Platforms Project 2019 – The Fair

17 mei 2019

KOPEKT (Corect) is a group that shows an attitude sooner than artworks. I could find myself right away in this referential amalgam.

Drawings from the taverna where they meet

And the drawings are not bad at all!

At Daily Temporary from Sweden I was asked to participate in a performance by Leticia Maria from Palma.

I was the surface for a projection of the art-cake that was made by visitors

The visitors got an apron and started to get creative on the cake which was projected on my belly…

 

Political art by studio Asynchrome at Kunsthalle Graz

Nice work by the Greek-Rotterdam artist Maria Ikonomopoulou at Vita Zita Studio

Various Artists from Bruxelles (B) showed a fantastic project in which they have the audience make their own artwork

The result is always minimalistic and beautiful. This is “Pocketwork” -Carbon on paper worn in the pocket for two or three months.

Orphaned Images: Video-cakes by The museum of Forgetting

Topp and Dubio from Den Haag participated with an intricate installation about a sign in a shop they encountered.

The details are pretty hilarious as often

Another platform from Den Haag is Elders with Paintings by Lucius Pax and Liesbeth Bos, ceramics by Corine Barendregt and photographic work by Liesbeth van Woerden.

Corine Barendregt shows abstract Ceramics, created by pressing clay in the structures she finds on the street.

Liesbeth van Woerden adds 3D elements to her minimalistic photographs

Lucius Pax shows a series of Paintings with urban portraits

From the UK:  H-M-S with numerous artists

Ed’s video from Guelph in Canada shows an installation by Jérôme Havre based on Plato’s cave

A Hero from my youth: The Silver Surfer in mosaïc- technique in Transform Art Platform from Beograd by Milan Cuk

The Bureau d’art et de recherche Roubaix with works on paper by Guilaume Krick and sculpture by Clara Juliane Glauert

A-Trans from Berlin shows beautiful works by Concha Argüeso from Spain

Which is clear when you get closer, the artist writes and paints on the back of the paper with wax

Other minimalistic works like this ensemble also look strong

Lucia Bricco showed the stage for her performances at Sub Rosa Space from Athens

Kunsthalle Kleinbasel shows vulva’s by Nina Herrmann under the name Where are you from?

I think I prefer these

Galleria Rajatila from Tampere in Finland shows these little pieces that I like.

Heidi Lincke’s work at Scotty from Berlin is great, but making pictures in this light is difficult. The rapper worked with Kendrick Lamar

These drawings at Scotty are also great: Magnetfelder by Zuzanna Skiba

ID:I Gallery from Stockholm uses textwork, though Alexander Mood seems to be sleeping on the side it is an interesting installation

I Always like the beautiful small collages by Sandra Gea. Here she seems to broaden her perspective

Very subtle works!

This light and airy installation was a nice surprise from Backspace in Athens, done by artists group Bo.Ba (Katarina Botsari and Eleanna Balesi)

Great Urban Photography from the AC-Institute in New york

The Bcademie, a post academic course in Rotterdam, was also present with the old Dutch game of pulling strings and win an Artwork

Amongst which this SD-card on which the whereabouts of a buried artwork is indicated, by Lucas van Eeden

This is done by Kimon Kirligitsis and it has soon disappeared

This is by the same artist, it did not take long for this one to be chosen by a winner.

The Alpineum Produzentegalerie shows great painting by Reto Leuthold

This drawing was shown at Pow Wow: Coming in Waves by Katerina Papazissi

The beautiful presentation of IS-Projects shows American abstractionists from NewYork

Like Jacob Cartwright

And Patricia Zarate

At Und. the work of Vasilis Bótoulas stood out. It was an interesting stand of a cultural site that issues maps of cultural spaces in Athens and has an interesting blog. Check und-athens.com

It’s al about La Divina Comedia with beautifully ingraved metal circles,by Niki Zachari

Left Sub Rosa Space with Lucia Bricco’s installation and on the right EX-MÊKH’s installation

And back at Und. this nice textpiece by Kiriakos Spirou

In the evening Lucia Bricco continued her performance “The morning, The morning, the morning by entering with a blanket with technical toys in a blanket that she carried like a baby. She then let it all fall on teh ground, wound the toys around her head as you can see here

Ant sat down, waiting.

