artists was based on a play between Creed and his collaborator, and the artist painted the three faces without looking at them, that is, only from the oral description of the facial features by Rob Eagle.
Martin Creed “Like Water At A Buffet”
Kappatos Athens Art Residency Athinas 12, Monastiraki, tel. 2103217931 // Opening hours: Tr. – Fri. 12 pm – 8 pm, Sat. 12 pm. – 4 pm, Exhibition Duration: 27/3/2015 – 16/5/2015
“A painting, a pop song, fashion, everything is art”
Paris Spinou
In 2001, Martin Creed won the Turner, Britain’s top art prize, for his groundbreaking work “Work No.227, The lights going on and off”. In a completely empty room, the lights went on and off every five seconds. The reactions were stormy. Some enjoyed lying in the center of the room with their eyes closed, while others threw eggs at the walls shouting, “this is not art, the end of painting has come.”
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Since then, Critt has become the first news in art publications with conceptual, post-minimalist works that combine painting with multimedia, ordinary materials with dance and music that he writes, urging the overall art experience. He has made large neon constructions with words like “Mothers”, “Feelings”, which create positive energy, he has filled rooms with balloons, turning cold spaces into “playgrounds”. He has runners running up and down the Tate Britain, surprising – or frightening – the visitors, who were standing in front of the paintings. He also called on his compatriots to ring bells and bells with the song “All the bells in the country rung as quickly and as loudly as possible for three minutes”, which marked the start of the 2012 Olympic Games.
The awesome child of contemporary British art provokes with his work, not with his attitude towards life. Low-key, discreet, reminiscent of Bob Dylan he admires. His phrases come out with the dropper. “I was probably influenced in this by my Quaker parents, religiously and politically active, who believed that if you did not have something substantial to say, do not say it. I do not want to flood the space with words and also I do not want to flood the halls with works. “I do not like gossip in life and in art”, the 47-year-old artist tells us. He is in Athens this month. A guest of the Kappatos gallery creates a work especially for Greece, which will be unveiled on March 27.
Born in Wakefield, raised in Glasgow, he studied in London (Slade School of Art) and enjoys traveling. He is visiting Athens for the first time and here he sought his inspiration. He walked around the alleys of the historic center, the market in Monastiraki, went up to the Acropolis, visited the Acropolis Museum and Benaki in Kolonaki, gave a lecture at the Fine Arts for students. He works intensively. She designs on the computer, spreads fabrics in the gallery loft, operates an old sewing machine and plays the guitar in his sanctuary. “Athens is accessible, the people are very friendly,” he tells us. “Of course in England I hear a lot about the financial crisis, which excites me to search and find out. “My first impression is of a healthy city.”
However, his long-distance relationship with Greece is long-standing. “The philosophical thought of the ancients has fascinated me since I was a student, as well as classical art focusing on the human body, as well as architecture. At first I was scared by the idea of coming to Greece, with its long history, richness of ideas and art. The idea of the project, which I am doing now, is based on all this. Mainly in the body, but in a minimalist process. What you will see will include paintings, pieces of fabric, without cuts and seams, that will form human bodies. A dancer will be in conversation with these figures, in combination with the new songs that I am preparing “.
• What things have defined you as a creator since your youth?
From my adolescence I read a lot, I was interested in psychology, I was learning music, I wanted to study art. I was particularly interested in Austrian Secessionist artists, such as Gustav Klimt and Joseph Hoffmann. The combination of fine and applied arts. I do not separate high culture from popular culture, it is one. A painting, a pop song, fashion, everything is art for me.
• The impression is created that for you emotion is more important than matter.
I believe that emotions dominate the world. Thought and logic is a desperate attempt to manage emotions, to put them under control. But, in the end, emotions always win. Because it is magic. The problem when I work is that I have to be reasonable enough. For example, to come to Athens I had to get on a plane and then get organized where I live, think about what I will do, find the materials … I had not decided anything in advance. It would be very restrictive, very boring! In the end, a job is good when it is “alive”, that is, the opposite of logic.
• Are you anxious every time to show something different?
