Art Athina, in collaboration with The J.F. Costopoulos Foundation, establishes an educational programme for students of the Athens School of Fine Arts running all year round. Art Athina Educational Programme aims to Inform, inspire and prepare young artists and theorists for their introduction to the art industry. Christina Nakou and Daphne Kourl, visual artists, are responsible for the management and coordination of the programme. The new venture will be presented in the context of the Talks of Art Athina 2018.
There follows the programme of the Talks of Art Athina 2018.
The Talks program of Art Athina 2018 has been conceived as a curated group show which will not follow the traditional forms of visual art projects but it will present Logos. Thus, instead of art works. Logos will occupy this special project and the audience will be able to listen to a show and not to see it. Each group of participants, will be a crucial fragment of the general concept adding important key elements to the Talk’s synthesis. During the three days, the speakers will reveal different ideological views, different philosophies, contradictory orientations and they will develop critical investigation on a common ground: the city of Athens. The program aims to articulate a variety of cultural expressions and forms as well as new approaches towards critical ambitions and the production of knowledge.
Katerina Nikou
Independent curator
based in Athens, Greece
Talks Thursday, June 21
Strophe, a Turning
14.00- 15.00
The screening is followed by a talk with artist Ellie Ga, moderated by Helena Papadopoulos, founder. Radio Athens
Strophe, a Turning (2017) opens with the artist quoting the Russian poet Osip Mandelstam who compares launching a message in a bottle to the act of writing a poem to an unknown reader. Taking cues from both a bottle at sea and the beachcomber who eventually happens upon it, Ga initially developed the work out of her interest in how drifting objects have been used to chart sea movement. But her willingness to drift and follow uncertain turns, carries her unexpectedly to the Greek island of Symi, and then to the shores of its neighbour Lesvos, during the summer of 2015.
Ga is confronted by the mutable context of these islands, and decides to join a team of volunteers aiding asylum seekers and refugees-a definitive turning point at which she is forced to wrestle not only with the poetics of accidental drift, but with urgent political and humanitarian realities with which she confronts, processes, and situates within a nuanced and complex history of endurance, faith, and indeed, chance.
Ellie Ga
37 min.
Language: English, Greek
2017
Educational Program
17.00 – 18.00
Art Athina Educational Program in synergy with Τhe J. F. Costopoulos Foundation aims to bring together students from the Athens School of Fine Arts with artists and the galleries that represent them.
Through this exchange of ideas, the program informs, inspires and prepares young artists and theorists for their introduction to the art industry.
During the presentation of the program, in the Talks section, artists Daphne Kouri and Christina Nakou, coordinators of the Art Athina Educational Program discuss with the representatives of Art Athina and Τhe J. F. Costopoulos Foundation, students from the ASFA, artists and art professionals who participated in the program.
A discussion in honour of
Tamuna Sirbiladze
18.00-19.00
On the occasion of this year’s Art Athina the Vienna based Gallery Charim in collaboration with the Austrian Embassy in Athens will pay a special tribute to late artist Tamuna Sirbiladze.
Having attended the Vienna Art Academy, the Georgian born artist lived and worked in Vienna for many years. Her unexpected death in the spring of 2016 left behind a corpus of works that are the subject of a posthumous mono¬graph published by David Zwirner books.
Taking into account her visits (and fond-ness) for Athens, a well selected choice of her works will be presented. Additionally, a single dynamic sculpture will be shown by Sirbiladze’s friend and contemporary, the Austrian artist Elizabeth Penker.
Moderator
Max Henry (Vienna)
Participants
Benedikt Ledebur (Vienna)
Denys Zacharopoulos (Athens)
talk powered
by TheTOC.gr
19.30 – 20.30
How is Art promoted in Greece
in the last decade?”
Representatives of leading cultural institutions of the country share their views on the way, the necessity, the purpose and the effectiveness of Art promotion in Greece in the last ten years.
Greeting
from the President of TheTOC
Elli Stai
Moderated by journalist of TheTOC
Katerina Lyberopoulou
Talks Friday, June 22
Music
and Painting
17.00-18.00
The key to living together
Structural, historical and sociological conditions for the co-existence of music and painting in the “Pantheon of Arts”: From the Renaissance to Impressionism.
Curator
Haris Xanthoudakis
Contemporary art
in the Athenian
landscape after
2000 / part 1
18.15 -19.15
The participants of this panel share a common element: they moved to Athens in an era where the financial and social crisis in Greece were at the pick. In this era of precarious conditions, they founded new project spaces as Athens now is considered to be one of the top destinations for new opportunities for the art production.
What are the reasons to open a space now in Athens when the majority of the local art spaces try to be sustainable? How do these new spaces formulate their program and how are they connected to the cultural field of Greece? What are the affiliations with the city, the art¬ists, the curators, the institutions?
Participants
Hugo Wheeler founder of Hot Wheels Project
Athens,
Alex Eagleton founder of Aetopoulos Project
Space Athens,
Macklin Kowal founder of Sub Rosa Space Athens
Curator Katerina Nikou
Contemporary art
in the Athenian
landscape after
2000 / part 2
19.30 – 20.30
The Athenian landscape regarding contem¬porary art was transformed after 2000 with the opening of galleries and project spaces from young people who decided to relocate to Athens.
They all had the experience from the international art scene thus they brought this experience in the city and presented to the local audience the new trends and new perspectives.
The public had the opportunity to follow exhibitions of local and international artists beyond the mainstream criteria without having to travel abroad.