A bigger machine came at her, trying to get pieces of the ground

She put toys under her shirt, let them fall again and then had another coffee

And EX-MÊKH was talking again, with colleagues, with student, with visitors…

 

Platforms Project 2019

 

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Platforms Project 2019 – The Opening Day

16 mei 2019

After a morning of finishing touches, a press-conference by directors Artemis Potamianou and Michalis Argyrouat the press makes a round. At 19.00 h the fair is opened for invited guests and even before the crowd starts streaming in. The amount of visitors is twice that of last year which is what you would expect seeing people strolling by.
EX-MÊKH’s Ellen Rodenberg has been asked to manage the children’s educational department and instruct the volunteers for workshops, tours of the fair and preparing the workshop space. That takes a lot of her time after EX-MÊKH’S booth is finished
An impression of the day, with first the installation by EX-MÊKH as it was finished:

EX-MÊKH: Equilibrium

The blue Sculptures are done by Maarten Schepers, the abstract painting is done by Ellen Rodenberg and anything with text is done by kees Koomen

A more close impression

Lots of words

and colours

The small paintings are from the diaries

as are the shards from the past that Kees Koomen wrote

We were satisfied with a colourfull, spacious installation

The press conference with left Michalis Argyrou and on the right Artemis Potamianou

Ellen Rodenberg is instructing the volunteers, Artemis’ angels!

Even in the afternoon IS-Projects is finishing their presentation of New York Abstractionism

The space where the kids workshops are beïng held is beïng prepared. EX-MÊKH’s Maarten Schepers is happy to construct the exhibiting sculpture

When the actual opening starts we notice that EX-MÊH’s network has grown considerably, people from earlier editions come to say hello.

There are a number of performances during the evening, this one is done by Joëlle Montech, and Elvira Andrikogiannopoulou at Association theatre Dionysos et AppollonIt is called “Tango against Photo”

This gives you an impression of the crowd in the beginning of the opening.

Then, next to EX-MÊKH, Lucia Bricco starts “The morning, the morning, the morning”

She comes from behind a curtain on which an urban surrounding has been drawn

She sits down in front of it, everything is blue

A pot stands next to her

She starts washing herself with the earth that is inside the pot

It litterally looks like washing

In between Karen Linnenkohl walks by as “Mirror Head”

And Lucia Bricco continues

Lies straight along a line of earth underneath the drawing

She tries to move the drawing by blowing against it

And stands up and takes coffee, morning at last!

At the end of the day EX-MÊKH was tired and satisfied with the reactions on the works.

Platforms Project 2019

EX-MÊKH

 

 

 

Platforms Project 2019 – set-up Equilibrium

15 mei 2019

This year again, EX-MÊKH participates in Platforms project in Athens. It takes place in the Nikos Kessanlis-exhibition hall of the Athens School for Fine Arts for the second time after Documenta resided there. Art Athína will not take place this year and during this fair students will show their work in open studios. Expectations are high so we start setting up our installation. We decided to show the individual works of all three of us in one large installation, in perfect equilibrium. In this way we illustrate the way EX-MÊKH has worked for 13 years already: we developed an understanding of each others needs and fortes. Here you will find an impression of the building up:

First the backdrop: Ellen Rodenberg’s paintings and a tekst of kees Koomen written over it with wool and buddies. It says: EX-MÊKH – particles enclosed – in perfect equilibrium  – close and at a distance

Then we start adding our work to it

As does maarten Schepers with his sculptures

At night EX-MÊKH is invited by the notorious Topp & Dubio for dinner.

Platforms project 2019

EX-MÊKH

Equilibrium

14 mei 2019

EX-MÊKH is deze week in Athene voor deelname aan Platforms Project, verslagen volgen zo spoedig mogelijk:

EX-MÊKH

Platforms Project 2018 – day 4

May 20, 2018

After a walk in the park I joined Platforms Project again to finish our project. On this day a lot of performances took place of which I missed some, but I think I caught the most of it. Here’s an account of the last day:

 

The park near Syntagma was beautiful with the purple flowers falling

All of a sudden I was pointed at the Republic of Banania that was cutting a litttle book of mine to have a passport photo. Now someone is having a passport with a painting of Ezra Pound!

