"Cypress" sculpture by Costas Varotsos

We had all the content (photographic and text) about Varotsos newest sculpture project since last month but we made a promise to the artist not to publish it until its inauguration (a couple of days ago, 20.02.2013). "Cypress" sculpture is placed in the Minoas Matsa's Square within the castle of Ioannina. "Cypress" does not exceed 4 metres in height and is totally harmonised with the environment and space of the castle and generally with the mountainous region of Epirus. It is an artwork connected with the Epirotic stone and soul.

We think that only two artists have managed to "manipulate" and give "fluidity" to the stone, Gaudi and Varotsos, and it is not a compliment.

Complex Signs by Aspassia Kouzoupi

Zoumboulakis Galleries present until March 2, 2013, the solo exhibition of Aspassia Kouzoupi, entitled Complex Signs.

With respect to her educational background in architecture and her specialization in landscape and urban landscape, Aspassia Kouzoupi presents an art exhibition closely connected to the perception of space. This exhibition embodies the natural succession to the permanent installation of “deconstructed road signs” / road-scape artworks, created in 2005 at a junction of the Attiki Odos motorway, a work by the team “SCULPTED ARCHITECTURAL LANDSCAPES ®: Golanda + Kouzoupi”.

Aspassia Kouzoupi notes: “I have named as complex -referring to complex numbers- a part of our thoughts that has not touched reality or has almost touched it, which did not emerge as a fact on reality’s surface”.

The Complex Signs, a collage of photosensitive materials on aluminum, stir memories of the road landscape. Among the different artwork entities to be exhibited, there are works that can be placed outdoors, segmented works providing the possibility of internal re-arrangement, works which extend the geometry of road-motifs. The entity «OIDYSSEIS/Forbidden» explores common-places between the setting sun-disc and the «forbidden» sign. For some of her works, she uses for the first time phosphorescent materials, giving her works the ability to appear in complete darkness.

John Kørner, Fallen Fruit From Frisland

Victoria Miro hosts until 2nd March 2013 John Kørner's third exhibition. Fallen Fruit from Frisland comprises a series of new paintings presented as part of an installation that features a carpeted floor, rising wave-like against one wall, and a simple wooden boat made by the artist's great-grandfather.

The exhibition title refers to Frisia, a coastal area that extends across the Netherlands and Germany to the Danish border. Until the construction of canals during the 1920s and 1930s, this low-lying district, also known as Friesland, Fryslân and Frisland, was flooded for much of the year. In this mutable landscape locals made their farms on top of artificial hills, using boats to travel from field to field. It was here that Kørner's great-grandfather plied his trade as a boat builder. Many decades later the artist discovered that a small wooden rowing boat made by his ancestor had been preserved in a museum.

Transported to London, the ancestral vessel functions as a poetic anchor point for paintings that ask us to consider our relationship to the ever-shifting rhythms, flows and tides of the natural world. On an initial viewing, Kørner's new paintings appear to mark a departure from previous works, such as the fields of hazard yellow populated by abstract and figurative forms in 2006 Problems, or War Problems, the 2008 series in which Kørner addressed head-on the human cost of Denmark's involvement in the 'War on Terror' in Afghanistan.

12 O'Clock at The Beach, John Kørner, 2012

Smaller in scale, and often deceptively simple in composition, these works seem to spring from a quieter tradition of landscape painting. Canals, trees, houses… it may seem as if these scenes were born in the sleepy ateliers of Northern Europe in the seventeenth century. Yet, in Kørner's hands, landscape becomes an arena rich with transhistorical currents, almost hallucinatory with interminglings of the personal and philosophical.

Kørner's work always encourages musings that can seem contradictory: on the one hand it is apparently open and easy-going, on the other it seems freighted with awkward questions about representation, knowledge, faith. The work speaks unquestionably to our own moment.

Here, the artist's signature use of watered-down acrylics chimes with the work's elemental subject matter. In several images rural idylls appear vulnerable against washes of paint that, like the seas surrounding Frisland, threaten to overwhelm them. In other paintings figurative elements seem about to dissolve or bleed into one another, like spectres or memories, or else they co-exist with forms that, functioning along the lines of the ovals and curlicues in earlier Problem paintings, appear as a kind of pre-thought.

In two canal paintings, these nascent forms proliferate, agitating the sky. We might think of them as viral, perhaps even architectural, their cell-like shape seeming to denote both a natural code and, en masse, a structure that brings to mind a kind of floating sci-fi city, recalling sources as varied as Jonathan Swift and Buckminster Fuller.

In another painting we see figures walking through an orchard while apples drop from the trees. These are the fruits referred to in the exhibition title, an allusion to the beliefs of hard-line fruitarians who eat only that which has fallen to the ground (and also, we assume, a nod to Isaac Newton and Adam and Eve).

What to believe in, or not, is always at the forefront of any consideration of Kørner's art. In Fallen Fruit from Frisland a romantic idea of the sublime meets a contemporary form of painting that arrives with doubts about the medium built in. Acknowledging the power of landscape painting without ever appearing wistful for a time when it was predominant, unquestioned, Kørner delights in summoning the instantly nameable, even going so far as to flirt with cliché. But, crucially, he always leaves space for ambiguity, some extra work for eye and mind to do - it is surely no accident that those apples resemble thought bubbles.

Frisland after Rain, John Kørner, 2012

It is no accident either that Kørner makes reference to a landscape that over the centuries has been under constant attack from the elements, endlessly renewed, one that is now as manmade as it can be said to be natural.

Covered in a geometrically patterned carpet, a manmade 'wave' greets viewers to this exhibition. This breaker, part Hokusai's Great Wave, part skateboard ramp, is a grandiose theatrical element designed to accentuate the drama of looking and thinking about the natural world as depicted in these paintings. Kørner's ancestral boat, by contrast, is utilitarian, humble, freighted with sweetly personal associations. Considering these elements in tandem we come up against some of the problems of representation that have preoccupied Kørner throughout his career - chief among them being the problem of channelling personal experience into art and back out into the 'real' world, whatever we may take that to mean. Looking inside the boat we encounter a series of small ceramic forms that function like the repeated, cell-like shapes in the paintings. The artist also refers to these nubs of clay as Problems. Perhaps, though, like the apple that falls from the tree, they might be thought of as gifts. After all, one person's problem is another's possibility.

In the end, perhaps Kørner's art can itself be regarded as a kind of vessel, one that transports us across the bright, choppy waters of representation from the known world to a brackish place where the unexpected, inexplicable, even miraculous can occur.

Blossoming years...

Titanium Yiayiannos Art gallery hosts until 24th February 2013 the exhibition "Blossoming years...". Panagiotis Papadopoulos (sculpture-installation) & Lazaros Ktenides (painting), two artists - representatives of different generations, complement each other in their joint attempt to achieve visual and thematic stimulation of the morale! With authentic passion being their main stimulus, both manage to turn the formal characterization "still life" into a series of particularly "alive" compositions in a genuine and flexible way, both in the drawn and the three dimensional creation.

Panagiotis Papadopoulos (detail), 2012, 164x51.5x41cm, papier colle, mixed style

Top image: (detail) Lazaros Ktenides, 2012, 135x65cm, oil on canvas

Between two rivers by Siba Sahabi

Ancient Greek History does inspire creators throughout the world. The same happens with the designer Siba Sahabi and her latest project Between Two Rivers, a translation of the Greek word Mesopotamia used to refer to the region where the rivers Tigris and Euphrates flow. Mesopotamia is the birthplace of turntable (Ur, 3500 B.C.) that aided potters to design circular objects more accurately and faster. The invention was introduced in Greeks around 2000 B.C. and thus sparked a new style of Greek ceramics called Minyan pottery which Siba has reinterpreted in her collection consisting of ten sculptural felt vessels.

