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Contents

Drafts

Interview

George Hadjimichalis talks to Asteropi Lazaridou

Rooms to Let

Alexandra Moschovi writes about the exhibition Visions 06

Art criticism and art production

Anny Malama returns to the exhibition The Years of Defiance

The Athens She-Werewolf

Christopher Marinos writes about Eva Vretzaki’s exhibition

Why have a tattoo?

Iliana Fokianaki writes about the exhibition Tatoo my art, curated

by Nadia Argyropoulou

Your Sweetness is My Weakness

Kostas Ioannidis writes about the project Black Tuda

Visits

Katerina Nikou meets Maro Mihalakakos

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03

Subjecktiveberlinersuppe

Soup, pasta with minced meat sauce,

fish, pork roll, spinach and seaweed

salad. Dinner in Berlin at an illicit

Japanese restaurant that is only open

on weekends. The tables, benches,

the kitchen itself are on wheels so

that they can be tucked away safely

on Sunday night until the restaurant

opens again the following week.

A tiny yet important detail: the

restaurant only served one dish –

this soup, in which the minced meat,

pasta, fish, pork roll, spinach and

seaweed salad all floated.

There – a soup, and I indulge in

subjective criticism.

We went for dinner there after

Martin Jay's talk at the Volksbühne,

the People's Theatre. Martin Jay is a

professor at Berkeley, and from what

I could surmise in spite of my

weariness from wandering in Berlin

and his monotonous voice, he

argued that, although history used to

serve as a source of subject-matter

for artists such as David,

contemporary art confines itself to

just a re-enactment of historical

action. As if artists played with tin

soldiers and their work each time

amounted to such a childish,

somewhat obsessive, regressive

recreation of the Battle of Waterloo,

of the Irish Famine or the Abduction

of the Sabine Women, to refer to the

video of the same title that Eve

Sussman produced here in Athens.

Jay's view reminded me a little of the

end-of-history theory, but

nevertheless Volksbühne was a re-

enactment, too. Built in 1914, an old

theatre, appropriated by the Nazis,

appropriated by the Deutsche

Volksrepublik, appropriated by the

wholesale at the Fall of the Berlin

Wall, it is located on the Rosa

Luxemburg Square, two blocks away

from Karl Marx Strasse. As if this

survival of names deactivated their

historical weight, and this

deactivation enabled their

reactivation in turn. But the Biennale,

too, was a re-enactment: all along

the Augustrasse, a street that marked

the city’s visual art life in earlier

decades, history long past was

presented as an exhibit that required

that one kept one's eyes open so as

to distinguish it from the living

present, just like one must keep

one's eyes open in order to tell the

works apart from the spaces

accommodating them. The Old

Jewish Girls School in particular was

like a gigantic objet trouvé, one that

a careless and uninitiated in

contemporary art member of the

municipal council might paint over,

just like the museum guard who

threw away Damien Hirst's ashtray

with cigarette butts. In this respect,Dra

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this was not a site-specific exhibition

but an exhibition that made an

exhibit out of the specificity of the

location. In other respects, the

Biennale proposed reality as a

commentation of art and art as a

commentation of reality; it possessed

a mellow political thought and

sometimes allowed itself a dark

deviation, easily recognised by all, as

there is a percentage of mental

chaos that is as popularised as any

pop tune. The exhibition, to quote

the programme, "looks at life as a

series of traumas and at art as an

enigma. Anxiety and paranoia, an

impenetratable obscurity and a

looming sense of suspension are

some of the recurring atmospheres

in the show." This description

reminded me for some reason of the

music by the Einsturzende

Neubauten, the Crime and the City

Solution or the Birthday Party,

speaking of Berlin. It is undoubtedly

loud, you can enjoy, brood on or

dance with their morbid urge, as

long as you know that it's all an

adolescence-as-a-state-of-mind

kind of revival.

One of the most interesting stories I

heard in Berlin was that of a work by

Ilias Papailiakis. His exhibition at

Upstairs Gallery was extremely

successful; all the works were sold

but one, I was told. In the series of

appropriated images Papailiakis

draws from classicist painting or

newspaper illustrations, it was the

yellow reproduction of a fist raised

high, once a Soviet officer's gift to

Eric Honegger – the last president of

the Deutsche Volksrepublik. The

work was reserved for purchase by

the City of Berlin Historical Museum

Art Officer, if I remember correctly,

but when the time came for the

purchase to be approved by the

museum’s Board of Trustees, it was

rejected as too political a work.

There are limits to re-enactment, too.

Papailiakis's work was still hanging

on the Upstairs Gallery wall when I

went to see Loukia Alavanou's show.

Two out of four videos had already

been shown in Athens. Out of the

two new ones, I vividly recollect the

Priest's Funeral. This is an original

photograph by Leonidas

Papazoglou. Alavanou's video

unfolds in two distinct times: first,

the photograph is shown as is, then

certain elements are isolated –

scattered puncta: a child's arms, two

hexapteryga, the priest in his coffin –

which Alavanou recomposes, after

having erased the rest of the image,

into an ingenious and often

funny choreography of symbols.

Ilias Papailiakis, Loukia Alavanou,

Yorgos Sapountzis, Dimitris

Tzamouranis in Berlin, and along

with them Harris Kondosphyris at the

Globe City, Newcastle in September

and Cleo Gizeli at Flowers East,

London, also in September; although

we often note the shortcomings in

the Greek visual art field, I often get

the impression that of all areas of

cultural production, contemporary

Greek art has the greatest potential

to claim a niche of its own in the

international dialogue. In Berlin, I

read Christoforos Marinos'

Possibilities, a collection of

interviews with 14 young Greek

artists. The book's greatest virtue is

that by bringing under the same

umbrella artists of different ages,

subject-matter and styles, it unites

them into a single narrative and thus

contributes to the establishment of a

narrative for the young generation in

contemporary Greek art. A single

objection: with the exception of

fleeting references to Lappas and

Drafts

05

Alexiou, and in passim to Kounellis

and Manetas, it looks as if none of

the Greek artists needs any

connection to the Greek reality to be

made – not of course as a reiteration

of clichés, but as the negotiation of

formative experiences, narratives,

relationships, allusions. There is, so

to speak, the danger that liberation

from clichés may cause their re-

enactment – through the back door,

as it were.

Th. Tramboulis

Art Athina

Now that Art Athina is about to

change its form, I remembered an

incident that happened some years

ago. To go to Art Athina I shared a

cab from Vassilisis Sofias Avenue. On

the back seat, there was an elegant

middle-aged lady, whom I was

watching through the passenger side

mirror, and, as far as I could tell, she

was watching me, too. She was so

well-dressed with her face so

attractively aged and had managed

to cross her legs all too gracefully

given the limited leg room that long

before we reached the junction with

Katehaki Avenue I made a point to

tell the driver my destination

with the secret hope of her

enthusiastically exclaiming of the

encounter that what a coincidence

for she also headed to the Art Athina

and then ask me what my name was

in case she knew me and so on and

so forth. Still, if she were to say even

a word of the above, the image of

her wise and accumulated over the

years elegance would be spoiled,

and thus, having realized the

incongruous of my expectations, I

turned anew to the side mirror lest I

could discern an insensible sign of

surprise and silent praise. To make a

long story short, she got off with me

at Floca Café, I was about to say just

at Goody’s fast food restaurant, but

this would not suit her, and I let her

get past me so that I could watch

her walk in the elevated manner of

the person who feels that in two

minutes they will be among their

pairs, even if, momentarily, she

would have to forbear the useless

clamour of the crowd. It goes

without saying that throughout the

big crush of the night, among

scrimmages between strangers and

cuddles with acquaintances, I tended

to stumble across her here and there,

talking to an artist, eating peanuts

and chattering vivaciously with a

gallerist or running into old foreign

acquaintances of hers, Germans or

Austrians, that I could not tell. In any

case, I made sure that I stayed close

to her to keep the sense of the

Oedipus complex of the love of art

that was lurking in the air alive.

