Away and Boil Your Head | Selected works from the 1st & 2nd Athens Biennales | An exhibition curated by XYZ, within the project “OTHERS: Mediterranean views on contemporary art. The biennials of art of Marrakech, Istanbul, Athens in Palermo and Catania” | July 9th – November 7th 2010 | Fondazione Puglisi Cosentino, Palazzo Valle, Via Vittorio Emanuele , 122 Catania | http://www.fondazionepuglisicosentino.it/
XYZ present the exhibition Away and Boil your Head, with works by Alexis Akrithakis, John Bock, Savvas Christodoulides, Lydia Dambassina, Peter Dreher, Electronic Voice Phenomena, Tadeusz Kantor, Em Kei, Joachim Koester, Lotte Konow Lund, Mark Manders, Domenico Mangano, Nina Papaconstantinou, Ioannis Savvidis, Christoph Schlingensief, Gregor Schneider, and Ettore Sottsass.
The in-between is an unbearable place. We soon discovered that this place is also real. A place, however, made up almost exclusively of time, its sole distinctive property being this: it lasts.
We now find ourselves in this place as curators, while selecting works for this exhibition in Catania from the 1st and the 2nd Athens Biennale, conscious that we are on our way to completing an exhibition trilogy in 2011; but also as individuals, living in a country where everything feels suspended, banished in limbo. There is no sin other than the original one: bankruptcy.
XYZ present the exhibition Away and Boil your Head, with works by Alexis Akrithakis, John Bock, Savvas Christodoulides, Lydia Dambassina, Peter Dreher, Electronic Voice Phenomena, Tadeusz Kantor, Em Kei, Joachim Koester, Lotte Konow Lund, Mark Manders, Domenico Mangano, Nina Papaconstantinou, Ioannis Savvidis, Christoph Schlingensief, Gregor Schneider, and Ettore Sottsass.
The in-between is an unbearable place. We soon discovered that this place is also real. A place, however, made up almost exclusively of time, its sole distinctive property being this: it lasts.
We now find ourselves in this place as curators, while selecting works for this exhibition in Catania from the 1st and the 2nd Athens Biennale, conscious that we are on our way to completing an exhibition trilogy in 2011; but also as individuals, living in a country where everything feels suspended, banished in limbo. There is no sin other than the original one: bankruptcy.
From Destroy Athens, the first biennale, to Heaven, the second one, there extends a conceptual strand that we intend to stretch even further – to our third edition. This is the ongoing struggle of the subject against the dead-ends that appear in his/her path, as part of the collective identity he or she belongs to.
In both biennales, as well as smaller shows we have done recently, we worked on constructing a narrative space and treated the exhibition as an overall work; an overarching premise of meaning which might become experiential for the viewer, but might also be shaped by the viewer’s experience. Our practice, both when we curate ourselves and when we invite other colleagues, like we did in the second biennale, considers the large scale group exhibition as an experiential environment, where not only individual works become aspects of a proposed narrative, but also where an ensemble of spaces and objects becomes immersive, performative, effective.
With this exhibition, while trying to give the viewers an idea of what the Athens Biennale has been attempting to morph into a distinctive exhibition practice, and to present some of the themes that were central to both shows, we would also hope that we give a glimpse of things to come. It is, thus, a survey and a sample, but it also stands for this unique moment: a “suspension”, a moment-in-between. Yet, we hope it to be at least one more thing.
As a moment in time and as a snippet of practice, this show provides an opportunity to make a declaration, or, to put it more humbly, to vent: pressed under the weight of stereotypes – uttered, moreover, from an unmistakable position of power – we take refuge in the exhibition, facing the outside with ill-concealed humor: Away…
As a moment in time and as a snippet of practice, this show provides an opportunity to make a declaration, or, to put it more humbly, to vent: pressed under the weight of stereotypes – uttered, moreover, from an unmistakable position of power – we take refuge in the exhibition, facing the outside with ill-concealed humor: Away…
Selected installation photos from the exhibition:
Christoph Schlingensief
Stahlweg I-XII, 2006
multimedia installation
variable dimensions
Courtesy Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Vienna
Mark Manders
Two Interconnected Houses, 2010
variable dimensions
slide projection loop with 80 b&w slides