Between two rivers, Siba Sahabi, photo by Lisa Klappe

With this project the artist tries to make a connection between her roots (of German/ Iranian origin) with pottery innovation and Western ceramics culture which developed through these new technologies. Siba Sahabi has also created the Kerameikos collection consisting of a series of vessels made by paper.

TAM VAN TRAN, "Leaves of Ore"

AMERINGER | MCENERY | YOHE presents Tam Van Tran's first solo exhibition. "Tam Van Tran: Leaves of Ore" opened on 14 February and will remain on view through 16 March 2013. In addition to this exhibition, Tam Van Tran’s work will be featured in a solo booth at The Art Show, organized by the Art Dealers Association of America (ADAA) at the Park Avenue Armory, Park Avenue at 67th Street, New York, from 6 - 10 March.

TAM VAN TRAN, Aikido Dream, 2013, Copper foil, palm leaf, and cardboard on canvas, 82 x 70 inches, 208.3 x 177.8 cm, A/Y#20806 - photography by Tom Powell, Copyright Tam Van Tran, courtesy of Ameringer | McEnery | Yohe

Tam Van Tran has been strongly influenced by landscapes: the landscapes of his Vietnamese childhood, where he lived near the ocean and Da Nang military airbase, and the landscapes of his current home of Los Angeles and the California coast. His works start with fragments such as porcelain shards that evoke memories of ceramic jars his mother used for making fish sauce, or leaves of copper sheets that lift with air currents like palm fronds in the Santa Ana winds. The fragments include found objects, cardboard and palm leaves that are collaged onto canvas surfaces and natural materials, clay, paint and paper, which are laid on ceramic tiles and embedded beneath recycled glass. The materials embody Tran’s recalled experiences of bombs floating onto shore, villagers fishing with grenades, and intermittent evacuations. The large ceramic wall work in Leaves of Ore began with diagrams of Da Nang and Tan Son Nhat International Airport (Saigon). Referencing Earth’s tectonic plates, Tran places porcelain chips and recycled glass on top of the diagrams before they are fired. The gathering of both clay and glass forms a mineral aggregation. The diagrams mostly disappear through the process of accumulating elements and kiln firing; yet remain fixed as ideas within the artwork, akin to the process of an individual’s memory formation from the amassment of thoughts and experiences over time. As an individual’s memories are susceptible to influence and change by others, the copper leaf wall works also invite interaction from the viewer, the leaves responding to and monitoring the onlooker’s approach and shifting movements.

TAM VAN TRAN, Matrix Flowers 7, 2013, Silver foil, palm leaf, and cardboard on canvas, 27.25 x 22.25 inches, 69.2 x 56.5 cm A/Y#20871 - photography by Tom Powell, Copyright Tam Van Tran, courtesy of Ameringer | McEnery | Yohe

Tran is acutely aware of himself as a Vietnamese-American absorbing both Eastern and Western cultural influences. His work incorporates and transforms references from Nouveau Réalisme, Arte Povera, and California ceramic tradition, and may be as easily compared to John Chamberlain’s crushed metal sculptures as it may Asian gold-leafed folding screens. In the tradition of artists such as Kurt Schwitters and Robert Rauschenberg, Tran actively considers, explores, and expands painting concepts.

TAM VAN TRAN, Untitled 5, 2012 - 2013, Glazed porcelain, 18 x 12 inches, 45.7 x 30.5 cm, A/Y#20833 - photography by Tom Powell, Copyright Tam Van Tran, courtesy of Ameringer | McEnery | Yohe

Tam Van Tran was born in Kon Tum, Vietnam, in 1966. He studied painting and received a BFA in 1990 from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, and later attended the Graduate Film and Television Program at the University of California, Los Angeles. His work was featured in the 2004 Whitney Biennial. Tran has had numerous national and international exhibitions, including Tam Van Tran: Psychonaut, at the Blaffer Art Museum, University of Houston, and SubUrban: Tam Van Tran, at the Knoxville Museum of Art. His work may be found in the permanent collections of The Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; The Broad Collection, Santa Monica; The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; The Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; and The Cleveland Museum of Art. Tran lives and works in Los Angeles.

Meme by streng

Meme stool by streng is more than a functional stool, it is a sculptural arrangement. It is made of a continuous surface of aluminum sheet via a handmade metal-turning process. When stacked or grouped, Meme becomes a rhythmic pattern, with positive & negative shapes that mirror one another. The user can create sculptural arrangements, & with interlocking top & bottom components, multiple stools stack safely. The design is inspired by chairs used in public spaces; more specifically, those stacked as displays in the windows of Milan’s cafes after hours. The creators used a metal turning process to transform aluminum sheet into a continuous surface of aluminum to create Meme (see above video).

History

Chris Streng & Daniel Streng began their careers operating separate studios in the United States, and initially worked primarily with clients in Milan, Tokyo, & New York. In the late '90s, the two came together to found Streng, which may seem like an obvious choice, but the brothers’ collaboration was actually accidental. Design event organizers began soliciting work from the two separately and as a pair. Then clients began calling for the other brother. This happened so often that Chris & Daniel realized, “We’re perceived as a team—it makes sense to function as one”.

Today, the brothers have assembled a dynamic group of designers whose impressive talents have grown the company to be the accomplished firm that it is. The firm has offices in New York and Chicago.

Chris Streng

Chris has always been interested in the relationship between objects & emotional response. He uses his understanding of our collective cultural lexicon to create opportunities for emotional reaction between person & object. Chris studied architecture & product design at Domus Academy in Milan, Italy, industrial design & interior architecture at the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, as well as anthropology & human geography at Marquette University.

Daniel Streng

Daniel believes that the goal of design is to solve human problems—questioning everything from the premise to the business model. Interested in disruptive aesthetics, Daniel is careful not to be disruptive to the extent that selfhood is lost. By testing the limits of objects’ identities, he discovers their key elements. Daniel studied art and design at the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design.

The latest project of streng is A NARRATIVE. The creative duo said for their latest work, "As designers, storytelling is part of who we are. We constantly share experiences, stories, and observations to explain the emotional relationships between people, objects, and their environments. We want to share these stories with you. A Narrative is a view into the minds of streng. This project is a closer look at our design team’s personalities, inspirations, and observations". Each week, a different designer will share an image and the story of their personal connection with it. Sign up to receive a monthly limited edition postcard with a story from the founders, Chris Streng and Dan Streng.

Richard Jackson: Ain’t Painting a Pain

On February 17, 2013, the Orange County Museum of Art (OCMA) presents one of the most ambitious exhibitions ever organized by the museum. Richard Jackson: Ain’t Painting a Pain is the first retrospective devoted to one of the most radical artists of the last 40 years. Jackson (b. 1939 in Sacramento, CA) has expanded the possibilities of painting more than any other contemporary figure and his wildly inventive, exuberant, and irreverent take on "action" painting has dramatically extended its performative and spatial dimensions, merged it with sculpture, and repositioned it as an art of everyday experience rather than one of heroic myth. The only American presentation of Ain’t Painting a Pain is on view in Newport Beach from February 17 through May 5, 2013. The exhibition then travels to the Museum Villa Stuck in Munich, Germany and to the Municipal Museum of Contemporary Art (S.M.A.K) in Ghent, Belgium.

The exhibition is conceived as a series of eleven room-scale installations from 1970 to 2011, most never before shown in the United States, accompanied by over 150 of Jackson’s related preparatory drawings, works on paper, and models. Foremost among these is 100 Drawings (1978), each a different proposal for a painting project, presented for the first time since its creation. To especially mark the occasion of this retrospective, Jackson will produce a major new outdoor piece, Bad Dog (2013), a 28 foot-high puppy establishing his territory on the side of the museum. The exhibition, curated by OCMA Director Dennis Szakacs, is the first devoted to a living artist to occupy the museum’s entire exhibition space.