As far as the actual event was

concerned, I met, from the right end

of the entrance and moving towards

the back of the venue: an artist

talking about his new born daughter;

somebody who compared the

exhibits with those of the recent

Biennial; a photographer who, as I

had found out some time ago, was

my classmate in primary school; a

former lover; the old lover of a

girlfriend; writers; a kid who

attempted to mount the sculptures;

a relief print located near the fire

exit; and several well-off mothers

with their daughters, some of whom

were so pretty that one would only

assume that all those years of their

parents’ artistic preoccupation with

beauty had left their marks on their

offspring’s genes, whilst others were

so ungraceful that one would be

tempted to deduce that, no doubt,

their parents liked Arte Povera.

Regarding the exhibits, I noticed that

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the ones that were in glazed frames

were much appreciated, as they

allowed the visitors to mirror

themselves along with the work that

became a background to their

likeness, perhaps sensing that this

unique overlap of their face with

contemporary art was what

singularly justified the presence of

the former and gave full meaning to

the latter.

Th.Tramboulis

Faith in the middle of the ocean

A lot has been said recently about

the existence (or not) of a New Greek

Art Scene sometimes related to that

which emerged in Britain during the

early nineties or other art scenes that

have claimed and legitimized a title

like the ones in Glasgow and Berlin.

And although it seems almost a joke

to compare what is happening in

Greece right now with what has

been created by certain national

mechanisms with a clear purpose the

discussion remains. Most people

argue that a ‘scene’ is not the

appropriate term to describe the

local dynamism and that it does not

really exist. However, no one can

really argue that nothing is

happening. It is like when something

is born and there is this moment of

awkwardness when you have to

describe it and finally name it for the

first time.

With the existing terms being so

heavily ‘pregnant’ a new terminology

has to be invented in order to

describe what is happening today in

Greece. But this is even more difficult

and not many people are prepared

to name it. The reason may be that

usually such terms are constructed.

They are the products of institutional

decisions, part of a bigger plan

related to politics about

contemporary art. And this nameless

condition is definitely not a product

of organized consensus and does not

illustrate a national decision to

support contemporary art.

If one attempts to describe it, one

could argue that it is new but that

this has nothing to do with age. It is

more an attitude than a scene. A

new attitude that expresses the need

to approach things in a different

way. Firstly, understand the reasons

for which we have been left out. And

then find and many times create the

frameworks in order to inverse that.

All these without any ‘legal’ support.

The basis for all these is faith. Faith in

the cultural producers and the work

that is being produced here. A faith

which is not yet shared by the

existing institutions. United by

similar goals, a sense of

responsibility and the need to create

better conditions for both present

and future, people working today

sometimes use rather ‘unorthodox’

methods, entirely legal but quite off-

beat. For the immediate future one

needs to find existing frameworks

and integrate. In the long run one

tries to create or help towards the

creation of new frameworks.

The need to integrate is a very

strong driving force. And it is the

case that in Greece when we discuss

the existence or not of a local art

scene we refer to people of the same

nationality. Most countries that have

attempted and succeeded in

establishing a national identity have

invested a lot in the multicultural

element of this identity. In Greece

one feels a citizen of the world but if

confined to the local scene one is

working with people of the same

nationality with similar experiences

and attitudes.

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Inevitably one feels as if working in a

vacuum in the middle of an ocean,

isolated and unable to communicate

with the rest of the world. This

isolation would be somehow

understandable if our cultural

production was extremely site

specific, untranslatable and focused

on the Greek public. Or else, if there

was a balance between production

and consumption and a very strong

and sustainable local market with its

own rules. But of course this is not

the case. Such balance does not exist

and in reality most contemporary

cultural production is neither

directed towards nor consumed by

the local market. Most cultural

producers are constantly moving

trying to find the frameworks that do

not exist here. And the reality is that

the market is elsewhere and the

rules are not created by us.

Unavoidably the local market which

is strong but small is influenced by

an international system as value is

formulated by what is happening

elsewhere. And this elsewhere

is very close to us.

The need to integrate to existing but

foreign frameworks and institutions

has less to do with the fact that one

does not wish to be here and more

with the fact that we have not yet

managed to create the frameworks

and institutions that will allow other

people to come here. The

establishment of such conditions

needs time and planning. One needs

to invest and believe that such an

investment is needed. That more

people than those directly involved,

are to profit from such an

investment.

L.Alimantiri

Drafts

Giorgos Hadjimichalis talks

to Asteropi Lazaridou about

his participation in Venice

Biennale, the relations

between Greek and

International art scene and

Piet Mondrian

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Giorgos Hadjimichalis: from

Hospital to the mind of Piet

Mondrian. One only has to take

Freud’s theory that "a person’s home

is the mirror of their psychological

make-up" a little further to state that

an artist’s workshop is their most

representative work: a constantly

changing work in progress that will

never be complete. Enthralled by

the personality of Piet Mondrian

(1872-1944), and having shown his

composition Hospital at the 51st

Venice Biennale and again recently

at Athens’ Benaki Museum, Giorgos

Hadjimichalis is experimenting,

taking the works and the words of

the great Dutch Suprematist as his

starting point. His show at the

Bernier-Eliades gallery consists of

three sections: a

construction/reconstruction of

Mondrian’s New York studio (the

artist tended to work in spaces

reminiscent of installations, playing

with various geometric shapes and

colours on the walls); a DVD

analyzing/reading Mondrian’s

famous painting Broadway Boogie-

Woogie (1942-43) with the help of

music and mathematical precision;

and four drawings which, as the

Greek artists notes, made him

overcome past taboos on what a

painting can be.

Were you satisfied with thetransfer of Hospital from theVenice Biennale to the BenakiMuseum?

The work was set up differently at

the Benaki, and it worked. The

Benaki’s concept of exhibiting works

from the Biennale for the Greek

public is a very good one; of course,

it could show more: works from Sao

Paolo, for example. People feel the

need to stay in touch with what is

going on abroad, which explains the

increased attendance at the

exhibition.

How do you operate at your ownshows? Do you like looking at thecrowd looking at your work?

I am interested in the public’s

reactions to my works, but I’m not

obsessive about it. If I’m spotted in

the exhibition space or asked who

the artist is and introduce myself, I

enjoy guiding people round the

exhibits and explaining my

perspective.

Conceptual art leaves infinitescope for interpretation. Where doyou stand?

I try to make my works crystal clear

from a conceptual point of view, to

really show what I show. I want my

titles to lead the viewer directly into

the story I want to tell.

Titles are now something of ararity. More and more artists areleaving their works "untitled"…

For me, titles are a very important

business. As I see it, only abstract art

has no need of them, and even

that’s debatable. Imagine a book

without a title; could that ever work?

What about young artist: howwould you say they weredeveloping?

The new generation will_when,

touch wood, the National Museum

of Contemporary Art (EMST) is up

and running-be in a position to

travel beyond Greece’s borders and

show their work abroad. Which

means I am very optimistic indeed

about how things are going to be in

Greece. The younger generation has

tried to bring about change. So if

the Museum operates properly-

instituting the necessary foreign

GiorgosHadjimichalis

Hospital, installation view

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exchanges, establishing a firm basis

for collaboration with museums

abroad, and thus bringing a playing

field into being on which the ‘ball’

can come and go-we will at last be

able to hope.

Would you say there was a senseof rivalry between the older andyounger generations of Greekartists?

I’ve never sensed anything like that;

there might be people who feel that

way about me, but I can’t know that.

That the galleries remain ‘out of

bounds’ to young artists remains a

key issue. That said, it was a

hundred times more difficult to get

your work exhibited in my day, as

there are now several ‘open-minded’

galleries-smaller ones, but at least

four, like "Breeders", that are

established players on the Athenian

scene_that are willing to open their

doors to younger artists. The EMST

has also included young artists in

exhibitions of its acquisitions, and

that’s something. There could have

been more, but I imagine the

situation will improve with time.

What are the ‘scourges’ ofcontemporary art in Greece?