Courtesy Zeno X Gallery, Antwerp
Tadeusz Kantor
The Dead Class, 1975
[Umarla klasa]
DVD 72’
Andrzej Wajda’s film on the theatrical play by Tadeusz Kantor
Lotte Konow Lund
Domestic Violence, 2001
video 4’
Courtesy of the artist
John Bock
Lütte mit Rucola, 2006
video 35’ 41’’
Courtesy Klosterfelde, Berlin; Anton Kern, New York
Em Kei
Monument for the Unknown Hooligan (version 2), 2006 (version 1), 2009 (version 2)
bronze, marble
54x42x46 cm
Courtesy a.antonopoulou.art, Athens
From left to right: Ioannis Savvidis, Athina Map C (Part of the Athenscope Project),2007. ink on paper. 212x122 cm. Courtesy of the artist
Ettore Sottsass, Metafore n.21: Disegni per i destini dell’uomo. Disegno dell’orribile messaggio dell’uomo agli altri pianeti, 1976, San Gimignano. gelatin silver print. 40x30 cm. 1/25. Eleni Martinos’ Private Collection
Ettore Sottsass, Metafore n.21A: Disegni per i destini dell’uomo. Disegno dell’orribile messaggio dell’uomo agli altri pianeti, 1976, San Gimignano. gelatin silver print. 30x40 cm. 1/25. Eleni Martinos’ Private Collection
Ettore Sottsass, Metafore n.22A: Disegni per i diritti dell’uomo. “… o vuoi un trono?”, 1979, Alpi Apuane. gelatin silver print. 40x30 cm. 4/25. Eleni Martinos’ Private Collection
Alexis Akrithakis, Untitled, 1966-67. india ink on paper. 50x70 cm. Private Collection, Athens. Courtesy Kalfayan Galleries, Athens-Thessaloniki
Savvas Christodoulides, The blushing Virgin Ι, 2009. porcelain. 30x54x30 cm. Courtesy of the artist
Alexis Akrithakis, Untitled, 1966. india ink on paper. 20x100 cm. Private Collection, Athens. Courtesy Kalfayan Galleries, Athens-Thessaloniki
Domenico Mangano, La Storia di Mimmo, 1999. video 8’. Courtesy of the artist and Riso, Museo d’Arte Contemporanea della Sicilia
Nina Papaconstantinou, Baisers Volés, 2009. 12 drawings, marker on transparent paper. 50x67 cm each. Courtesy of the artist and Siakos.Hanappe
From left to right: Savvas Christodoulides, The blushing Virgin Ι, 2009. porcelain. 30x54x30cm. Courtesy of the artist
Domenico Mangano, La Storia di Mimmo, 1999. video 8’. Courtesy of the artist and Riso, Museo d’Arte Contemporanea della Sicilia
Alexis Akrithakis, Untitled, 1966. india ink on paper. 48,5x50 cm. Private Collection, Athens. Courtesy Kalfayan Galleries, Athens-Thessaloniki
Nina Papaconstantinou, Five Bed-Time Stories, 2010. graphite pencil, pin-pricks on paper. 35x30 cm each. Courtesy of the artist
Alexis Akrithakis, The relationship between Letters and Coffee-shops, 1966. india ink on paper. 19x28 cm. Private Collection, Athens. Courtesy Kalfayan Galleries, Athens-Thessaloniki
Alexis Akrithakis, The Arse of Tachtis, 1969. india ink on paper. 70x55 cm. Private Collection, Athens. Courtesy Kalfayan Galleries, Athens-Thessaloniki
Ettore Sottsass, Metafore n.41:Decorazioni. Decorazione con moquette nylon 100%, 1977, Nevada. gelatin silver print. 30x40 cm. 1/25. Eleni Martinos’ Private Collection
Ettore Sottsass, Metafore n.37: Fidanzati. Il mio fidanzato architetto sceglie le piastrelle del bagno, 1977, Cairo. gelatin silver print. 30x40 cm. 2/25. Eleni Martinos’ Private Collection
Peter Dreher
Tag um Tag guter Tag (Day by Day good Day), since 1974
3paintings, oil on canvas
25x20 cm each
Courtesy Galerie Wagner + Partner, Berlin
Morning of the Magicians, 2005
series of 10 photographs (6 selenium toned silver gelatin prints and 4 C-prints)
47,5x60 cm each
Courtesy: Jan Mot, Brussels
centre: Nina Papaconstantinou
Diary (Robinson Crusoe), 2007
bound paper, thread, leather, gold-leaf
22x22x6 cm
Courtesy of the artist
Weisse Folter, 2007
video 20’
Dusseldorf 2007
Courtesy of the artist
Le Lac, 2009
slide projection loop with 34 slides with music
photo by Yves Fajnberg, Lydia Dambassina.
music by Joachim Latarjet, Alexandra Fleischer
Courtesy of the artist and Eleni Koroneou Gallery, Athens
XYZ would like to thank the artists of both editions of the Athens Biennale, as well as the curators of the 2nd Athens Biennale 2009; everybody at Palazzo Riso and Palazzo Valle; the lenders of the exhibitions; and as always the Athens Biennale team.
Others is an initiative of the “The Cities of the Mediterranean” project, which, from 2010 to 2012, will involve some of the major cities of the Mediterranean in activities and events that represent the identities and the production, economic, cultural, and art systems of the Mediterranean. “The Cities of the Mediterranean ” is a project promoted by Palazzo Riso and the Fondazione Campania dei Festival, through an agreement between the Sicilian Region, Campanian Region, the Ministry for Economic Development (MISE).
For more information, please visit the Palazzo Riso website.