"Jackson’s humility and humor make his work all the more bold, and his example of quiet perseverance devoted to difficult, uncompromising work is one that other artists, and all museums, would do well to follow more frequently" states Szakacs.

Jackson’s Early Years (1969-1988)

Based in Los Angeles since the late 1960s, Jackson exhibited at the legendary Eugenia Butler Gallery with artists such as Bas Jan Ader, John Baldessari, Ger van Elk, Edward Kienholz, William Leavitt, and Allan Ruppersberg. Jackson’s work was entirely site-specific—each piece was created within a museum or gallery space and destroyed at the conclusion of the exhibition. Ain’t Painting a Pain includes recreations from the three main series that he developed over the first twenty years of his career: large-scale “wall paintings”; room-size “painted environments” that viewers could enter; and monumental “stacked paintings.” More than simply innovative formal experiments, these works helped set the tone for much of the most important art to emerge from Los Angeles over the next three decades, where unfettered ambition and irreverence toward cultural orthodoxies combined to unleash brash new forms.

Much of Jackson's work during the 1970s and 1980s introduced a series of inventive inversions and concealments aimed at upending the technical and stylistic conventions of painting, while still reveling in the material qualities of paint. Jackson’s interest in the uncontrolled application of paint may be linked to Kienholz’s “broom paintings” of the 1950s, and his delight in thick, gloppy surfaces is related to Wayne Thiebaud’s paintings, especially the glossy serial images of deserts, cakes, and cookies. Both artists were early and important influences on Jackson.

With Untitled (Maze for Eugenia Butler Gallery),1970, one of the Jackson’s most essential works, he began to reconfigure the viewer’s perception of canvas, paint, space, and even time. The installation is a 20’ x 20’ enclosure with 9’ high walls made from stretched canvas, that are “painted” by sliding another wet canvas through the corridor of the maze. In this work, a “painting” is transformed from illusionistic space into architectural space, may be viewed only in parts (rather than as whole), and is experienced one way upon entering and another upon exiting. Recreated for the OCMA exhibition, Untitled (Maze for Eugenia Butler Gallery),1970, set the stage for an astonishing series of painting projects unprecedented in the history of American art.

Ain’t Painting a Pain also includes new site-specific Wall Paintings at OCMA and at each museum on the exhibition tour. The Wall Paintings are created by sliding wet canvases across gallery walls to create abstract murals of impressive graphic power and formal variety (past works have reached 13' high by 79' long). Here, the backs of paintings become as important as the fronts, one painting is destroyed to make another, and canvas is transformed from a surface to receive paint into a device for applying it.

Jackson began his Stacked Paintings in 1980. In this series thousands of stretched canvases are painted and stacked facedown to create monumental enclosures and sculptural works. Paint becomes a means of adhesion as much as one of expression, and the act of “painting” is reduced to one idea repeated over and over again, Jackson’s critique of the stylistic conventions that he believes are pre-ordained in the medium. 5050 Stacked Paintings is a work conceived in 1980 that will be built for the first time especially for Ain’t Painting a Pain. The installation of 5,050 paintings measures 30’ long x 15’ wide x 10’ high and will be by far the largest stacked work ever produced by Jackson.

The exhibition features an extensive selection of preparatory drawings for painted environments, wall paintings, and stacked paintings, all of which show Jackson’s meticulous planning process, exquisite draftsmanship, and the extraordinary amount of labor that the artist invests in these large-scale works that are ultimately destroyed and live on only in viewer’s minds. In 1988, Walter Hopps organized Jackson’s first and only survey at the Menil Collection in Houston, an exhibition which ultimately led Jackson to recognize that he had perfected his means of production and exhausted his ability to push the concepts of these series any further. Commenting on the work of this period, Jackson stated:

"...the more I did them, the more familiar I became with the materials, the nicer they came out. That's why I lost interest in them. When you take part in an activity or are involved in a process, something can go wrong, and that's when it gets interesting. It's not interesting if everything is going well."

Richard Jackson, Big Ideas-1000 Pictures, 1980/2011

Jackson’s New Directions (1992–present)

By the early 1990s, Jackson began to build all manner of elaborate “painting machines,” which he activates prior to an exhibition opening, and which viewers experience as evidence of a performance rather than as a performance itself. A startling break from the conceptual abstraction that had defined the first half of his career, Jackson began moving toward a conceptual realism that employed the figure to investigate the problems of picture making, moving from an essentially deconstructive approach to one that was more generative and was about remaking rather than disassembling. These mechanized works employ pumps, motors, fans, propellers, air compressors, and spray hoses to deploy paint in increasingly inventive and outlandish ways. Ain’t Painting a Pain includes seven of these room-scale works created over a twenty-year period, six of them Jacksonian reinterpretations of canonical works by Jacques-Louis David, Edgar Degas, Marcel Duchamp, Jasper Johns, Pablo Picasso, and Georges Seurat. In foregrounding this particular series—one of the most sustained and rigorous investigations of art history in all of contemporary art—the retrospective seeks to establish the framework for Jackson’s ongoing struggle with painting’s past and future.

With La Grande Jatte (after Georges Seurat), for example, the artist recreates the 1886–86 pointillist masterpiece by dipping pellets into paint and firing them from a pellet gun at the canvas. Jackson began the project in 1992 and after approximately 90,000 shots the work is barely 10% completed. No matter how much labor Jackson applies to its production, the painting will never be completed, upping the ante on Seurat’s labor intensive painting technique, and establishing the sly and subversive attitude that Jackson would bring to his interpretation of art historical icons.
Jackson's Painting with Two Balls (1997) co- opts Johns’ famous 1960 critique of abstract expressionism to make a massive “action” painting by using a Ford Pinto to power two large spinning balls that throw paint in all directions into a large room. The Laundry Room (Death of Marat), 2009, transforms David’s 1793 pieta of the French Revolution into a three- dimensional, life-size mis-en-scene that viewers may enter. Jackson’s update links the extremism of the French Reign of Terror to the American war on terror, and the highly polarized political debate that defines both periods. Like The Laundry Room, Jackson’s The Blue Room (2011) also turns a painting into a sculpture that makes a painting; in this case using Picasso’s 1901 The Blue Room (The Tub) for inspiration. Jackson inserts Picasso’s rival, Marcel Duchamp, into the scene by replacing Picasso’s girlfriend Blanche from the original painting with a sculpture of the nude Eve Babitz taken from the well-known photograph of her playing chess with Duchamp during his 1963 retrospective at the Pasadena Art Museum.

During this period Jackson also produced several autobiographical works and Ain’t Painting a Pain includes two major room-scale examples: Deer Beer (1998), which combines Jackson’s passion for hunting, art history, and painting; and 1000 Clocks (1987– 1992), which was made to mark the artist’s 50th birthday and has not been shown in the United States since its premier in Helter Skelter at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles in 1992.

For much of the 1990s through the present, Jackson was exhibited far more frequently in Europe than in the United States. His relationship to Bruce Nauman and Paul McCarthy, who were both embraced there long before achieving renown here, helped introduce Jackson’s work to curators more open to its exuberance and iconoclasism. Jackson’s rethinking of the forms and structures of painting also found a far warmer reception in Europe, which arguably has a deeper tradition of artists who up-end its conventions while still embracing the activity (Alberto Burri, Lucio Fontana, Yves Klein, Niki de Saint Phalle, Daniel Spoerri, and Gunther Uecker among many others). While teaching at UCLA in the early 1990s, Jackson was also an influential mentor to Jason Rhoades and to a new generation of artists who emerged from Los Angeles.