The problem in Greece is the

absence of institutions capable of

staying in touch with what is going

on in Europe. The EMST has taken

45 years longer than it should have

to materialize, and most Greek

collectors only buy foreign works,

which means that the domestic art

market is too weak to support

domestic art production.

How do you explain this ‘maniafor all things foreign"?

I’ll give you an example: Spyros

Papaloukas is a very fine artist

whose work can be compared with

anything produced in Europe, and

indeed the world. No one seems to

recognize that. Put a view like that

in print, and it could influence

opinions and become accepted

wisdom first in Greece and then

internationally; fail to do so, and it

cannot. Because Greek art historians

didn’t learn about Papaloukas from

their foreign professors, they

consider him inferior to, for

example, Bonnard. I have written

about the Greek painter in question,

stating, among other things, that he

is an outstanding artist who has

been consigned to the Greek

fringes, because the people who put

him there think like provincials.

That’s how they work; they can’t do

otherwise with the brains they have.

Not just in the arts; generally. They

don’t respect themselves. Greek

society has no self-respect. And

when a society does not respect

itself, the same will be true of the

arts-there’s no avoiding it.

There’s a general sense of thingshappening out of phase inGreece…

People still come out with the old

chestnut that "Greek artists are ten

to fifteen years behind the

foreigners", but that’s their own

invention; it’s their nonsense. Greek

artists aren’t behind anyone. If

anyone or anything’s ‘retarded’, it’s

them. I mean, what model was

Papaloukas copying, or Kontoglou?

In what way was Tsarouchis

‘behind’? And that’s a real thorn in

the side of contemporary Greek art;

that it has never had anything

approaching even middling support

from the art critics and their

atrocious reading of modern Greek

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Three Works for Piet Mondrian, installation view

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art. Of course, it’s not the only thorn.

There’s the absence, too, of

institutions capable of projecting

works beyond Greece’s borders, the

limited number of collectors, most

of whom consult experts from

abroad, meaning they buy foreign

works, and so on. Of course, there

are exceptions, but they are few and

far between.

You often talk about the beneficialqualities of public space on artworks. Are there such spacesnowadays?

Everything is very clearly defined

nowadays. The encouraging thing is

that people now flock to

contemporary art exhibitions, which

essentially means that museums are

the public spaces of our times. The

public space par excellence today is

exhibition space. Of course, there

are also works in banks, and let’s not

forget the very fine work done in

the Athens Metro; especially Nikos

Kessanlis’ The Queue in Omonoia

station, which is a stupendous work!

With Hospital, you initiated adialogue between art and life;indeed, in Venice, your work led tothe operation of a team ofvolunteer blood donors.

I’m still very much focused on that

dialogue. As I see it, the term

‘political work’ has been turned on

its head in recent years. While any

extroverted work with a hefty dose

of propaganda was considered

political in the early 20th century, a

genuinely ‘thoughtful’ work is today

a profoundly personal work.

Meaning that quite the opposite

now holds. The works which,

flooding the marketplace, describe

themselves as political are actually

consumer goods. World apart from

profound political thought, they call

to mind advertising slogans and

deal in obvious symbolisms and

clichés. In today’s visual arts, it is the

personal works_works that can

bring forth an extant social problem,

a human problem, a mental

state_that constitute the genuine

political act. The viewer can take a

piece of every artist’s truth.

What did you get from the viewersat the Biennale?

Some pretty powerful stuff went

down. Older people were especially

moved by Hospital, while younger

generations examined it from a

more aesthetic perspective.

Would you say there were Greekartists who are treated as thoughthey were infallible?

There are some artists whose

reputations far outstrip their

abilities; I think everyone knows who

they are. We’re talking about a

group of artists who enjoy the

recognition of the public, who have

now acquired considerable fortunes,

and whose duds are not only

forgiven; they’re snapped up for

outrageous sums!

What is inspiration’s mostformidable foe?

Idleness! The act of working gives

rise to endless ideas. Every work

brings another ten concepts into

being, and you have to decide

which one you are going to realize.

I’m not embarrassed to say I have a

lot of ideas, that they’re ‘difficult’,

and that I don’t know if I’ll have the

time to render them.

You are a conceptual artist, yetyou’ve never rejected painting…

I’m a painter, and I use painting a lot

in my Mondrian exhibition. I put

GiorgosHadjimichalis

Three Works for Piet Mondrian, installation viewC

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GiorgosHadjimichalis

every medium to my own personal

use, whatever it takes to illustrate

the story I want to tell. The

‘dialogue’ with Mondrian gave me a

lot; it spurred me on to create works

that liberated me from my taboos

on what a work of art can be.

What was it that fascinated youmost about Mondrian?

He’s a figure who puzzled me for a

long time. Ever since I was a boy, he

left me nonplussed. Although I like

his work, I didn’t understand what it

was I liked about it and why.

Growing up, I came to grasp

Mondrian’s importance and decided

to delve further. I started studying

his texts and thought about

reconstructing his studio. Which is

more or less how my relationship

with him was born. I’d been thinking

for years about how Broadway

Boogie-Woogie could be ‘read’. And

I was bowled over by his

optimism/ambition, his belief that

through an artistic

movement_Suprematism--he could

change society. It may sound naïve

today, but it’s nice to think that an

artistic genius believed something

like that. That a particular moral

stance could allow us to live in a

better world. Of course, he could

never have imagined that decades

later, his famous Composition with

red, black, blue, yellow and grey

(1920) would be the trade-mark of

L’OREAL, a cosmetics company.

Which may well be the epitome of

tragic irony! ·.

What is the actual use value

of Visions 06 in the

discursive field of

contemporary Greek art,

wonders Alexandra

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Rooms to let

"Please don’t queue. I’m telling

you, there’s nothing going on in

this room. At least, nothing that is

different from real life", the actor

Dimitris Lignadis informs an

enthusiastic swarm of visitors (or

fans?) who cluster outside his

room. It is the preview of the

exhibition Visions 06 and the

Imperial Hotel in Metaxourgio is

buzzing as art cognoscenti,

celebrities, spouses, siblings and

friends call in to see new (or

supposedly new) works by the 40

artists and 30 curators that have

occupied the hotel’s rooms. There

is heavy traffic in the corridor;

people flock chattering merrily,

catching up or networking, hugs

and cuddles, handshakes and

passing smiles, while a fairly

unpleasant mélange of designer

perfumes, aftershave and G&T

scents the air. Decisively squeezing

one’s way through, or patiently

joining different queues, one gets

eventually to peep into the rooms;

given the circumstances, encounter

has come to substitute for scrutiny

here. Besides, showmanship (and

salesmanship if one were to be

bluntly cynical) rather than the love

of art as such is what brings most

of us to this well-orchestrated

festive ballyhoo.

The drive behind this event, an

initiative of the Kappatos Gallery

that dates back to 1998, was, we

are told, to widen the local

audience for contemporary art. This

is undeniably a noble cause and if

high attendance figures were to be

considered the best performance

indicator of the effectiveness of

such a venture then undoubtedly

the event has been a great success.

But is this what one means by

widening? Is it all about physical

accessibility, that is, making art

available to the "masses" as Walter

Benjamin would have it? Or is it

equally about conceptual

accessibility, a long-term and as

such more difficult endeavour, so

that art, and contemporary art

more so, is actually understood by

the "masses"?