Across, around the corner someone installed this piece at the 24 hours project

This also is a nice casual intallation at Ormston House, from Ireland

From Canada AKA & UAS presented Walter Scott with great contemporary drawing.

Of course Guillaume Krick was present again, his platform Bureau d’Art et de Recherche presented his 3D work and that of Clara Juliane Glauert. Here Guillaume performs inspired by his sculpture!

The great Linda Weiss shows her work with Scotty from Berlin

And of course our friends from the Bcademie had their ways of making fun again, they organized a lottery: for € 2,- one could buy one of the obects on the floor. If it had a sticker on the back, you could take your pick…

out of these art works. I tried several times but was not lucky, though I would have liked very much to pick…

this V&B-piece,

This tongue in cheek work by Daan den Houter

or this great drawing by Lisa Blauwbroek

One of these by Tjalling Mulder would have been nice too, but alas….

Our friends of the Milena Project were present again

with this Utopia-project

and this example of “Belgicisme” that I liked a lot: pins sticking in the sleeves, letters as an invitation to shake hands by reading…

In the end I completed the Athens Diary, which makes for a fine set of drawings

The public wouldn’t stop gluing

And still some performances were due, here three ladies entered singing orthodox song while a performer creeped to the exit in sheets

like a snail trying to get out…

After Hours: I forgot to take a picture of the great piece of Gianin Conrad at Diensgebäude, probably because we saw it all the time

And I liked it every time!

Of Course Rosa Lux was also present with work by Tony Domingos

And this project was also worth wile: Danae Stratou at Vital Space created this beautiful site-specific installation of which documentation was presented.

The Milena Project showed this last minute performance by this classical dancer

Next to us was an installation by Angela Brisnovali at LaLa Artgroup from Greece that I liked more and more

Especially this work on paper

And finally our last collage was taken off the wall

And put into the pool

After which everything was displayed

The day and Platforms Project 2018 ended in music and dance, next morning early I would return home!

Platforms Project

EX-MÊKH

Platforms Project- Beton Radio – day 3

May 19, 2018

Today I visited some of the stands at Platforms Project 2018 to check out what they were doïng, here are some things I liked:

 

But first I put up my third drawing from the Athens Diaries at the EX-MÊKH booth

Pantelis Vitaliotis at Space 52 from Greece

Happy Water by Daniela Domingues at Alisn from London: a video of an old aquaduct in Rome where they put a tenniscourt right next to it. In front are sculptures with a tennisball-imprint

I like those as a sculpture

The representative of Alisn was happy to participate at the EX-MÊKH booth

From our Home-town Den Haag: Elders! A flatiron and a wide open handbag are sweeping through space

Democracy in visual arts: the public can change the images

Our neighbours from Sweden are nice guys, this is made by Peter Westman of Daily Temporary. The material is sunken wood that has been taken from the water

Ed’s video from Canada had nice pieces like this Mountainview by Xiaojing Yan

made from anise stars

it is being echoed by this piece by Juliane Foronda

IDI Gallery had some nice pieces like these

I thought I heard the sound of a didgeridoo, but it was the vynil recording of a human voice. Very interesting sound and letter experiments at Random from Italy

Sandra Gea made a beautiful autobiografical collage and shows it at Binary Art Group from Malta

As is this beautifull weaving

IS-projects is a very interesting platform from Leiden (NL). International abstract art in wonderful presentations, an oasis in this fair, curated by Richard van der Aa!

Das Esszimmer from Bonn (G) is an interesting platform too, here with the work of Geneviève Morin

Which I really like for the painterly quality

Meanwhile an avantgarde jam-session is taking place at Daily Temporary. Exhibiting artist Lars Asling bought an old guitar and invites people to come play with him

The Wonderful MUU from Helsinki has a number of video’s to show amongst which Jukka Sillokunas stood out with this video about vanishing toy-pets. MUU also showed a really interesting educational project with kid-curators showing their choice of art.