In the United States, Jackson is the heir to Pollock, Rauschenberg, and Johns. Their breakthroughs, however, took successive generations of American artists away from the further expansion of painting and toward the new genres that their work anticipated, which left Jackson outside of the prevailing narratives of post-1960s American art. Ain’t Painting a Pain offers a full-scale reassessment and continues the museum’s longstanding commitment to championing essential yet under-recognized late career artists.

The exhibition runs from Feb 17, 2013 to May 5, 2013. For more information visit the OCMA official website. Richard Jackson: Ain’t Painting a Pain is made possible by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Jean and Tim Weiss, Rennie Collection, Vancouver, and Hauser & Wirth.

"State of Mind" by Lo and Behold

Lo and Behold will participate in Supermarket Art Fair 2013 with the project "State of Mind" (15th – 17th February 2013). SUPERMARKET is an international art fair created and managed by artists.

Artist-run galleries and similar artists' initiatives exhibit the latest tendencies in art. The focus is on the meeting between audience, art and artists from around the world as much as the exhibition itself. The goal of SUPERMARKET is to provide a showcase for artists' initiatives from all over the world and to create opportunities for new networks in the Swedish as well as the international art scene.

The project "State of Mind" refers to the notion of "Happiness" and is curated by Nikos Papadimitriou. Buddhist monks believe that happiness has nothing to do with materiality but is a state of mind. Aristotle argues that happiness depends upon ourselves and Mahatma Gandhi that happiness is when what you think, what you say and what you do are in harmony. According to Wikipedia: "Happiness is a mental or emotional state of well-being characterized by positive or pleasant emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy". The question is: How do we perceive happiness today? Who and under which conditions could be considered happy and what could possibly lead us to astate of happiness? Could someone be in a state of joy regardless of the social environment around him? The lack of what could be described as a joyful life and the loss of wealth -in terms of the western capitalistic paradigm- leads some of us to the emotional state of funk or depression.

Bearing the above questions in mind, artists are invited to produce artworks of A2 size (60 x 42 cm) with starting points on the above issues.

Kostas Christopoulos / Michael Croft / Jack Early / Vasso Gavaisse / Joel Hurlburt / Simon Larbalestier / Julia Marsh / Nina Papaconstantinou / Yiannis Papadopoulos / Antonis Pittas / Provo Principles / Jinsik Shin / Marja-Leena Sillanpää / Johan Svensson / Su-Mei Tse / Vassilis Zografos

Lo and Behold is a non-profit organization based in Athens, Greece, serving as a platform for the production of cultural activities, both in Greece and abroad, with a focus on contemporary art. LaB's objective is to highlight the work of art itself as the outcome of artistic inquiry, rather than as a commercial product.

ROOMS2013

Kappatos Gallery, organises, curates and presents the annual Contemporary Art Show “ROOMS2013” in the “St George Lycabettus” Hotel, in Dexameni, Kolonaki, Athens, from Thursday 24th January up to Sunday 10th February 2012, its thirteenth edition since 1999.

In one of the most popular contemporary art shows, 20 curators, art historians, architects, theaterologists, choreographers, select each one a first-time shown artist or team of artists, that will be presented in the rooms of a floor in this hotel. In this show, the 30 artists participating will show paintings, drawing and sculptural works, installations, architectural projects, design, performances, projections, films, and other works, individually in each room transforming it to a personal space.

The choice of an alternative space, a hotel, for this show, was the result not only from the need of an autonomous presentation of the artists in the same location but also from the need of the contemporary artwork to occupy his own private and at the same time public space, in complete equivalence and harmony with its character and meaning of our times.

The hotel is a characteristic public space with certain structure, operation and social role in the framework of a city, as a place of visit, rest, meeting, acquaintance, communication. In its everyday operation, it is occupied mainly by “foreigners”, but also by local people who for their free time. During the show, another dimension to the hotel will be added: the hosting of artistic work. Thus the social role of the hotel is extended acquiring a cultural and communicational character as it becomes a place for artists to communicate with the wide public who will visit and will “live together” with the artworks in the same space these days.

For many of the artists, the marvellous and hospitable space of the Hotel St George Lycabettus situated in one of the most beautiful areas in the centre of Athens, constitutes an opportunity to create artworks especially for this show, and the hotel to operate as a “art hospitable space”.

St George Lycabettus Hotel, has been engaged in cultural activities and continues regularly to host them. By participating once more in this organisation it supports and opens its doors to the world of contemporary art and theory.

Opening: Thursday 24 January 2013, 20:00 – 24:00 until 10 February 2013.

Open everyday 16:00 – 22:00, Saturday & Sunday 12:00 – 22:00

Curators:

Gely Gryntaki, Yiorgis – Vyron Davos, Dio Kaggelari, Charis Kanellopoulou, Margarita Kataga, Tassos Koutsouris, Giota Konstantatou, Areti Leopoulou, Maria Maragou, Evita Tsokanta, Isavella Kladaki, Maria Kyveli Mavrokodopoulou, Agni Papaioannou, Nikos Mykoniatis, Haris Savvopoulos, Efi Strouza, Fei Tzanetoulakou, Yannis Toumazis, Lina Tsikouta, Maria Stathi.

Artists:

Monika Pavlechova, Felix Delandre, Dimitra Kondylatou, Dimitra Liakoura, Maria Tsagkari, Lia Koutelieri, Fotini Palpana, Yannis Heimonakis, Dimitris Sarlanis, James Enox, Bill Psarras, Rilène Markopoulou, Ilias Mamaliogkas, Elena Marinou, Yorgos Papafigos, Ioanna Gouma, Kallina Mayopoulou, Elma Petridou, Vasilis Rizos, Natali Yaxi, Pythagoras Hatziandreou, Vasilis Yerodimos, Eva Marathaki, Marina Troupi.

ROOMS2013 plus+

For the second time this year, in parallel with Rooms2013, the exhibition Rooms2013 plus + is organized at Kappatos Gallery, 12 Athinas st, with the artists participating in the hotel show.

Opening: Saturday 26 January 2013, 12:00 – 16:00 until 23 February 2013.

Open from Tuesday to Friday 12:00 – 20:00 and Saturday 12:00 – 16:00

Maria Tsagkari

"Flower, a symbol of fragility and ephemeral that has however the renewing force of rebirth and creation, is the material with which Maria Tsagkari creates an artistic environment of offering and wishing. Throughtout history, the flowers are medias of coded messages, expressing that cannot be said. Tsagkari, adopting a different ritual, leaves in her work to infiltrate the figurative meanings of flowers, talents, virtues and weaknesses that the people have given them. Through the improvisation of speech and action, she wishes the entanglement of spectator in her work, in a field that is charted suitable for the memory, the thought and the beneficial articulation of sentiment." - Harris Kanellopoulou

Dimitra Kondylatou

"Dimitra Kondylatou moves to the boundaries, the boundaries of art and everyday life, the relationship between the "in" and "out", the human and the animal. She redefines the points of “manufactured” reality and culture concerning those of “nature” and instincts. She is interested in locating their interaction, as well as the restrictions that imposes the one into the other and the disciplines the person finally accept due to these relations. The main element in her work is the memory which she tries to restore and present through daily actions and objects. For "Rooms 2013", the artist does an intensive research for the history of the hotel, the urban environment (the city and its condition), as well as the role the artist can play as a participant. The result will be the recording of this research in printed and digital form." - Margarita Kataga

Lia Koutelieri

"Lia Koutelieri, through her multi-sensoring installation titled "underwater environment", creates a parallel universe, where all the world values as we know them, change. Among the organic features/ presentations made of plastic, the visitor will be able to make an inner evaluation and to reposition toward himself. Lia Koutelieri, creates an imaginery physical world - a footprint of her fantasy - who is shaped finally with the visitor's experience, leading from the redefinition to the raise of the truth. The aim of this installation is not to get away from the problems, but to create a bridge between body and soul, senses and spirit, ideal and reality so as to find a solution through each one's personal truth." - Isabella Kladaki

Dimitris Sarlanis - Reality meets you in your room

Dimitris Sarlanis places in the hotel room sculptures-intruders and proposes/directs an obscure theatrical script. In the art platform that is set every year, contemporary art shows the experimentations, the spirit and her first conquests. Sarlanis presents one of the most supreme aspects of modern art. Sculpture art inspired by everyday life and street protests, formed in the hyper-real familiar. Additionally, his sculptures are colorful, ignore the pedestal or they use it emphatically and ironically in order to reverse it, they have experimentation, gkrotesk humor and powerful picture/narration. Classical sculpture in its base but with raw materials, new form and resourceful style. His sculptures are under the influence of pop art with the narrow -guiltless- osmosis of mass culture and high art, they are in dialogue with the currents of international art, and are "flirting" with hyper-realism.