The gradual shift towards the

populist model has been as much a

practical necessity for art museums

that had to make ends meet

without depending on the public

purse as it was a consequence of

the turn towards multiculturalism

in social and cultural theory in the

1980s. Against this context, and

aiming to reinvigorate the 1970s

discussion about "cultural

democracy" and

representativeness, the

postmodern museological

discourse sought to mark a

departure from the exclusive model

of the modernist art institution,

emphasising the urgency of

turning the museum into a

"multiperspectivalist" discursive

space.1 Often compared to "Las

Vegas show razzmatazz" or

"supermarket consumer culture",

particularly when excessive

imagineering and branding is

involved, this new "demotic" profile

has nonetheless been effective in

expanding and amalgamating the

museum audiences. Terry Bennett

argues that just as the newly

established nineteenth-century

museum validated its institutional

credentials by distancing its

ordered and rational display from

the popular cultural surroundings

Marc Hatzipateras, installation view

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of the circus, the traveling

exhibition, and the fair, so the

postmodern museum, with its

mixing of elite and popular

audiences, emulates the ideological

rhetoric of the fair and the

amusement park.2 Hilde S. Hein

explains that what accounts for the

success of the exhibits in the new

museum is the prime experience of

the "customer/visitor", their

"evocation of imaginative truth as

present truth".3

Showmanship and shock have

proved to be most effective in

capturing the public imagination:

sensation (as was the title of the

homonymous Royal

Academy/Charles Saatchi

exhibition of YBAs in London in

1997), immediacy, fetishisation of

the new, deadpan, kitchen-sink

realism and spectacle that draws,

more often than not, on the

"popular gothic" have now become

synonymous with up-to-the-minute

contemporary art. And so has the

media hype: it was the blaze of

publicity that controversial Turner

Prize nominations such as Damien

Hirst’s dissected cow and child and

Tracey Emin’s bed and sexual

ephemera generated that

established the YBA’s in the

popular picturesque in Britain on a

par with J.M.W. Turner and Lucian

Freud.

Some claim that this is exactly the

kind of boost that Greek art needs

if it is to blossom in Greece: to

acquire an established history and

stardom in order to become part of

the popular consciousness, (or

rather, part of the mainstream

lifestyle, some argue). But how an

ambitious project such as Visions

06 may attract a largely

uninstructed and fairly indifferent

public? Is spectacle and the

publicity brouhaha the best (if not

the only) course? Could

popularisation avoid

"blandification" and "dumbing

down"?

Gerassimos Kappatos decided to

spice up the opening evening with,

what later proved to be, one-off

performances by Dimitiris Lignadis

and his team, Themis Bazaka, the

Enniamorpho dance group, Leda

Patta and the Bosnian Jusuf

Hadzifejzovic, whose shaving off at

the hotel’s lobby was supposed to

be among the highlights of the

opening. Unsurprisingly, given

their theatrical background, their

performances had morphological

affinities with performance art (that

is, the practice that developed as a

reaction to traditional theatre in

the 1950s and 1960s) rather than

art perfomance, which originates

from within the visual arts. And

although a knowledgeable

onlooker (equally armed with good

will) could possibly see the

parallels drawn with the repertoire

of the cabaret (the combination of

prose, poetry, naturalistic songs,

dance, pantomime, interaction with

the audience, the vaudeville and

the burlesque no less), these

performances were but narcissistic

sweet nothings, being largely

incomprehensible, and far from

intellectually challenging or even

amusing. To play the role of the

philistine here, how (and most

importantly why) should one make

sense, for instance, of a group of

young men who, wearing paper

masks with Lignadis’s face, jumped

Rooms to let

Themis Bazaka, installation view

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up and down in the room as if in

Dionysian ecstasy whilst the artist

recited poems by Kafavis? Does the

fact that these are well-established

performers justify both the end

and the means? And visitors did

wonder what this was all about:

"Shame on you!", "What the f… is

going on in here?", read some of

the comments that visitors wrote

on the wall in Bazaka’s room.

And even if one were to claim that

the experience, the medium that is,

is indeed the message here,

whoever has visited the exhibition

after the opening could only

"experience" the performances on

video, which, of course, defies the

very nature of the performance as

an event that "is physically realised

before an audience".4 Thus, despite

the fact that the simulated

environment of the strip bar

remains largely unchanged, Leda

Patta’s performance as Angel the

Stripper, albeit not particularly

inspired in the first place, cannot

have the same effect when

experienced as a video piece. It is

highly unlikely that the elderly man

who watched the performance live

with his overtly put-off wife would

have the same teenage grin at the

sight of the artist rhythmically

unzipping her dress. "Does the

presence of Angel denote an

absence?" Patta asks in the

accompanying text. It certainly

does; it denotes an absence of

reflection. And this, I’m afraid,

applies to most of the

contributions to the exhibition.

The fact that only few artists and

curators seemed to have seriously

taken into account that this was

meant to be a site specific show

and not a conventional white cube

display is most telling. Such a

setting would have been an

excellent opportunity to challenge

the repertoire of the invisible

qualities and their intertextual

relations that define the

"metamorphosis" of objects into

works of art in different viewing

contexts and leave the white cube

modes of displays and their

paraphernalia behind. But few

seem to ask what it means to show

one’s work in a luxury hotel that is

located in the still derelict, red light

district of Athens? In her video

installation, Lydia Andrioti has

attempted to point, alas in passing

and fairly idiosyncratically, to the

particularities of the locality, and

the ethics of prostitution more

specifically, as has Despina Stokou

who painted the urban landscape

and the inhabitants of the

surrounding area. But how about

the venue itself as a commercial

space associated with consumer

leisure? To turn a room upside-

down (Erinç Seymen) as, we

assume, an act of domestification

or to cram it with colourful IKEA

products to an extent that it

becomes utterly kitsch (Mark

Xatzipateras) may be hints, but

these too only go half way; they do

not, in effect, overcome

aestheticisation.

Overall, there are no surprises here;

no high spirited efforts, no

enthusiasm. The eloquent

accompanying texts in the

catalogue do manage to built up

expectations if read before visiting

the exhibition, but prove to be

wishful thinking, if not sophistries,

once you enter the rooms. With the

Rooms to let

Gianna Nikolopoulou, installation view

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Rooms to let

exception of the contributions of

Zheng Guogu, Liang Shuo and

Zhang Yuan that looked into the

ideological, social, and cultural

contradictions in modern China,

much of what is on display is, time

and again, "self-contained" but not

exactly self-sufficient "art for art’s

sake". What else could the

ballroom dress made of sanitary

towels be?

The fairground frenziness of the

opening night brings to mind

Disneyland; not in the sense that

this was a theme park like event

where art appreciation mingled

with spectacle, interactivity, and

entertainment, but that it was a

simulation in all its respects. "To

dissimulate is to feign not to have

what one has. To simulate is to

feign to have what one hasn’t. One

implies a presence, the other an

absence", Baudrilliard wrote in the

1980s.5 Although Gerassimos

Kappatos should be given credit

for his merit in single-handedly

organising such an event, it leads

nowhere to feign what we do not

have, that is, as we all know, an art

scene proper. And no matter how

elaborately artists and wannabe

artists eager to become the home-

grown YBA’s (or rather YGA’s),

recently repatriated curators and

critics appropriate the mannerisms,

style, and even dressing code of

their European counterparts in

their khaki military jackets and

charity-shop like outfits, it is not

enough. And, what is more, it

misses the point. It just presents

"our imaginative truth as present

truth" and spares us the trouble of

dealing face to face with "the

reality principle."6

The exhibition Visions 06, organized by the

Kappatos Gallery, was held at the Athens

Imperial Hotel (Palteia Karaiskaki,

Metaxourgeio) from April 3 to April 19 2006

1 Hilde S. Hein, The Museum in Transition: A

Philosophical Perspective (Washington:

Smithsonian Institution Press, 2000), p. 45.

2 Terry Bennett, The Birth of the Museum:

History, Theory Politics (London/New York:

Routledge, 1995), pp. 6-7 and 102-5.

3 Hein, op. cit., p. 62.

4 Dennis Kennedy (ed.), The Oxford

Encyclopaedia of Theatre and Performance,

vol. I, A-L (Oxford: Oxford University Press,

2003), p. 1019.

5 Jean Baudrillard, “Simulacra and Simulations”

(1983) included in Mark Poster (ed.), Jean

Baudrillard: Selected Writings (Stanford, 1988),

p. 171

6 ibid., p. 175·.

Art

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Anny Malama returns to the

exhibition on the 70’s

generation and points out

some indicative episodes

before the "defiance" in the

history of Greek post-war art

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In May 1953, Spyros Vasileiou

showed a set of works entitled Works

in tempera and water-colours, 1950-

53 at the Vima Gallery.