I try to do new things, but many times this is a way to solve an old problem. At this stage I try to be more direct as I implement an idea. I do not want to be complicated. When I play music I want the stage and the audience to become one, as well as my exhibitions, to be in direct communication with the world.
• Is it easy to communicate with the public, especially if they are not familiar with contemporary art?
I believe that spectators are always involved even when they are standing and looking at a painting. You go to a museum, to a gallery and you walk, you look, you breathe, you think. Paintings are not static, because people move, so art is kinetic. I try to intensify the energy, when, say, I make them walk between balloons, I seek their participation and an experience that makes you ask and wonder.
• And what role does music play in your works?
I play with my band often, and other times alone. My music works both independently and in relation to a project. I grew up with classical music at my parents’ house and then got into pop and folk, which is popular in Scotland. I like Johnny Cass and the simplicity of country, but especially Bob Dylan, because he managed to stay true and honest.
• How much has the Turner Prize changed your life?
He definitely changed it … it had an effect on me, but also on those around me, because I no longer had to introduce myself. If you win such an award, others trust your work, you do not need to try to prove it. I noticed, however, that the younger curators did not include me in their reports, because I suddenly became part of an established, even though I was young. Maybe they found me boring …
• Does the award keep its momentum today?
When I got it I was constantly on the channels with hourly tributes and interviews. It was considered something “big” then, but now it does not surprise much and does not make so much noise. However, he has created a great art scene, to which I am glad to belong.
Do you think that some Turner Prize winners or nominees, such as Damien Hirst or Tracy Emin, used it to promote themselves more than their work?
The truth is that some British artists, especially Brit Art representatives, have escaped, become ostentatious. Of course, artists by definition seek the attention of others, narcissism is innate. It’s ridiculous, perhaps, that what you do is so important that it has to go into a gallery. It is an illusion that you must control. The best works I have seen have been done by vulnerable, sensitive people and reveal humanity.
• Has the criticism that you have received from the media, both praiseworthy and sometimes negative, affected you?
I have not read anything written about me for two years. When I read them I was very upset. I think writing about art is creative, but also dangerous because words are a means in themselves. When I watch the news on TV I feel it is dangerous, because words do not really tell what is happening. A story based on reality comes out, but it is not reality, it is an interpretation of it, a fabricated story.
• Last year was your first retrospective exhibition at the Hayward Gallery. What is it like to choose and see 25-year-old works together?
The choice was difficult and finally when the exhibition opened I felt as if they were not the same works I had done. For example, a painting from when I was 15 years old and was in my parents’ room, when I saw it in the museum I thought it was something completely different, as if someone made an exact copy.
• Would you describe your work as autobiographical?
I do not separate life from art. I feel that my art is the way I live. My works show a simple, clean approach to life and help me survive in a chaotic world.
Info:
The exhibition opens on March 27, at the Kappatos Gallery (Athinas 12, tel. 210 3217931), as part of the Artists and Art Personalities Hospitality Program in Athens. Curator: Sozita Goudouna, artistic director of the program, Nefeli Skarmea, independent curator.
Professor Semir Zeki Visits the Residency 19/3/14
Professor Semir Zeki visited Kappatos Athens Art Residency on Wednesday 19 of March 2014, in conjunction with the honorary doctorate that he was granted by the Medical School of the University of Athens:
Semir Zeki FMedSci FRS is a British neurobiologist who has specialized in studying the primate visual brain and more recently the neural correlates of affective states, such as the experience of love, desire and beauty that are generated by sensory inputs within the field of neuroesthetics. He was educated at University College London (UCL) where he was Henry Head Research Fellow of the Royal Society before being appointed Professor of Neurobiology. Since 2008 he has been Professor of Neuroesthetics at UCL.