In opposition of the Hundsons' hyper-realistic sculptures, where their extreme realism came out from precise plausibility, in the artworks made by the new generation of sculptors, the truth is undermined by the caricature, the characteristics are distorted, bizarre elements can be found in the work and the size is smaller. We are in the field of art and their pseudo-realism is the selected form that carries the sought content: The sculpture-statue is the representation of social, political status, attitude, moral and aesthetics. Why do we need marble? Sarlanis sculpture technique is up-to-the-point. - Yiota Konstantatou

Fotini Palpana - Yannis Heimonakis

Fotini and Yannis Heimonakis create a monumental-characterised environment consisting of installations made of natural materials, industrial objects and processed photographs. Their common start is the detection and meditation of elements and archival material from the cultural and social past. For Palpana, the use, the management and the recombination of this material, leads to the creation of an imaginary document, a hypothetical and subjective version of a modern incident or a non-lived experience. Y. Heimonakis, on the other hand, re-examines, updates the viability of established and innovative cultural facts or intellectual works focusing in their concrete aspects and with a critical eye he re-negotiates the history of the social and aesthetic values. - Tassos Koutsouris

James Enox

James Enox draws with marker pens in furnitures, clothes, papers, consoles and amplifiers, in bodies and in his brain. He invents creatures having faith in the music, in the love, in the sky or in skateboard. He draws small and big mesiahs that will change the world, will harmonise the technology with the liftoff love and galaxies with reality. The hotel room will be filled with the artworks of Enox and will constitute the ideal re-embarkation point from the one world into the other. James Enox (born 1975) lives, works, makes sounds and pictures in Thessalonica. - Areti Leopoulou

Vassilis Psaras

Approaching the phrase of Walter Benjamin “for the flaneur the city was now the landscape, now the room…”, Vasilis Psarras uses his walk as part of his artistic action, keeping a balance between poetic approach and action. He focuses his attention in a circular walk around the hill of Lycabettus having as a starting point the hotel Saint George Lycabettus. His main objective is to function this circular walking process around the hill symbolically as a territorial way of sentimental relaxation. In this process the artist walks along with another individual, discussing and expressing loudly their thoughts and sentiments with a fundamental thematic axis, the interrelationship between an individual's and a city's personal and social crisis. In all this way, the architectural element, the empty and live streets, the noise of movement, the different micro-atmospheres and the historical past, are influential in the discussion and the rhythm of marching, creating a dialogue between the modern flaneurs and the urban environment. The symbolic character of the walk gives the possibility of an instant "to the front" movement, towards all the sides of Athens. The particular walk and the place were selected with symbolical and psycho-geografical criteria. The hill of Lycabettus is important for two reasons and functions figuratively as point of passage. “Links” through the united view of urban horizon that is unfolded due to the presence of the two walkers and simultaneously “separates” parts, daily lives, thoughts and sentiments that are unfolded in each side of the hill. In the hotel room – which constitutes a space of passage – is carried the audiovisual sentimental experience of this action – a sentimental geography where the artist shares with the audience. Athens for the walker became “the room” as in the expression of W. Benjamin, thus now the hotel room becomes “the city” for the visitor/ spectator. - Maria Maragou

Monika Pavlechova

Slovakian artist Monika Pavlechova with critical mood creates a past intervening slightly but credibly in the space. The hotel room becomes a space for life detection and - inevitably - annotation through the various human imprints and/or remains of it (life). But the question is what do we need the genuine history or the dreary reality that emerges? - Gely Gryntaki

Ilias Mamaliogkas

Mathematics, language and music are useful for the configuration of the thoughts and the judgements the logic processes. This is the starting point for Ilia Mamaliogka's art project who collects elements such as the meter, the harmony, the sequence and the size and creates codes similar to the mathematic, linguistic and musical codes in order to present their relations with the shaping of logic. [...] In this process, inevitably, is searched the relationship between logic and space, how space is created through the rhythm of an artwork and finally, how the space can be considered as an artwork. - Nikos Mykoniatis

Natali Yaxi

Natali Yaxi's room is a potential monument for each of the tenants in the last five years. The female artist methodically collects and archives the ephemeral stay in the room and records the transitional situation of "confinement" that may characterise a hospitable place, creating thus an intermediary (inframince) museologic environment dedicated in daily (repeated) human activity and in the mythology that this implies. - Yannis Toumazis

Pythagoras Hatziandreou

Pythagoras Hatziandreou was born in Athens in 1981 and graduated in 2012 from the Faculty of Fine Arts (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki). The in situ installation that he presents in Rooms 2013 is related with his self-examination about aesthetics and theoretical investigation. His creation has as an axis the designation of forms, that are based on the algorithms processing and the succession of movements. The relation between the part and the whole constitutes the major element of his creation. The emergence of a structure is usually made with the use of an object, a game let's say. In this case, his “pallet” is his Legos, that are unfolded in the space in various forms. - Lina Tsikouta

Vassilis Gerodimos

Vassilis Gerodimos (Arta, 1977) lives and works in Athens. He initially studied marble sculpture in the Panormos Faculty of Fine Arts (Tinos) and later graduated from the School of Fine Arts of Athens from professor's George Lappas laboratory. The body of his work is mainly constituted by in situ installations for which the artist often uses materials that find ad loc, giving thus new perspectives in the exhibition space. In his work is repeated the motif of an abstract residential form with which he investigates the ontology of basic construction theories. For Rooms 2013, Gerodimos manufactures the negative model of the hotel room. His material functions as an allusive report in the urban landscape of the current socio-economical changes. - Evita Tsokanta

Ioanna Gouma - Kallina Mayopoulou - Elma Petridou, TALL TALES are not TELLTALES

Three new artists, Ioanna Gouma, Kallina Mayopoulou and Elma Petridou, through their paintings, sculptures and wall magnetic drawings, attempt to create a magnificent fairy tale with multiple versions. They donot try to escape from the "wild" everyday routine, on the contrary the three artists tell tales that open a window in a new imaginary, unforeseen reality, where Borges converses with Lewis Caroll, offering to the public a intense sensual experience. - Fei Tzanetoulakou

Felix Delandre

The artistic access of a space focuses in the innate intensity between its public and private character. Two elements, that are inherent inevitably in each activity of human existence. [...] Felix Delandre, with his artworks tries within the limitations of dimensions to face with an innovative way the entanglement of two spaces as a whole universe of artworks that belong to a personal and interactive system. - Yorgis – Vyron Dabos