The exhibition garnered praise across

the board–which was probably par

for the course then as far as the Press

response to Vasileiou's work was

concerned_and earned "a record

amount", bearing in mind that by

May 20, "28 works, to which must be

added a number of commissions

received by the distinguished artist

from numerous art lovers" had

already been sold (Achilleas Mamakis,

Ethnos, 20/05/1953).

At the same time, a brief_though

enlightening–exchange between the

art critic Giorgos Petris and the artist

Alekos Kontopoulos was sparked off

by a review the former had published

in the Avgi on May 21, 1953.

Petris’ perspicacious comments

certainly capture the aesthetic

signature of Vasileiou the artist, who,

equipped with the visual vocabulary

of ‘tradition’, enjoys a successful

career on the verges of an ‘easy’

genre style which yields attractive

results, though without making any

attempt at a critical appraisal of the

life of the people:

"Vasileiou’s work gives us a lesson in

good taste. But about the life flowing

relentlessly all around us he says

nothing. Will this artist persist in

appraising the aesthetic significance

of the things around him, or will the

day come when he resolves to get in

there amongst them and see what

lies hidden beneath his harmonious

surfaces?" (G. Petris, "Vasileiou’s

painting", Avgi, 21/05/1953.

In turn, Kontopoulos sent a letter

published in the Avgi on 03/06/1953

that seeks to respond to Petris’

position apropos an artist like

Vasileiou, who "constitutes a case any

assessment of which, quite apart

from his art, is representative of the

modus operandi and tactics of a large

part of our cultural scene", seizes the

opportunity to put the stereotypes of

Greekness under the microscope, but

chiefly defends abstract art in terms

of form and content, his argument

centring on an artwork’s right to be

self-referential, since "in conclusion, a

work’s formal composition is

undoubtedly the criterion against

which its quality can be gauged".

So Petris was justified in returning to

the issue (Avgi, 16/06/1953) and

rightfully pointing out that "nothing

is closer to the dogma of pure Art

than the view that a work will be

judged by its form". And he very

rightly goes on to argue that "his

(Kontopoulos’) views are in essence

no different from those I saw applied

in Vasilieou’s work".

Though they aroused little interest at

the time, the questions posed within

the above exchange (and which are

also dimly discernible in the episodes

described below) are–strangely

enough–precisely those that shaped

the quests of a dominant aesthetic

based on good taste in post-war

Greece (too), and played a central

role in determining the directions

taken by art production in the given

market.

Questions that seem to succeed in

providing satisfactory descriptions of:

a) the extent to which art production

in Greece was to be held

back_irrespective of period–by art

criticism which, even on those (few)

occasions when it seems to be laying

claim to living space for innovative

proposals, undermines itself as the

product of an entrenched and

introverted intelligentsia (exactly as

Christos Chomenides describes in the

April edition of · which can only

function in a sphere limited ab initio;

and

b) the degree to which, starting in

the late Fifties and growing more

Art criticism and art productionin post-war Greece

Kostas Tsoklis, Informations, 1972,

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extreme in the years that followed in

relation to the problematics

emerging in Europe and the US, the

issues raised by Greek artists in their

work failed to correspond with either

their country’s singular social and

political state or the production,

operation and reception horizon of

their works.

More specifically, the arts scene in

Athens during the Fifties was

‘justified’ with presentations abroad

that–as ever–sought recognition in

Western eyes; welcomed publications

describing the "powerful

reverberations of Cézanne’s art fifty

years on" in the work of Greek artists,

who primarily "start out from their

magnificent national heritage" (Le

Droit, Ottawa, 25/11/1953); patted

itself on the back with titles like "The

Greek art exhibition in Chicago a

resounding success: opening

ceremony televised!"; heaped praise

on Yugoslavian artists_works by

whom were shown in Zappeion in

May 1953–because they also

"constitute an admirable attempt at

rendering the national character of

people and things" (Ethnos,

13/05/1953), though hushing up the

obvious similarities with Greece as

any comparison with the Balkans was

considered demeaning; hosted "a

travelling exhibition of woodcuts

organized by the International

Programme of New York’s Museum of

Modern Art" (Ethnos, 23/04/1958);

noted the interest of a well-known

American businessman in purchasing

Greek artworks (Ta Nea, 16/08/1955);

makes much of Spyropoulos’ contract

with a New York gallery (Ta Nea,

12/02/1957), though when worried,

as "the works being sent abroad do

not represent the modern Greek

reality", wonders "what do they want

today, abroad, from painting" (Nea

Grammi, 15/02/1957).

In other words, gathered here are the

salient characteristics of a provincial

art market integrated into given

spheres of political and economic

influence; of course, it is also a

reflection of the unwholesome

atmosphere of the post-war state.

Nor is it devoid of significance that

abstraction suddenly ‘came into

fashion’ and accounted for an ever-

increasing market share, nor that

powerful names in art criticism such

as A. Prokopiou strove to ‘convert’

the public in line with Greenberg’s

theories. One only has to consider

the manner in which Prokopiou

reproached the local Guggenheim

award committee (D. Evangelides, K.

Pangalos, M. Hadjidakis) in the

summer of 1958 for selecting an

artist like G. Gounaropoulos when, in

his opinion, only Spyropoulos, or

Vasileiou "thanks to the high quality

surrealist nature of his works", could

have hoped to earn distinctions "in

the prevailing modern art climate of

New York and the Guggenheim

Museum".

When Vlassis Caniaris first showed his

work at the Zygos gallery in May

1958, one can only be impressed by

just how effectively the sum total of

reviews relating to his work’s

potential, which in his case was in no

way limited to the unhitching of the

creative process from the

conventions and rules of a figurative

composition, served to invalidate the

exhibition. In fact, it was primarily the

positive reviews (by E. Vakalo, A.

Provelengios, A, Prokopiou, M.

Hadjidakis) that reduced the political

character of his works to nothing,

while the exhibition’s critics (M.

Garides writing in the Avgi, and M.

Zografou in the Anexartitos Typos)

approach the collection in historical

terms without invalidating it (though

persisting with barbs of another

Art criticism and art production inpost-war Greece

Yorgos Lazogas, Palempsiston, 1979

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Art criticism and art production inpost-war Greece

kind). No one would seem to have

grasped the essence of his work at a

time when Caniaris himself, in an

interview he gave Tachydromos

(31/05/1958), shows himself to have

been sufficiently clear and

illuminating with regard to his aims.

A question that has been asked many

times (and has led on several

occasions to interesting discussions)

concerns whether art criticism and art

production in Greece have ever

actually touched upon the principles

of ‘genuine modernism (‘genuine or

not, the term ‘modernism’ is

problematic in any case when used

with reference to Greek art) and

avant-garde trends. And if this did

occur in the post-war period (as

suggested), how post-war was it?

Of course, the question mark does

not relate to specific superficial (or

otherwise) references to

morphological innovations and

stylistic coinages, but to the

fundamental issue of (re)uniting art

with life and historical reality.

Even in those cases when the urge to

depict a socio-political climate

intensifies in the work of the artists of

the post-war diaspora, breaking free

of the confines of decorative genre

and national-mythologizing

extensions-the three proposals for a

new Greek sculpture show staged by

Caniaris, Kessanlis and Danil in 1964

being the classic example/turning

point_to what extent would the

readings of the works accord with the

climate of change?

It should be remembered that during

this same period, intellectuals of

Karouzos and Andronikos’ ilk were

hard at work trying to prove the

Greek origins of abstraction.

Press announcements and critical

pieces relating to the reception of the

Panathenian Sculpture exhibition of

1965–the international modern

sculpture show (conceived with a

view to its later becoming a biennale)

organized by the Greek Tourist Board

and the Ministry of Education as part

of the Athens Festival–pursued the

same line. The proffered readings of

the exhibition, even that of its chief

organizer, T. Spiteris, emphatically

state the special weight of the place

where the works were displayed-

Philopappos Hill, in the shadow of the

Acropolis_while insisting on a linear,

historicist approach to the material,

with ancient Greek art as its starting

point.