His early work was mainly anatomical in nature and consisted in charting visual areas in the primate (monkey) brain by studying their connections, leading him to define several visual areas lying anterior to the primary visual cortex (area V1) of the brain.[1][2] This was followed by recording from single cells in these areas, which led him to the view (a) that there is a functional specialization in the visual cortex, with different visual areas undertaking different visual tasks, such as the processing of colour, motion and form [3] and (b) that the visual brain processes these different attributes in parallel.[4]
He later showed, using brain imaging techniques, that the same principles apply to the organization of the human visual brain.[5] In recent work he has shown that parallel processing appears to extend beyond the mere processing of visual signals to their grouping in parietal cortex.[6] His work on colour vision was influenced by the work and methods of Edwin Land, whose techniques he employed in his physiological and brain imaging experiments,[7] and which led him to the view that colour is constructed by the brain and that a specialized visual area, area V4, is critical to this process.[8]
These findings raised the question of how the signals processed in these separate visual areas are integrated to give a unified picture of the visual world. In psychophysical experiments undertaken with colleagues, he showed that we perceive, and become aware of, different visual attributes at different times, with colour preceding motion by about 80 ms and form (orientation) by about 40 ms,[9] leading to the view that there is a temporal asynchrony in vision which is the result of different processing speeds for different attributes. This in turn led him to suggest that visual consciousness is not unified; rather there are many visual micro-consciousness which are distributed in time and space,[10] and that activity in each visual area can acquire a conscious correlate without the necessity of reporting to another cortical area, though acknowledging that there must be other enabling systems, possibly located in the reticular formation.[11] Thus, functional specialization manifests itself in the temporal sequence with which we see different attributes such as colour
More recently he has also studied the brain reaction to affective states generated by sensory inputs, such as the experience of love[12] and hate.[13] His studies of the experience of visual[14]and musical beauty has led him to suggest that a specific part of the emotional brain, field A1 of the medial orbito-frontal cortex, is critical for such experiences.[15]
He has lectured widely across the world, giving over 60 named lectures, including the Ferrier Lecture (Royal Society 1995); The Philip Bard Lecture (Johns Hopkins University, 1992); The Woodhull Lecture (Royal Institution, London, 1995); The Humphrey Davy Lecture (Académie des Sciences, Paris, 1996); The Grass Foundation Forbes Lectures (Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, USA 1997; Carl Gustave Bernhard Lecture (Royal Swedish Academy of Science, Stockholm, 1996; and the Tizard Lecture (Westminster School, London, 2004) among others.
He has published three books, A Vision of the Brain (Blackwell, Oxford 1993 – translated into Japanese and Spanish), Inner Vision: an exploration of art and the brain (OUP, 1999); Splendors and Miseries of the Brain (Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford 2009) and co-authored La Quête de l’essentiel, Les Belles Lettres, Archimbaud, Paris, 1995 (with Balthus, Count Klossowski de Rola) and La bella e la bestia, 2011, Laterza, Italy (with Ludovica Lumer).
He held an exhibition of his own art work at the Pecci Museum of Contemporary Art in Milan in 2011 (Bianco su bianco: oltre Malevich).
He was Editor of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society (B) from 1997 to 2004.
He has been a Trustee of Fight for Sight, a Guarantor of the neurological journal Brain, a member and then Chairman of the Wellcome Trust Vision Panel and a member of the National Science Council of France (1998-2002).
He has been a Visiting Fellow or Professor at St Andrews University; Ludwig-Maxilmilians University, Munich; Duke University, USA, University of California (Berkeley), among other institutions. He has conducted a number of public dialogues with writers, artists and art historians, including Dame Antonia Byatt, Balthus, Hans Belting, Peter Sellars, Michelangelo Pistoletto and Tetsuo Miyajima.
He is a Fellow of the Royal Society (1990), Member of the Academia Europeae (1991), Member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts (Salzburg) (1993), Foreign Member of the American Philosophical Society (1998), Founding Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (1998), Fellow of University College London (2000) and Honorary Member of the Physiological Society (2013).
D.Sc. (honoris causa) from Aston University, Aberdeen University and University of Athens.
Prizes include The Golden Brain Award (1985), Prix Science pour l’art (1991), Rank Prize in Opto-Electronics (1992) (jointly with A. Movshon and T. Adelson), Zotterman Prize (1993); Koetser Foundation Prize (1997), Award in Electronic Imaging (2002); King Faisal International Prize in Biology (2004), Erasmus Medal (Academia Europeae, 2008), Aristotle Gold Medal (2011) and Rome Prize (Atena Onlus) (2012).