Marina Troupi - Kaliban, 2012

Marina Troupi, a young artist graduated from the ASFA a year ago, has approached art from various scientific and expressive sectors, making parallel studies in the Educational and Social Policy as well in the Cinema and the Scenography design. Her artistic style was shaped through a dialogue between the methods of scientific knowledge, their cross-correlation with the history of social structures and the compensation of their force from the empiric knowledge. The perception of world and life is proposed in her work as a complex outcome of the interaction with logic, senses and inventiveness. In room 507, the artist has installed a sculptural artwork, made of metal and timber. The installation is adapted on the bed, as a hybrid being of complex organic and mechanic form, giving the opportunity to the spectator to try his relation with the artistic object in an attraction-repulsion way. The artwork Kaliban implies that in the art the production of desire and the desire for production shape a field of supplementary and coliding energies. - Efi Strouza

Dimitra Liakoura - The Theatrical Room

Dimitra Liakoura is a graduate from the Department of Theatrical Studies (University of Athens) and Central St Martin's College of London. The young scenographer intervenes in the interior of the hotel room using as basic material, the sand. A invisible string connects this theatrical room with the heavy, full of sand buggage that it is compelled to carry Lucky one of the Beckett's "Waiting for Godot" characters. - Dio Kaggelari

Vassilis Rizos

Vassilis Rizos, is a young talented architect, with many participations in architectural competitions to his credit, with experience in the design and construction of buildings and spaces. He initially started by making objects that he really needed by copying others, then he moved in processing and developing his own ideas, inspired by objects that he liked. At present he studies the properties as well as the dynamic of materials. Thus eg. he tries to make the timber weightless, using thin leaves, giving them with mould the form he wishes, by pressing each leaf with the other. In reference to the furnitures of Alvar Aalto, this led to a chair – a difficult project – and then to a cloth stand. Rizos looks for the smallest detail, having the patience of old craftsmen, but also the comfort of the new technologies. He tries again and again, elaborating his creations and filling them with new ideas. His personal path in architecture is open wide. - Agni Papaioannou

Elena Marinou - Yorgos Papafigos

Elena Marinou, is attracted by the conceptual searches of modern art, approaching with sarcasm the human brain drawing in a whiteboard. The sarcasm is shared in bitter memories of that brain centers that shape the individuality of the person, constituted from various cerebral subcenters. Their interconnections random or anatomically equitable are not of big importance. The acronyms are of morphological and semantic importance, because the artwork is composed labyrinthian lines and the document that accompanies the work.

Yorgos Papafigos turns his attention to the common person and the intellectual, sexist, sentimental prisons that possesses. A suffragette, with a smoky head that rides an ostrich, pops up from faint rather unprovoked patterns – pixel or jigsaw parts. - Haris Savvopoulos

Eva Marathaki - ‘The next Harry Houdini’

Video installation, “The next Harry Houdini” (9min 10sec, 2012), is based on the escapes of the famous magician. There are references to videogames and reality shows  due to its structure. The objective is a fast and effective escape, the wish for the success and the fear of failure. My effort to be released from the bonds impresses the mental incarceration of the modern human who is the central theme of “The next Harry Houdini”. - Maria Stathi

Rilène Markopoulou

"Rilène Markopoulou presents a series of artworks with totally different subjects but with a common construction element: rice paper. Marble pieces collected during the Athens riot episodes in 2011-2012 or a pair of heels are covered with rice paper and are transformed into fragile structures, losing thus their intial role. In an other approach, the technique of frottage allows the artist to "usurp" public spaces, taking their imprint without intervening destructively in them. So, the choice of the rice paper is consequently absolutely conscious and it directs contextual the work to a new existential situation that is threatened in each her aspect." - Maria Kyveli Mavrokordopoulou

Spike Chair by Alexander Lervik

The Spike chair is unique in shape. The seat and seat back are fashioned from a number of rods, like a bed of nails, which collectively mimic the curve of a body. The base of the chair is made of tubular steel, welded together with a three-millimetre steel base plate. The upper section is made of turned ash components.

Alexander Lervik gained inspiration for his new chair during a trip to the Philippines. "One day it poured with rain. Raining stair rods, as they say, and that's exactly how it was. The shafts of rain resembled slanted lines and in that rain I suddenly saw the outlines of Spike in front of me," says Alexander.

He had long intended creating a follow-up to Red Chair (2005) when the image of Spike suggested itself in the rain on the Philippines. Spike, like its predecessor, will only be sold in a limited edition. It is not suited to mass production due to its unique shape, but, as with Red Chair, should be seen as an artistic object for those interested in design.

"There is a sense of freedom in being inspired by the rain, seeing a shape and working from that. Otherwise I have to take into account stackability, weight and other practical elements that are essential in a mass-produced product. I believe that the total freedom of projects like Spike makes me a better designer of commercial products," says Alexander.

To make the chair ergonomic it was necessary for the rods to be produced in a number of different shapes. The 60 rods vary in length, with 30 different sizes in total.

"I wanted to create a sculptural chair with a strong graphic identity. It was a challenge to make Spike comfortable despite its distinctive appearance," says Alexander.

Spike is to be sold in a limited edition of ten via Gallery Pascale

Doug Aitken's "100 YRS"

Central to Doug Aitken's "100 YRS" exhibition is a new "Sonic Fountain," in which water drips from 5 rods suspended from the ceiling, falling into a concrete crater dug out of the gallery floor. The flow of water itself is controlled so as to create specific rhythmic patterns that will morph, collapse and overlap in shifting combinations of speed and volume, lending the physical phenomenon the variable symphonic structure of song. The water itself appears milky white, as if imbued and chemically altered by its aural properties, a basic substance turned supernatural. The amplified sound of droplets conjures the arrhythmia of breathing, and along with the pool's primordial glow, the fountain creates its own sonic system of tracking time.

Behind a cavernous opening carved into the gallery's west wall is "Sunset (black)," a sculptural work that resembles cast lava rock in texture and spells out the word SUNSET as it glows from behind, its letters forming a relic of the entropy and displacement inherent in the literal idea of a sunset. Viewed from and obscured behind a hole in the wall, the sculpture appears as cosmic debris, as if pulled from a parallel world where a sunset is only an idea, obfuscated by detritus of the age of post-everything, a reductionist standpoint between the modes of pop and minimalism, its glow fading into the next realm. Also on view is the mirrored sculpture "MORE (shattered pour)". Like a time-piece, the work creates a kaleidoscope of reflections of all that surrounds it. As if it were a fragmented film, "MORE (shattered pour)" creates a literal manifestation of the present and aspirational escapism, which cannot be viewed without glimpsing a piece of one's self within the work's reflections. Another refraction of time is glimpsed through "Fountain (Earth Fountain)", created from plexiglas letters spelling the word "ART", through which a slurry of moist dirt is pumped, physical earth perpetually redoubling and standing in for itself. The word ART itself subverts the entropy of time, creating a holding pattern that organic matter cannot escape from. The flickering lightbox "not enough time in the day" completes the communicative supercurrent of shimmering malaise, its letters overlapping as if seen inebriated, somehow both more profound and less understandable. The work creates a cycle that is both hypnotic and inescapable.

Doug Aitken lives and works in Los Angeles and and New York. In March 2013, the Seattle Art Museum will install "Mirror," a monumental new commission made of LED's, permanently installed on the museum's facade, while the Miami Art Museum will reopen its new building with the outdoor large scale projection of "sleepwalkers (miami)." In addition, SFMOMA in San Francisco is making plans for a large-scale citywide installation of Aitken's Empire Trilogy in site-specific locations. Aitken's work has been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions around the world, in such institutions as the Serpentine Gallery in London, the Vienna Secession, and the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. He participated in the Whitney Biennial 1997 and 2000 and earned the International Prize at the Venice Biennale in 1999. Aitken's "Sleepwalkers" exhibition at MoMA in 2007 transformed an entire block of Manhattan into a cinematic experience as he covered the museum's exterior walls with projections. In 2009, his Sonic Pavilion opened to the public in the forested hills of Brazil at INHOTIM. Continuing his work in innovative outdoor projects, Aitken presented his film and architecture installation "Frontier" on Rome's Isola Tiberina in 2009, the multiform artwork "Black Mirror" on a uniquely designed barge floating off Athens and Hydra Island in 2011, and "Song 1" projected onto the circular facade of the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, DC in 2012.