So when, five years later in 1970,

Theodoros was to compile his

"instructions for use" in the catalogue

for the Sculpture for public

participation-participation forbidden

exhibition/event (appended to the

Anthology of Texts in the catalogue

for the EMST’s The Years of Defiance-

The Art of the ‘70s in Greece

exhibition), and noted inter alia:

"DON’T TOUCH THE ART-WORKS

because:

a) they are destined for museums and

collections_places where DURATION,

the prefabricated everlastingness of

art, is verified and ensured.

b) the art-works are for sale-they are a

commodity, a luxury consumer good-

do not destroy them, do not harm the

artist! (mercy)",

he would appear totally in synch with

the questions and issues being posed

in Europe and America.

But which museum could he be

referring to, when the National

Gallery was housed in private

premises in the Athens of 1972, and

would have to wait another three

Spyros Vasileiou, Memorabilium from Aegina, 1952

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years to acquire its own code in the

Greek budget? And moreover, which

and how many could those-even

private-collections be (and in Athens

alone) that could ensure the

verification of the unique nature of

works of art?

In reality, the artists of the "years of

defiance" had to invent the

institutions against which they could

protest, since, in reality, they had

nothing to oppose save the absence

of institutions. The ever-limited

potential of both demand and supply

in the domestic art scene and a

problematic political scene had to

serve as their only points of reference.

Hence, what their work would seem

to record_more clearly than ever

before, thanks to their impressive

synchronization with the issues of the

international artistic reality_is the

participation of a provincial art scene

and its representatives in

developments hatched in the

cosmopolitan centres on an

apparently equal basis that was, in

fact, anything but. And in a way that

reveals just how authoritatively the

prevailing impression of a (purely

fictitious) playing down of differences

can operate.

In other words, anything that can be

considered defiance on the level of

intentions inevitably winds up

manifesting itself as the adoption and

application of an all-embracing,

homogenizing solution. A solution

that proves inadequate, hampered by

its not being determined by the

particular terms of the problem itself.

The exhibition The Years of Defiance: The Art

of the ’70s in Greece, curated by Bia

Papadopoulou was presented by The

National museum of Contemporary Art at the

New Wing of the Athens Hall of Music

·.

Writing about Eva Vretzaki’s

exhibition, Christopher Marinos

points out the exertion of a

forbidden right: identification

with the monster

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The Athens She-Werewolf

Half a century ago, in 1956, Le bainde Diane [Diana at her Bath] by authorand painter Pierre Klossowski waspublished in France. According toMichel Foucault, this peculiar work onshepherd Actaion pursuing thegoddess Artemis and his subsequentturning into a figure with the body ofa dog and the head of a deer, is a textdealing with "a legend and a myth ofdistance" – a distance that does notallow for any familiarity and which, atleast as it was conceived by Foucault,refers to both the main character'simage and author Klossowski'slanguage, who in turn is lost into "theabyss of the semblable". And ifFoucault's view, expressed in 1964,heralded his celebrated essay on the"Death of the Author," published afew years later, Michel Butor's view onKlossowski and the work in question issomewhat more easily assimilated, ifequally substantial: "He seeks systemsof reference which enable him to passjudgment on himself and on theworld around him". This very

monomaniacal appropriation of the"other", the "pretense andconcealment", the game oftransformations, the emphasis on thepsychological connotations of a "text"as well as the author's mutualdependency on his character, andconsequently his semblable, are someof the things invading your mindwhen, now as a spectator, you comeface to face with Eva Vretzaki's works,based on the myth and legend of thewerewolf.

Entitled "Full Moon", Vretzaki's firstsolo exhibition at the Gazon RougeGallery in Athens consists of two units,or "parts" to use the cinematographicparlance. In the first one, whichcomprises two video loops fromacross the room (She werewolf onmountain, 2006 and She werewolf inthe wood, 2006), each separated by aseries of wood bars, we see – or rathermake out fragments of – the artist inthe guise of a werewolf, an encaged(?) monster, which, as we also knowfrom the cinema of the imaginary, is

usually a fetishised product, a kind oftourist attraction for the greedy eyesof the Western, mostly male, art-loving public.

The two videos evoke a hauntingatmosphere of mystery and tension,while also vividly suggesting Romanticpaintings by their stillness. Theidentity of the creature portrayed isnevertheless open to question: is itsapparent apathy the shield that makesit non-spectacular, unapproachable,incomprehensible, ambiguous? Onthe one hand, it seems fragile,melancholy, solitary, and on the otheryou expect it to jump at you anymoment now and give you a taste ofits sharp teeth. On the one hand, theseparation of the gallery and the factthat the viewers are "encaged" furtherintensify the fictional element, and onthe other they suggest the monster'sindependence from its observer'sfragmented gaze. The "from above"and protective "exposure" of thewerewolf-Vretzaki – this "high potencyof a solitary conception" as André

Breton would say – manages to blockoff any superfluous and commonplacefeeling on the viewer's part (mercy,compassion, fun, repulsion) and at thesame time to undermine the panopticcontrol mechanism of a wild soul. Thesuccess of the two videos as well as ofthe installation as a whole lies in thatthe viewer, just like the artist herself,sympathises with the monster, doesnot shy away from it – which is whyhe resembles it. This feeling offamiliarity in a broader context ofestrangement may very well remindone of little Ana, dreaming of meetingand ultimately becoming identifiedwith the cute monster in JamesWhale's "Frankenstein", sensitivelycaptured in Victor Erice's 1973 classicfilm "Spirit of the Beehive".

Naturally, Vretzaki's liberation is not asinnocent as it seems at first. Herjudgment of herself and of the worldaround her – and in this peculiar"world" we should probably includeboth the viewers of Full Moon and the

Videostill

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The Athens She-Werewolf

art world in general – is not the mostpositive one. Just like Borges' tigerand Leonora Carrington('s) hyena,Vretzaki('s) werewolf – who operateslike the imaginary semblable andreference system for her – is a fantasy,"symbolizing the quest for a kind ofviolence, whose experience" in hersecure life as an artist – and in oursecure lives as viewers – "was notavailable to her and to us at all". Inother words, these two video worksare nothing but a mental revenge, theexercise of a forbidden right, of asecret, repressed and unwholesomedesire, which operates both ways.

The second part of the exhibitionincludes drawings (Dog Eating Man,Dog Eating Head, Arf, Shadow, Moor)and oil paintings (Mask 2, Bushes) ofwild monsters attacking, ominousshadows, together with self-portraitsof Vretzaki-Werewolf, along with wolfstatuettes inspired by JapaneseNetsuke. Here, Vretzaki adopts, and inmy opinion is completely justified in

doing so, a visual attitude of relativelymore distance with respect to hersubject, in her effort precisely tocapture its various aspects and tohighlight the multidimensionalpersonality of her "semblable". So, if inthe first part there was an evidentneed for identification andjuxtaposition, here one notes theartist's attempt to approach hersubject in a more figurative manner,and therefore using more traditionalmeans. This is because evidently thetransformation is now complete – yousee, the monster has been "liberated"and the mystery solved – and theviewer finds himself facing theultimate outcome of this searchingprocess of self-determination. Thispassage from darkness to light, from ahypnotic dimension to a moreobvious one, from the forcedexperience to the unforcedobservation, initially creates a feelingof domination with respect to theartist. In fact, one momentarily feels

that there is a risk that this

domination – always taking the form

of a clear overview of the artist's

material – turns into embarrassment,

and that Vretzaki tries as hard as she

can to maintain the irresistible

atmosphere and mystery of the first

part. On second thought, naturally,

one justifies the artist's approach, as

one simply becomes aware that this

kind of transition may be the only one

which does justice to an enterprise of

this kind – an enterprise naturally

introverted, hermetically closed, yet

ultimately – and we should not forget

this – terribly human.

The exhibition Full Moon by Eva Vretzaki was

held at the gazonrouge gallery (Victoros

Ougo 15, Metaxourgeio, tel. 210 5248077,

www.gazonrouge.com) between April 13

and May 20 2006.

·.