Zeki’s scientific achievements include:
Discovery of the many visual areas of the brain and their functional specialisation for different visual attributes such as colour, motion and form.
Finding neurons in a part of the monkey visual system that would respond only when a particular colour, rather than a particular wavelength, was in their receptive fields. For example, he showed that a red-sensitive neuron would continue to respond to a red stimulus, even when it was illuminated mainly by green light. This was the first study relating colour perception to single cell physiology in the brain.
Showing that processing sites in the visual brain are also perceptual sites.
Showing that we see different attributes of visual input at different times.
Charting the activity of the brain in time and showing that different visual areas have different activity time courses.
Studying the neural correlates of subjective mental states, such as love [12] and beauty, and more recently, hate[13]
http://profzeki.blogspot.com/
Performance Philosophy partners with Kappatos Athens Art Residency
Posted by Stefania Mylona on March 7, 2014 at 11:54
Performance Philosophy School of Athens, a two-day symposium of lectures, workshops and performances organized by Stefania Mylona in collaboration with Michael Klien to be held 10.00-21.00 Saturday 15th and 11.00-19.30 Sunday 16th March 2014 at Ε.Δ.Ω. in Keramikos and in association with Performance Philosophy invites artists and scholars interested in the relationships of performance and philosophy to participate. Entrance is free so there will be priority upon arrival for registration. Registration will take place on Saturday 15th March 9.30-10.00. Additionally, please note that lunch will be provided and that the event will be recorded so, by registering you provide permission for recording and reproducing the material.
Performance Philosophy School of Athens aims to introduce current concerns of performance philosophy in Athens, emanating from the undisputed importance of Greece in the field of philosophy. It aims to bring together people, both nationally and internationally, who are interested in the emergence of Performance Philosophy as a field. The proposed symposium will invite artists interested in philosophy and philosophers interested in performance to participate in a mutual understanding of the current concerns of this emerging and fast growing field. Its main objective is to develop new creative dynamics in thinking and performance and explore the potentialities presented by Performance Philosophy in the face of local and global sociopolitical change.
In line with the above we have already programmed, Dr Sophia Lycouris (UK), Dr Anna Tsichli Boissonnas (GR), Dr Bojana Cvejic (CR), Dr Eve Katsourakis (UK), Dr Sozita Goudouna (GR), Dr Konstantina Georgelou (NE), Dr Sophia Efstathiou (NO), Dr Danae Theodoridou (BR), Dr Mischa Twitchin (UK), Dr Paul Clark (UK), Dr John Blamey (UK), Stella Dimitrakopoulou (UK), Stefan Apostolou-Holscher (GE), Katerina Paramana (UK), Owen G Parry (UK), Giorgos Gyparakis (GR), Theo Prodromidis (GR) and Miriam Simun (US)
As an alternative site of learning, the symposium will focus on creative, performative and alternative tropes of learning about and through performance philosophy. Instead of teaching performance philosophy, it will work as a site of ‘doing’ performance philosophy in order to create new understandings of it. Attention will be given to creating space for thought and reflection that engages us into creatively thinking of new ways of making and learning through performance philosophy.
The two-day event will address the ways in which performance artists engage with and find inspiration from philosophical perspectives. Some of the questions to be asked (but not only) will be:
– How to make sense of philosophy in relation to performance?
– How to understand philosophical rhythms, dynamics, images, and uses of language, spacing, timing and the shaping of philosophy?
– How might artists work with and artistically respond to philosophical perspectives?
– Can there be performance philosophies as a kind of meta-philosophy and/or how might artists ‘philosophize’?
– How can philosophical – or not – ignorance as a state of a lack of knowledge be a prerequisite to learning?
– How could we by identifying our ignorance add creatively to knowledge formation?
– What might ignorance teach us as a site of performance of the intellect?