Doug Aitken's "100 YRS" exhibition takes place at 303 gallery from February 1st until March 23rd 2013.

Makris Bro & co | RetroFuturism

In their solo exhibition, at Kalos&Klio showroom, entitled "RetroFuturism" designers Makris Bro & Co exhibit a series of sculptural lightings that came up during their experimentation with organic forms of aluminium, brass, timber and steel, in a dialogue with the light and the shade. The lightings that are presented in the exhibition "play" with the limits between design and art, industrial and handmade, and combine the retro with the modern.

Makris Brothers are a particular case of designers - with given the lack of infrastructures and industrial production in Greece - that insist to create and produce utilitarian objects of industrial design. The furnitures and the lightings they design and produce incorporate sculptural values with references in Art Nouveau style and organic forms. They seem to be in a continuous dialogue with functional mechanic forms and the fantastic futuristic references which compose the steampunk retro futuristic aesthetics that characterizes the creative objects of Makris Bro and Co.

The design duo insist in using "hot" materials like timber, and "cold" like glass, cast aluminium and bronze. Makris Brothers' objects balance between the form and functionality and are based on the logic of sculpture since they are handmade of low volumes production, are made with high quality materials and have as a foundation the experimental design.

From 2000 and on Makris Brothers, joined their forces and are actively working in the industrial design field. Ioannis Makris is a designer, painter and sculptor. Christos Makris is an electrician and c.n.c programmer. Beyond their personal work Makris Bro & Co collaborate with architects and interior designers in order to produce furnitures, lightings and various objects. They presented their work during the XV Biennale de la Méditerranée, in Thessaloniki (2011). Makris Bro & Co have participated in various industrial design fairs in Greece and worldwide and since 2010 they have established a cooperation with m.a.d. gallery in Switzerland.

Makris Bro & co | RetroFuturism

Handmade Low volume production Industrial Design

Kalos&Klio showroom

Opening: Friday 15th February, 19.30h

Duration: 15.02.2013 - 15.03.2013

Communication Sponsor: SOUL mag

Artist Presentation - Iliodora Margellos

P+A: Can you tell us your biggest influences in art and how they have affected your work?

Birth, death, and everything that comes in between.

P+A: Is there anything you consistently draw inspiration from?

My past, my present and my aspirations for the future.

P+A: What are the pros and cons in being an artist?

I’ve never looked at it like that in terms of pros and cons, being an artist is far from making a choice.

P+A: If you were to stop making art what would you replace it with?

On a professional level, I could be doing many different things, but I would never stop making art.

P+A: When do you consider that a piece of artwork has finished?

This is not a decision for me to make, the work self-dictates its completion.

Iliodora Margellos exhibits her latest artworks at a.antonopoulou.art gallery from 23rd January 2013 to 2nd March 2013. More information about the event see in our post.

Degrees of uncertainty, Jean-Baptiste Caron

Award-winner, of the prize BOESNER JEUNE CREATION for 2012, Jean-Baptiste Caron exhibits at 22,48m2 galerie from 11th January until 2nd March 2013. The exhibition entitled DEGRÉS D'INCERTITUDE (Degrees of uncertainty) and is under the curatorship of Rosario Caltabiano and Nathalie Desmet.

In his quest of a point of balance that might extract him from gravity, Jean-Baptiste Caron questions the physical or mechanical laws relating to the notions of gravity, weightlessness, density or lightness. With the help of a vocabulary that mentions the elusive shift from one state to another -transformation, evolution, involution, in-between or infrathin - he offers a universe where the slightest flaw, the smallest grain of sand shakes our certainties. In his work, a sphere rolling on a horizontal surface becomes a Fibonacci spiral, ordinary objects maintain an unstable balance, lead becomes ethereal while on the other hand, dust solidifies. In Jean-Baptiste Caron’s works, the forces of gravity or terrestrial attractions are diverted so as to offer another dynamic system of concentration of energies. For the artist, it also symbolises the conquest of his own centre of gravity. Nathalie Desmet, Translation : Mathilde Mazau

Top photo: Jean-Baptiste Caron, Le petit attracteur, 2012, concrete, plastics, mirror, dust, 50x50x16 cm (détail)

"Breath traces", Stella Bakatsi's latest artworks

Video translation: I was holding a cigarette in my hand and I remember that at some time I looked at insistently the filter with the imprints of my breathing coloring it with that characteristic yellow color. 
I felt like recording in the filter the moments of my life, each thought, each sentiment with my each breathing. I began to gather the filters, to gather my own moments as well as my friends and other persons that I even had a few minutes communication. I did this for five years and I could say that I gathered memories from the five recent years of my life.

Entering therefore in this process, I was occupied by the idea of smoking.
 From the one side is the person with passions and dependences from various substances - talking about tobacco - the addiction, the conscience and simultaneously the refusal of conscience of the repercussions in his health and the environment, from the other side is the labour of the workers in the tobacco fields, the smoke industry, the promotion of the product, the packet design in order to be aesthetically more "attractive", the economic and environmental outcome in connection with the indescribable human behavior of throwing the cigarette leftovers on the pavements, roads etc.

All these thoughts led me to a personal narration, gathering parcels of cigarettes, smoke, ash and cigarette leftovers. In this collection of material participated more than two hundred friends and relatives.
 - Stella Bakatsi

Technohoros Art gallery presents Stella Bakatsi and her latest artworks under the title "Breath Traces" from February 6th to March 2nd 2013. Stella Bakatsi has been involved in sculpture - ceramics for several years and with this exhibition she goes a step further by showing a totally revolutionary facet of her talent.

The last five years, Stella, created a series of 26 mixed media works - mostly collages from cigarette packets, cigarette leftovers, cigarettes, filters, tabacco - an installation and a video. The exhibition theme is about the existence of the smoke in our everyday life in the sense of passion, addiction, dependence and enjoyment as well as the repercussions of smoking for smokers and non-smokers.

Stella Bakatsi was born in Trikala (Thessaly) in 1945. From 1964 to 1968 she studied English Literature in the University of Athens. From 1974 to 1977 she studied ceramics in the Central London Institute of Adult Education. She participated in several solo and group exhibitions in Greece, The UK, Italy, Denmark, Finland, Switzerland, Belgium and South Korea.

Solo exhibitions:

2013 - "Breath Traces", Technohoros art gallery, Athens

2011 - "Through the lens", Archeological Museum, Aegina

2011 - "Through the lens", Eugenides Foundation, Athens

2007 - "Flows", Red gallery, Athens

2000 - The Mill, Thessaloniki

1996 - The Mill, Thessaloniki

1994 - Attilio, Familiar art, Athens

1992 - "Earth, Water, Fire", Hour Gallery, Athens

1980 - Hour Gallery, Athens

Stella's artworks can be found in the Choson Royal Kiln Museum (South Korea), in Poomo Museum (Finland), in Musée Ariana (Geneva) and in many private collections. She lives and works in the city of Athens (Greece).

Opening hours:

Tuesday, Thursday, Friday: 11.00 - 14.30 & 17.30 - 20.30

Wednesday, Saturday: 11.00 - 16.00

Sunday, Monday: closed or by appointment

Technohoros Art Gallery

4th Lembessi & Makrigianni Street, Athens | metro station Acropolis

tel. ++30211 182 38 18

Artist presentation - Oresteia Papachristou

P+A: Can you tell us your biggest influences in art and how they have affected your work?