For the exhibition Tattoo my

Art and the aestheticisation

of the body’s alteration

writes Iliana Fokianaki

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First things first. Who would

want to have Mona Lisa or Boogie

Woogie tattooed on their back?

Not only would it look tacky I think

it would border scary…And I am

only saying that because the press

release suggests we think about

those two paintings as tattoos. In

any case, this exhibition at

Antonopoulou Gallery is –if

anything- interesting just by its

theme. It is indeed a very intimate

relationship between our body and

a piece of artwork imprinted on it.

And a great decision as well, no

matter whether you are 16 or not.

This special relationship between

an image and a person suggests a

bond. And as is mentioned in the

text accompanying the exhibition it

is almost as if people with tattoos

are the most fanatic art collectors.

Just think of those people that are

head to toe covered in tattoos.

There are several emerging and

established artists that have

participated in this show, and

although it sounds fairly easy and

straightforward, I suppose it is

difficult to actually begin to work

on something that is purposed to

go on someone’s skin. Possibly,

some of the artists didn’t take that

as seriously, and have produced

interesting yet slightly irrelevant

works. Although Kanarelis drawing

was very good and his reference to

Sol Le Witt was both successful and

interesting, it seemed more of a

drawing that was too afraid to

escape its own identity. Made first

of all under the influence of

symbols (such as the skull) that are

a "cliché" in the tattoo culture, and

secondly with a symbolic

personality/artist/work that is a

"cliché" in another culture that of

art and art history. Therefore, it

seemed as if it was an easy, an

expected correlation.

On the contrary, Eleni Kamma, also

used a very popular shape / symbol

used in tattoo culture, the heart,

but transformed into a whole

different story, still delicate enough

to be transferred onto one’s skin,

still interesting and balanced

enough to stand in its own right as

an intact drawing. Unfortunately,

some artists’ drawings were simply

to naïf to be considered as

drawings that could become

tattoos and looked more like what

one would paint on someone’s skin

with a fell-tip pen. However, most

works presented were very much

focused on what the art historian

Nantia Argyropoulou, has set as the

starting point of this show.

Definitely worth mentioning would

be the works of Katerina

Manolessou, that has a history of

working with popular culture and

imagery since she works for several

magazines in London such as Time

Out, and Rosina Baltatzi, a very

good surprise, a pop yet very

structured proposal. Lastly, I found

the works of Marie Wilson-

Valaoritis very intriguing.

Why have a tattoo?

Yorgos Gyparakis

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Why have a tattoo?

I thought it very useful to include

three very good professional

tattoo artists, Yorgos Pawell,

Klodian Luca and Thomas

Grammatikis, since that gave an

original platform for comparison

and understanding of the project

as well having on display texts,

booklets and pamphlets that gave

a good insight into the tattoo

culture.

There is one last thing that I

personally expected to see, in

reflection to my thoughts in the

beginning of this text. When

looking at the works, I expected

them to be slightly more personal

(as a proud owner of a tattoo that

I drew myself). I thought it would

be interesting to see what these

artists would consider

appropriate or desirable to carry

on their body and in many

examples that didn’t seem the

case. That of course, might be my

own misconception in relation to

what a tattoo symbolizes or

rather what it should and the

reality of hearts, dolphins, stars

and other meaningless examples.

Having thought on the matter

deeply –no matter I was 16- I

decided, and still think that a

tattoo is above all a symbol that

is strictly related to the person

bearing it. It is either a

description of an experience, or a

charm with a hidden meaning,

even a memory of your past but

definitely a representation of

something relevant to you. Or in

the worst case scenario the name

of a person you thought would be

under your skin as much as the

tattoo…

The point behind a tattoo and the

connection behind a tattoo and

the human body through an

aesthetic prism, are two vital

concerns posed in this exhibition.

Besides the "spiritual" use of the

tattoo, or its charm like quality in

many cultures such as the

Japanese, Chinese, Indonesian,

Celtic etc there is a simpler and

more contemporary reason for its

existence. It is aesthetically

beautiful, it is a decoration and it

represented (until some years ago

at least) a resistance, and a

specific standpoint when it comes

to class.

There are several issues at stake

here. Primarily, there is the

opinion that the naked body and

its simplicity represent the ideal

beauty, according to the ancient

Greeks. Emmanuel Kant in The

Critique of Judgement refers to

two different kinds of beauty.

Pure Beauty (referring to flowers,

birds, wallpaper etc) and the

adherent beauty (meaning human

beings, buildings, horses) that is

judged based on its purpose.

Commenting on tattoos that he

saw on Maori tribes, he criticizes

them because he considers

human beauty to be adherent

beauty therefore not to be

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Why have a tattoo?

combined or interfered with by

pure beauty (which are the

patterns of Maori tattoo for Kant).

Possibly human beauty is better

judged when it does not carry

any decorations. But if we take

into consideration Kant’s point of

view later on in the text where he

refers to the human beauty as

the ideal beauty, possibly tattoos

ruin this ideal in some way.

This conception about decoration

as harmful in relation to beauty is

also found in architecture with

several architects considering any

kind of decoration as absolutely

damaging for a building (another

adherent form of beauty

according to Kant).

A tattoo then as something

negative and disruptive if not

destructive, has been passed on

in the centuries when suddenly

of late it has been re-discovered

through fashion and mass culture

– it has been until recently a

working-class or an ex-prisoner

characteristic. Even today 95% of

British inmates, have tattoos.

With this exhibition, for me the

most important thought is that it

highlights –however lightly- the

tattoo as an insignia and

decoration that does not mark

shame, drug abuse, illegal

activity or a lower class, but is

now a trend of a post-punk

generation of the middle class,

globally and in Greece. It is not

mere coincidence that many

lifestyle magazines in Athens

have promoted the exhibition…

The exhibition Tattoo my Art curated by

Nadia Argyropoulou is held in

a.antonopoulou.art (20, Aristofanous Str,

Psyrris, tel. 210-3214994) between May 8 and

Juin 20 2006

Bibliography

Berger, John (1977) Ways of Seeing. London:

Penguin.

Kant, Immanuel (1987) Critique of

Judgement. Translation Werner S. Pluhar.

Indianapolis: Hackett.

Scruton, Roger (1979) The Aesthetics of

Architecture. Princeton: Princeton University

Press.·.

Kostas Ioannidis points out a

pop contradiction in the

project Black Tuda that was

presented in Ileana Tounta

Gallery by Apostolos

Zerdevas, Em Kei, Poka-Yio,

Dimitris Foutris and the

group Nethescerial

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Your Sweetness isMy Weakness

Reaching the main entrance to

the Ileana Tounta Gallery on

Sunday 14 May, a brief hand-

written note directed you to the

side entrance. You went up the

steps and there you were, you

had already entered the

underground of the event. If you

were to go down the steps

instead, it would have been

even more convincing. Once you

were on the top floor, you came

face to face with the projection

on the wall. You could see four

chaps—apparently the Black

Tuda—all dressed in black, in

gowns and conical hoods

wandering around (on video) in

the empty space of the gallery,

an act that could easily remind

you of the video clip of

Atmosphere by the Joy Division.

They moved in a ritualistic

manner as if they in a religious

procession, high priests of some

rock sect. They also bore, on

their backs, its symbols: a

radiate star, a motif that is often

used by D. Foutris and which

was repeated on one of the

walls.

The fussilade started at 9 o’clock

sharp. ∆he black metal group

Nethescerial appeared on stage

(in actual fact, there was no

stage proper, thus there was an

interesting mingling of the

musicians with the public) with

Black Tuda unobtrusively

accompanying them as part of

the background. The musicians

wore make-up as is usually the

case in their genre in which

posing is part and parcel of the

overall practice. Of epic origins

and intentions, their music is,

no doubt, rhythmic; it can

enchant you, that is, if you can

sustain its excruciating volume.

The cement industrial space

functions as a tight box. It

absorbs nothing and your ears

give in little by little. The singer,

a conscientious theatrical

performer, is constantly posing

firing out gestures and

expressions from a widely

ranging armoury to the public.

