#9: Athens – Ancient Agora – Documenta 14@Athens Conservatoire once more

May 27, 2017

This day we decided to visit the ancient Agora, a public place where the ancient Greeks came together. The Agora is situated in front of the Acropolis on which it shows a magnificent view. In the restored Stoa of Attalos you can find a museum with sculptures and archeological findings from the terrain.
After a simple lunch we decided to visit the Athens Conservatoire once more for those who didin’t visit it yet. I appeared to have missed part of the Documenta exhibition there so for me too it was worth while. After that we were to have dinner with our German friends near there, but alas, that didn’t work out.

View on the Acropolis from the Ancient Agora

Triton at the entrance of the Palace of the giants, a gymnasium ( A.D. 410-530) which was built after the Odeion of Agrippa (15 B.C.) was destroyed by fire in the Herulian invasion. This Triton, as the other three that are still te be seen, remains from the Odeion.

The temple of Hephaistos from a distance. This temple is told to be the best kept antique temple on Greek soil.

My wife was able to join me the last couple of days. After having heard so many stories about Athens the past three years she wanted to see for herself again!

The headless Roman emperor  Hadrian

View on the Stoa of Attalos (159 – 138 B.C.) from a distance. This Stoa was built by Attalos II, king of Pergamon for the Athenians to meet, walk and do business. The Heruli destroyed it and in the fifties of the last century it was restored.

View on the inside of the Temple of Hephaistos

View over the length on the inside

View from the north

Metope from the side of the temple

Frontal view on the temple of hephaistos

This is what is left of the Middle Stoa (180-140 B.C.)

View on the restored Stoa of Attalos

Figurines of theatrical personae

Theatrical masks

Plan of the Agora at its fullest development in 2nd century A.D.

Athens Conservatoire

 

Nevin Aladagh: Music Room with funiture, housewares, musical instrument components and performances. At this moment a musical performance was being held with furniture instruments

Sedja Hémon, a rediscovered artist from Den Haag

Sedja Hémon

Sedja Hémon

Edi Hila

Edi Hila

Elisabeth Wild: Fantasia

Anna Davcíkova: on Allomorphing – 2017

Daniël Knorr: Book press

On this press dummies would be pressed

with stuff from the streets between its pages

The Ancient Agora

Documenta 14

#5: Athens – Documenta 14@ASFA – EMST

May 23, 2017

Today Platforms opened late, so we had a chance to visit Documenta again. First we headed for ASFA, The Athens School of Fine Arts, a beautiful space I visited before during Art Athina. Near ASFA we could also find some other small places with art from Documenta. After that I decided to go to EMST, the new Museum of Contemporary Art, a venue I had wanted to visit for some years. It had once been the FIX-brewery, well known Greek beer had been brewn here. After demolishing half of the building for a new subway-station, what remained was turned into a museum building which was left unused for some time, untill Documenta wanted to make use of it. The building is beautiful and it has nice spaces. It makes me think of the new SF-MOMA, the way the stairway goes up on the side of the building and by the way the facade is put up. I do think the routing is not very clear though, especially in case of a continuïng exhibition like the one I visited now.

Billboard on the way to ASFA

In a house on the way we found a project by Olabong Nkanga, a soap factory named Carved to Flow.

Natural Soap was presented here, this is manufactured with charcoal, water and natural fats like oil and butter from al over the Mediterranian and Africa

Laboratory stuff and a stamp for large pieces

In the house next door a subtle installation was made by Nikhil Chopra. During a performance of three days he made a wall drawing and a number of little artifacts. After this he set of for a road trip through Eastern Europe in the direction of Kassel. On the way he will do performances, public drawings and collaborative events.

The little clay models are moving

and the open sea in clay on the wall is rather overwhelming!

Anna Davcikova: Along the Axis of Affinity, a video installation showing the deveopment of abstract design next to East European building

Anna and Lawrence Halprin: Photographs of the Sea ranch and Driftwood City Workshops 1962-1971

Idem

Lawrence Halprin in interview

Bonita Ely: Plasticus Progressus – Memento Mori – 2017

Artur Zmijewski – Glimpse 2016-2017 A rather confronting video about the refugees in Calais ending up in paris underneath the metro. The director tries to have them integrated by teaching them to wipe the streets with a broom or by having them painting their faces white.

Olaf Holzapfel: Zaun -abstract work with natural materials, like cane or in this case straw. These are normally beïng used for fences or other useful things

Bouchra Khalili: The Tempest Society – talking heads telling about experiences in a strange land with beautiful music in between

Maria Magdalena Campus Pons and Neil Leonard: Matanzas Soundmap

A beautiful installation with efficiënt use of materials

EMST

Maria Eichhorn: Buiding as unowned property – conversion of a buiding’s legal status, legal studies, documents, building and lot at Stavropoulou 15, 11252 Athene

Acknowledgement Documenta 14

Lois Weinberger: Debris Field – 2010-2016 – Objects excavated from the Weinberger Family farmhouse in Austria, photographs, sculptures, works on paper

idem

Forough Farokhzad: The House is Black – 1963 Beautiful movie set in a leper colony in the north of Iran, The House is Black juxtaposes “ugliness”, of which there is much in the world as stated in the opening scenes, with religion and gratitude

Stanley Whitney: James Brown Sacrifice to Apollo – 2008

Ernest Mancoba: Untitled – n.d.

Maria Lai: Lenzuolo – 1981

Moyra Davey: Portrait/Landscape – 2017

idem – detail

Kvai Samnang: Preah Konlung – 2017 (eleven masks of woven vines)

Vilja Celmins: untitled

Cecilia Vicuña: Quipu Womb (The story of the red thread, Athens) – 2017

Yael Davids: A Reading that Loves, A Physical Act – 2017 including Death mask of Else Lasker Schüler

Nairy Baghramian: Drawing Table (Homage to Jane Bowles) – 2017

Hans Eijkelboom: from The Street & Modern Life – 2014

Edi Hila: Conversation – 2014

Facade EMST

This beautiful new piece was to be found in the changing booth of the 24 hours project

Frans van Lent en Nico Parlevliet van Unnoticed Art, almost After Hours at Platforms Project

Documenta 14