One of my greatest influences in art that effected my latest work, is Japanese folk art, Gustav Klimt, Western comics of the ‘70’s and Graffiti. But also the Eastern hand movements of the Indian folk dance for example, and the Mannerist dramatic gestures. Symbolism, as in Western art movement and in general Eastern way of expression, has always been one of the things I love to explore and use in my art.

P+A: Is there anything you consistently draw inspiration from?

My inspiration is anthropocentric, our instincts in a psychological extent. I love searching the meanings between the lines.

P+A: What are the pros and cons in being an artist?

Actually I can’t find any disadvantages in being an artist generally. Everybody in life, in anything that they choose [or not] to do, are seekers of expression, in one way or another. So, by that fact, being an artist is a blessing! Nevertheless, nowadays, the art market is so widely open, and in the same time so wildly selective by the art galleries, that makes it difficult for an artist to make a living from his/her art.

P+A: If you were to stop making art what would you replace it with?

I could do any job to survive, but making art is what makes me Alive.

P+A: When do you consider that a piece of artwork has finished?

A piece of art never finishes. There is always something that you can add. From a brushstroke to a thought.

P+A: Are you fond of experimentation? (eg. use of different medias)

Yes I am. You can’t learn where your limits are reaching if you are not pushing them a bit. But the artist always has to have in mind his target, and how the additional medias can help in that. I am not fond of posing just for posing.

Oresteia Papachristou exhibits her latest artworks in her first solo exhibition at “ASTROLAVOS-Tank” (Athens) from February 8th until March 8th, 2013. More information in our post.

Artist presentation - K. N. Patsios

P+A: Can you tell us your biggest influences in art and how they have affected your work?

There are many influences in my work, more from modernism and contemporary art than from the older masters, you can find many references to conceptual art, expressionism, pop art and of course surrealism. My whole consideration is how can I combine different languages, different materials and meanings. I want to create a puzzle that contains a great variety of colors, shapes and ideas. Psychoanalysis and politics I believe is a hidden fetish in my work Neurosis express an inner impact, in my work every contradiction returns in harmony!

P+A: Is there anything you consistently draw inspiration from?

Every-day life every-day people and a mirror not for narcissistic use, but as a usefool tool to analyse the forms and the meanings.

P+A: What are the pros and cons in being an artist?

Being an artist is a difficult issue, because you must spend a long time with yourself everyday, so you must be a good companion of yourself, and if you
 prefer experimental methods and not classic art, you want be able to make enough money for living. It is fantastic to express yourself and play with colors and all the materials that each artist choose, but the problem starts from the promotion of the work! It is not a job but a way of thinking, a way of living and more artists as they learn themselves more, they are free to live as they really want released from the social conventions.

P+A: If you were to stop making art what would you replace it with?

I would never stop making art, and in my dreams I produce new images.

P+A: When do you consider that a piece of artwork has finished?

A piece of art is finished when the artist choose that it is finished, it is absolutely a personal decision, there are no technical rules that submit when an artwork is finished. The artist knows when he is satisfied from his artwork, so it is finished.

P+A: Are you fond of experimentation? (eg. use of different medias)

Yes i like to use a great variety of materials and media starting from painting and collage to installations and video.

-- CV --

Born in Athens, Greece, 1977 Education

2002 – 2007 Athens School of Fine Art, Z ' Painting Laboratory, Tutors: J. Psychopaidis, M. Spiliopoulos, Additional Laboratory: Sculpture, Tutor: N. Tranos (graduated with distinction)

1995 – 2000 University of Piraeus- Economics and Law of the European Union 1997 “Erasmus programme” scholarship, Poitiers- France (Grand ecole de commerce)

1990 Rhodes Island School of Design - Scholarship in painting by “ Ziridis School ” - Boston USA

Solo Exhibitions

2010

The mirror, Hydra Hotel, Hydra, Greece

The Vitrina Project, Solo Presentation, Athens

K.N. Patsios presents The Divine Comedy, fizz gallery, Athens, curator: Alexios Papazacharias

The Roller Coaster, installation, ekfrasi – yianna grammatopoulou gallery

2009

Koukou, artis causa gallery, Thessaloniki, curator: Maria Kenanidou

Re Map 2, Sugar Mao, Thermopylon 27, curator: Marina Fokidi

2008

K.N. Patsios presents Mr. Cannibal, fizz gallery, Athens

Selected Group Exhibitions

2012

Tracing Traces, ekfrasi – yianna grammatopoulou gallery/ fizz gallery,Athens Curators: Artemis Potamianou, Georgia Kotretsos

back to Athens 2012, CAMP! Contemporary Art Meeting Point, Athens

Returning from Utopia – New Reality, About, Athens, curator: Yiorgos Tserionis

Postscraps, CAMP! Contemporary Art Meeting Point, Athens

Reculture 1, Patra, Greece

2011

Lol, TAF, curator: Provo Principles

seXarsi, Booze Cooperativa, curator: Megakles Rogakos

Undisclosed Recipients, TAF, Athens

52 Hertz, Melina Mercury, Hydra, Greece

“Greek Island”,Korai 4, Athens

Michalis Kakoyiannis Foundation, artistic intervention in the theatrical play

“Nobody Else”, Athens

Final group show, Vitrina project, Athens

2010

Artists support curators, Kappatos gallery, Athens

Art Sales,The Container, Thessaloniki

Coming Soon, fizz gallery, Athens

The Vitrina Project, Athens

3rd Anniversary exhibition, Artis Causa,Thessaloniki

Rooms to let, The Art Foundation, Athens, curator: George Georgakopoulos

Cinephil , Michalis Kakoyiannis Foundation, group show curated by Yiannis Psychopaidis

Nooumenon, ACG art gallery, curator: Megakles Rogakos

With eyes open, The Container, Thessaloniki

2009

Action Field Kodra, Hinterland, dialogue b, curator: Maria Kenanidou

The Artwe – project, Denmark- Aabenra, curator: Anne Lildholdt Jensen

Zulu/ require a tag, Perikleous 44, Guru, Athens

Art Athina - fizz gallery, Contemporary Art Fair, Athens

Miden Festival, Kalamata

Athens Photo Festival – FNAC, glance at the city

“The Arty-Farty show” - Obi uptown, Athens

2008

Art Athina/Open plan - gallery ekfrasi-yianna grammatopoulou, Contemporary Art Fair, Athens, curated by Bettina B

Art Athina, Athens Ville, curator: Marina Fokidi

“The portrait of a museum”, Averof Museum, Metsovo

Athens School of fine Arts - Graduation exhibition “The Meeting Point”, group exhibition, P65, Athens

2007

Contemporary Istanbul - Gallery ekfrasi-yianna grammatopoulou, Contemporary Art Fair, Istanbul

Belle arte Lamia, Modern Art Exhibition, Lamia

Action Field Kodra, Participation at the 7th Visual Arts Festival, Section Rooms to let, Thessaloniki

Kreation, Varvakios Market – May 2007, Athens School of Fine Art Students exhibition at the meat market

Goldener Centaur, May 2007, Munich, Represented Athens School of Fine Art in painting at a European competition of visual arts, Münchner Künstlerhaus

Artists beehive, Kipseli Municipal Market, February 2007

12 young artists exhibiting at the market, Curator: Leda Kazantzaki

4th Greek Fine Art Students Biennial, December 2006 –February 2007. Maris hotels, Rethimno, Crete-Athens Metro, Exhibition space of Syntagma Station

2006

Digital freaks install the noise, Three day festival including video, performances, cinema & dj sets. Curator and participator, Technopolis, Gazi, Athens-May 2006 FATA – MORGANA – Benaki Museum, Visual approaches to the poetry of Nikos Kavvadias

2005

Video Readings – E.M.S.T. – A.S.K.T. Presented the video art piece “La jalousie des hombres” on body art

Poésie en images, French Institute, Athens Young artists group show on French poetry