Some possible thematic exploration of the conceptual intersections between ‘thinking’ and ‘making’ Performance Philosophy School of Athens could involve: alternative teachers, collective thinking, philosophical dramas, post-dramatic learning, archaeologies of sense, philosophies of culture, philosophical ignorance, doubt, philosophical beats, philosophical demon-stration, proximity learning, philosophical schools of thought, post-thematic lessons, content vs con-texts, durational classes, the weight of philosophy, philosophical work-shops, caring as thinking, choreographies of thought, movement questions, thinking qualities, jumping into beginnings, tasting theories, phenomenologies of knowledge, masters of affects, subtexts, foot-notes, dramatourgies of quoting, practice-based plagiarism, post-continental mistakes, meta-philosophy as after philosophy, affirmative arguments, paradoxa of difference, performances of semblance, assessing being, existential assignments, processes of submitting, alternative sub-missions, deterritorialized prerequisites, ethics lessons, amphitheatres of perception, twisted students, experimental curricula, dys-courses, deconstructions of knowledge production, imaginative concepts, experimental notations, philosophical marks and grades as well as assessment theatres of unknowing touching upon ‘πίστευε και ερεύνα’, ‘μακάριοι οι πλούσιοι το πνεύματι’.
The symposium’s language will be English.
Performance Philosophy began as a working group of Performance Studies international conference and had its inaugural conference as an independent organization in 2012 at the University of Surrey (UK). Due to the high interest towards Performance Philosophy the international committee offered awards for local interim events in Athens among others happening in Paris-Sorbonne, Groningen, Prague, Beirut, London, Wisconsin and Peru.
In association with Performance Philosophy http://performancephilosophy.ning.com/
In-kind support of E.D.W. http://e-d-w.gr/
In-kind support by Kappatos Athens Art Residency
Supported by Prosenghisi and Domaine Zafeirakis
More information:
http://performancephilosophyathens.wordpress.com/
bio: Stefania Mylona, practitioner-scholar in performance philosophy and performance dance studied communication at the American College of Greece, performed with Magnitis Dance Company and was awarded a BA in dance in Athens (GR). On a scholarship awarded from The State Scholarships Foundation of Greece (I.K.Y.) she completed an MA in European Dance Theatre Practices at Laban and a PaR PhD in performance studies entitled Dancing Sculptures: Contractions of an Intercorporeal Aesthetic (2011) at the University of Surrey. During her PhD study, she lectured in dance at the Dance and Cultures HE program and became an associate of The British Higher Education Academy. She received the Glynne Wickham Award from SCUDD (UK) and the Graduate Award from SDHS (US) while presenting her research and performance practice internationally. Currently she is organizing Performance Philosophy School of Athens symposium in association with Performance Philosophy while working as a freelance movement teacher, artist and scholar.
bio: Michael Kliën¹s artistic practice encompasses interdisciplinary thinking, critical writing, curatorial projects, and centrally, choreographic works equally at home in the Performing as well as the Fine Arts. His works have been performed and situated in many countries across the world. Commissions include Ballett Frankfurt, ZKM (Karlsruhe), Tanzquartier Wien and the Vienna Volksoper; exhibitions include IMMA (Irish Museum of Modern Art) and Hayward Gallery (London). He received a PhD from the Edinburgh College of Art in 2009 and, as a committed teacher, has been lecturing about his findings at numerous distinguished academic and non-academic institutions. He has been co-founder and Artistic Director of the London based arts group Barriedale Operahouse (1994‹2000) and Artistic Director/CEO of Daghdha Dance Company (2003‹2011). Based in Greece and Ireland, he is currently working as an independent artist. www.michaelklien.com
Kappatos Athens Art Residency venue
The Art Residency is quartered in two floors of the building, the 320sq.m exhibition space is situated on the 2nd floor and the accommodation on the 7th floor a 111sq.m space with a panoramic view of Athens, in particular of the Archaeological sites of the Parthenon, of Thission and Lycabettus. The exhibition space of the residency and the space for the production of works by the artists is located on 2nd floor while on the 7th floor the art-professionals are accommodated in an astonishing flat with a 150sq.m terrace.