Come alone, don’t call cops (what a name, by the way!) where the performance “Concrete execution” by Adrien Chevrier took place: a concrete mixer was mistreated

and misused while it was turning

Everything was out of context, out of sequence, out of measurements

And eventually the beast was killed, it stopped turning

Meanwhile Ellen was still trying to get a passport and she was send from the cupboard to the wall as we say in Holland

People kept coming in to cut and paste the collages of EX-MÊKH

Which turned out like this today

And this is the Athens Diary up to now!

There were a lot of side shows, open studios in art school but also “Giving”, this benefit for the blind. 210 artists participated in this.

After having dinner in the hip area near the Keramikos subwaystation we went to Beton 7  which hosts an international  show by IS-projects from Leiden (NL) under the name “RNOP – HELLENIKON” and “Doldrums”, a video installation by Jenn E. Norton.

The first space was occupied by a very effective installation-piece by Daniel Gottin which gave the place a structure to be used by the artist of the show

This is the work of Richard van der Aa who curated the IS presentation at Platforms Project.

Next to his are the works of Kyle Jenkins (AU) and Peter Holm (DK)

This is the work of IS-initiator Iemke van Dijk (NL)

And this is the work of the second IS-initiator Guido Winkler (NL)

This is the work of Billy Gruner (AUS), the curator of this show.

In the other space we could see the work of Jenn E. Norton. Doldrums is a video-installation in which light-reflection on refelective surfaces transmitting information through light.

It’s supposed to be seen with 3D glasses which causes a rather trancy atmosphere, which is enhanced by the slowly undulating waves and the music being played

Platforms Project 2018

Platforms Project – day 2

May 18, 2018

On this second day I had the opportunity to see some things in Athens, so I decided to go to the Byzantine Museum to try and understand somthing of the history of this region and, having some time left, to visit the cradle of democracy on the Philopappos hill which itself is called the Mouseion, the hill of the muses. After this I went back to the ASFA to take part in our project for Platforms Project.

A replica of the Byzantine mosaïc of emperor Justinian from Ravenna. This emperor tried to restore power of the Roman empire from Constantinople where he ruled Byzantium. He built the Hagia Sophia which was later turned into a mosque after the Ottomans conquered Constantinople.

Cotton liturgical vestment with the image of a female saint flanked by forty other female saints. – 18th – 19th century

Part of a silk vestment embroidered with silk and metallic threads

Part of a wall-painiting depicting deesis (upper zone) with hierarchs performing the liturgy together and melismos (lower zone). From the conch of the north aisle of the twin church of Hagios Giorgios and Nikolaus in Lathrina, Naxos – Late 13th century

Icon of St. George “Kefalopharos” (head-bearer) – 16th century. It made me think of the description from the Divina Commedia of Bertran de Born, the mediëval troubadour from France.

Greek architecture “under construction” along the way

The “bêma” (orators spot) on the Pnyx where democracy started in 508 BC. Around it the people would sit in a circle on rocks and later wooden benches to listen to orators like Pericles, Demosthenes and Themistocles.

This is left of the ancient stoa behind the pnyx

The wall of an ancient Byzantine church on the hill, St. Demetrios Lampardiaris – 12th century

The Mouseion, hill of the muses.

On top of that hill the monument of Philopappos, a Roman born in Syria

From here the view on the Akropolis is stunning

Back at the Platforms Project a new collage is growing

We had two girls from a Turkish gallery participating on the project

Which they did with enthousiasm

Across the aisle there was a constant playing of communist marching songs which drove everybody mad. Ellen tried to get a passport there from the republic of Banania, but she got stuck in Bureaucracy: it was a perfect piece of absurd theatre from the collective Future Scenario’s from Greece with Dutch artist Maaike Stutterheim participating

Our new collage ended up in the pool…

And after a very late night dinner I enjoyed the beautiful view on Pireus for some time

Platforms Project 2018

Byzantine and Christian Museum Athens

Philopappos Hill