The participants will present the vision they had and the program that they developed as well as their views on then and now.
Participants
Vassilis Balatsos artist, co-founder of Unlim¬ited Gallery Athens,
Els-Hanappe founder of Els-Hanappe Underground Athens,
Sofia Vamiali founder of Vamiali’s gallery Athens
Curator Katerina Nikou
Talks Saturday, June 23
Music
and Painting
17.00-18.00
Uniting ruptures
The disconnection of painting from the func¬tion of representation and of music from the function of the ” investment” of biotic and social time.
Photography and”light music” – abstrac¬tion and atonality. Interartistic relevance in expressionism, cubism and futurism. ‘The Wed-ding” by Léger. “Les Noces” by Stravinsky.
Curator
Haris Xanthoudakis
Curating exhibitions:
Views from the artist’s
perspective
18.00-19.15
There has been an international discourse about the relationship among artists, curators, art-historians and the audience. This phenome-non. is a consequence of the huge expansion of the role of the curator in the formulation of a dialogue regarding arts in the social sphere.
It is generally admitted, that despite some differences, there is a common condition that artists-curators and curators share: the catholic involvement in the process of making an exhibition which covers and demands many skills.
The transformation of the artist-curator to actually a self-entrepreneur happened silently through the years and resulted to a general pre-conception of the artist- curator as a pro-fessional Individual in the art-world.
The guest speakers belong to a generation which activated the contemporary art scene in Greece foremost following their personal moti-vation to act and express themselves.
The aim Is not to make a cartography of the curatorial practices in Greece but to em-phasize on particular times, places and gestures.
Participants
Andreas Angelidakis / artist and architect / Kostas Christopoulos/ artist. Caroline May / artist. Dimitra Vamiali / artist. Jannis Varelas / artist. Kostis Velonis / artist
Cutaror / Moderator Katerina Nikou
Philosophies
of Curating
19.30 – 20.30
Paul B. Preciado and Elena Sorokina are two cu-rators coming from different backgrounds both active in Europe.Paul B. Preciado is a philoso-pher. curator, and one of the leading thinkers in the study of gender and sexual politics.
He was Curator of Public Programs of documenta 14 (Kassel/Athens). He is a writer in residency at th-e LUMA Foundation, Arlès, France.Elena Sorokina is curator for the High Institute of Fine Arts in Gent. Belgium, previously she worked as curatorial advisor for documenta 14.
They will develop their thoughts and pres¬ent their practices about the making of the exhi¬bition under different frameworks and needs.
The role of the curators as well as the responsi-bility that they carry when they communicate a message to the audience.
Moreover, the obstacles, barriers and social issues that they need to research, examine and contemplate when they develop their curatorial methodologies.
Participants
Paul B. Preciado. Elena Sorokina
Gutaror/ Moderator
Katerina Nikou
Talks Sunday, June 24
Music
and Painting
17.00-18.00
Experiments and visions
Developments in technology and interartistic applications. Concept and realization: Art of the ideal and the minimal – perspectives. Questioning artistic boundaries and the new forms of artistic expression.
The present and the future of aesthetics in meta-modernism.
The talks will be addressing the general public and will be interspersed by numerous examples of image and sound.
Curator
Haris Xanthoudakis
Cultural activity in a
metropolitan city: the
London case
18.15 – 19.15
This talk includes participants who are based in London and are active in the city, a city that was and still is a metropolis of contemporary art. Though this does not mean that being an art professional in London is an easy case.There is a lot of competition with big institutions which set specific profiles whilst small institutions try to be sustainable.
Moreover, the majority of the art world wishes to move there and find a spot in the map. But what about the city per se? The scene per se which constantly accepts new audiences?
How the political situation influences the public, the visitors, the infrastructures, the institutions in an era where UK tries to balance between being or not a European city? What are the implications related to the art market, the notion of collection, in general to the cultural map of London? And last but not least, is it necessary to be inside Europe or outside Europe in order to belong somewhere with an international visibility? Or shall someone stay consistent, persistent and with a solid vision with long term aims?
Participants
David Gryn, director of Daata Editions, London/ Antonia Marsh, director of Soft Opening gallery,
London/ Leopold Thun director of Emalin gallery,
London
Curaror / Moderator Katerina Nikou
Cultural production and
the audience / How do we
go public?
19.30 – 20.30
The social transformation that takes place in the contemporary era cannot be unrelated to culture and the production of knowledge. The latest years, we try to follow a wide range of projects from contemporary art exhibitions, theatre and film works to concerts, performanc es and other cultural events. Though, this gives the impression that things happen and people are active, the question is what is the quality behind these open forms of expression? Going public through culture is not as simple as it seems. Organizing any kind of event means that you address your concerns to the audience but the contemporary audience is more able than ever to evaluate the cultural production and its context and content.
The participants come from different backgrounds of cultural production wrhich deals with the audience. They will develop their thoughts and ways of communicating to the public their primary aims and concerns whilst scheduling their program. How can we trans¬form culture to a meeting point of a collective thought? How contemporary art can influence the general opinion of the public? Has art this kind of power? How we define quality in art? In which ways do we respect the audience? What kind of audience we want?
Participants
Cornelius van Almsick founder of Zeller van Aim-
sick Gallery, Vienna/Anestis Azas, artistic director
of the Experimental Stage -1 of the National
Theater Athens, Nadia Gerazouni/director the
Breeder Gallery Athens, Mari Spirito/Founding
director of Protocinema
Curaror / Moderator Katerina Nikou