The audience seems to go

halves. Few are fans of the

group and of this particular

genre. They participate

employing a certain repertoire

of movements, communicating

directly with the musicians. The

rest of us are a curious and

"progressive" art crowd that

stands still observing the

concert more as a performance.

The form of Black Tuda’s project

was carefully worked out. It was

organized following all the

conventions that characterize

the promotion and presentation

of a concert in the context of

the rock (sub)culture (posters,

flyers, tickets, etc). Besides, the

participants at large share, more

or less, fixities that relate to the

field in question. Still, there was

something in the atmosphere

that made me recall the sense I

have when I watch scenes of

concerts performed by newly

converted Russian heavy metal

musicians or avant-garde

happenings coming from

countries in northeastern

Europe. I thought about it and

concluded that it is, most

probably, the strong intention

to provoke that poses, shouts

and gestures against everything

and everybody, but without the

prerequisite self-sarcasm and

the consciousness that others

have already attempted to do so

in a similar manner. On the

other hand, it may be simply

this: as, from a point onwards,

the music functions

independently from the artistic

part I am eventually inclined to

judge the whole event through

the music. This particular genre

always seemed to me

unbearably theatrical, almost

childish, at least in terms of

Black Tuda, Videostill from a concert.

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Your Sweetness isMy Weakness

appearances, qualities that could

immediately render it an

interesting terrain for discourse,

someone might as well argue. In

any case, what cannot be easily

disputed is that its practitioners

tend to take, perhaps with few

exceptions, themselves only too

seriously. Yet, the same often

applies to us, that is, the

members of the local artistic

microcosm. Thus, if Black Tuda’s

aim was to bring closer the

devotees of two different

contemporary religions, then

their venture was not, most

probably, successful for both

audiences, as all believers, do

take themselves too seriously.

This is why they are not open to

each another. It may be, on the

other hand, that their objective

was to show exactly this or just

to explore it: to probe the

suspicion—or certainty as far as I

am concerned—that

participation in the art world still

remains an elitist activity that

has little to do with more open

to the public forms like rock.

Regarding the title of the present

text, this relates to the

aforementioned comments about

the excess of the provocation

without the due dose of self-

sarcasm (it also relates, of

course, to the music I was

listening to when I started

writing). At the end, I turned to

reflect upon Black Tuda’s idea

but with different constituents.

I thought of four guys under the

name Gold or Silver Tuda and

flamboyant costumes. The

loudspeakers broadcast Barry

White and µurt Bacharach. The

audience gradually becomes

more relaxed and cheerful. They

listen to those glossy,

disincriminated tunes and the

lyrics that call for small,

everyday, domestic type

subversions. Subversions that

can noiselessly change your

attitude towards the other and

eventually towards the world.

Besides, the Residents never took

themselves seriously, nor, it goes

without saying, any of the rock

(semi)gods.

The v isual art project B lack Tuda

organised by Apostolos Zerdevas , Em

Kei , Poka-Yio , and Dimitr is Foutr is

with the part ic ipat ion of the group

Nethescer ia l was held at the I leana

Tounta Gal lery (Armatolon ηÈ

K lefton 48 , Athens , ÙËÏ . 210 6439466

e-mai l : i leanatounta@art- tounta .gr )

on 14 May 2006

·.

Katerina Nikou meets

Maro Mihalakakos and

discuss about his personal

and artistic formation

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Maro Michalakakou was born in

Athens in 1967. She studied at the

Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Arts

Plastiques de Clergy-Pontoise in

Paris. Her most recent solo show

was staged at New York’s 511

gallery in 2004.

Given that you know how hard itis to ensure a stable income, isbeing an artist a luxury?

In financial terms, yes, but I

wouldn’t say it was a luxury in

terms of the artistic process itself,

which is tough, though satisfying

and fulfilling. Of course, it is

difficult to ensure a stable income

as an artist if you limit yourself to

exhibiting in galleries. Seeking out

alternative solutions doesn’t make

you any less of an artist; ultimately,

I’d say it was the right thing to do.

How would you persuadesomeone to take an interest inthe contemporary art scene herein Greece?

I’d tell them it had a lot to offer.

That however closed it might

appear at first sight, they could

come, in time, to understand the

contemporary art scene if they

were patient and visited a few

exhibitions; that they’d learn how

to ‘read’ it, and that they might

develop a particular interest in

certain of the fronts on which it is

engaged.

Are galleries an élitist institution,in the sense that they usuallyaddress an audience that needs

to know a certain amount?

They are élitist in the same way

that someone could describe

museums, theatres or the cinema

as élitist. Now, which films and

theatrical or dance productions

each of us chooses to attend is our

own business.

Does art have to be trendy?

I believe that every artist should

stay in touch with what is

happening around us, just as they

ought to know what has happened

before us. I wouldn’t say art has to

consider trendiness an end in

itself, because art that does so is

empty. If an artist’s work happens

to be in tune with today’s trends

rather than those of the part, it

might be easier for viewers to

understand it. Of course, the

groundswell of an era is shaped by

the artists themselves through

their many and varied activities,

though this doesn’t mean that if

an artist has no chance of striking

a chord with the public if he/she

doesn’t stay in tune with new

developments.

You have exhibited successfullyin Paris and New York. Howdifficult is it for a Greek artist to‘convince’ abroad?

I don’t present myself as a Greek

artist, and I don’t think people

approach me in those terms. As I

see it, the subjects I tackle in my

work could be dealt with by

others, irrespective of their

nationality. Of course, they would

read or extend them in a way that

Visits

Maro Mihalakakos, Draft

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Visits

is their own, and which is shaped,

in part, by their native culture.

Which is a good thing. The bad

thing about Greek artists is that

they are positively hounded by the

riches of Greece’s historical part

and cultural heritage. Greece

means the Acropolis and ancient

monuments, which leads to the

sidelining of contemporary art.

How do Paris and New Yorkcompare?

Things are more professional in

New York and more intimate in

Paris. In New York, you sign a

contract, but not everything is so

clear cut in Paris. It goes without

saying that there is more to see in

New York, and that you can form a

more comprehensive view of

contemporary trends there. It

seems to me that Paris has been

trying to change its cultural

policies in recent years in an effort

to make it more receptive to

different approaches to art. Before

that, the city was hermetically

sealed in an academic French

scene that, in my opinion,

succeeded in divesting Paris of its

leading role in contemporary art.

Your work contains an intensesociological commentary thatemphasizes inter-genderrelations with a focus on women.Are things easier or harder for afemale artist?

To date, my work has tended to

reference relations between the

sexes, and, as you said, female

nature, because I am interested in

a range of issues relating to this

difference. I can’t answer your

question, because I only have

experience as a female artist, and

have nothing to compare that

experience with. What does feel

hard at times is combining

motherhood with creating art. Of

course, this might prove highly

fruitful; because I considered it

impossible to combine the two, it

took a lot of effort on my part to

see that, in the end, they are not

mutually exclusive.

What have you been working onrecently?

On the concept of time, and the

relationship everyone develops

with time at different times in their

lives.

Name two objects you have inyour studio and two you neverhave?

I have a mobile phone and books.

I’ve never had--but need--a stapler

and a pencil eraser.

What wouldn’t you like me tophotograph in your space?

Photograph anything you like; it’s

a total mess, anyway.

Which is your favourite work inhere?

I can’t pick one out; there are

some I prefer, but I can’t choose

one.

Which work would you donate tothe "Athens art review"?

Two old drawings, among the first

I did in Paris. ·.

ŒÎPublication: The Athens Biennial – Non-Profit Organization

Editor-in-chief: Theophilos Tramboulis

Contributors to this issue: Loraini Alimantiri, Iliana Fokianaki, Kostas Ioannidis, Anny Malama, Christopher Marinos,

Alexandra Moschovi, Katerina Nikou

Text Editing: Katerina Panoutsou

Translations: Voula Avgoustinou, Michael Eleftheriou, Dimitris Saltabasis

Lay-out: Dimitris Stathopoulos

Designed by: The Switch Design Agency

page 2: Eva Vretzaki, videostill from the exibition Full Moon