#3: Athens – Platforms Project 2017

May 21, 2017

This sunday was to be the longest day of the Fair: from 12.00 untill 23.00 h. Unfortunately it was also a day that some religious nameday was celebrated and that  important sportsevents took place. It was very quiet at the fair and it felt desencouraging to have so little people coming by, but everybody made the best of it. I visited some booths that I didn’t see yet as you can see here:

On the way to the Platforms we run into a Documenta project: Rasheed Araeen: Food for Thought: Thought for change – 2017 In this location refugees can have free meals every day. There’s a kitchen in the middle and  there are terraces all around.

The design is very efficiënt: recognisable from afar

Arriving at the Platforms the KRAATZ-artists appear to have liven up to their promise: the booth changes, here with added posters by Stéphan Guénau

Marian Wijnvoord and Isolde Nagel are stil in doubt about one wall

But this A-Trans wall is well done

Alexander Peev at Dadada Academy

Klitsa Antoniou: But at the End the Light was Shed on us and it got us to the shore – 2016.  A horrible video with a girl that tells about loving her father and how she likes to help him put shrapnel in bombs and how they flee to the west where she gets to know other children of her age

En Flo: Project Xouthou Street – a door from a house in the centre of Athens you can go through

after which you can write down what it brings about in you. Left under is my comment.

Extra Muros from Nantes was good again: they had subtle ceramic works by Cat Fenwick

It’s all about equilibrium

Guillaume Krick showed a very non-commercial installation with an old French flag

And Romain Rambaud was his usual elegant self with these sculptures

That I rather like

Diensgebäude is also present with work from Andreas Martí

and Chloe Cheuk

Elisabeth Wheeler

This work at Harrington Mills Studios was nice

I like the materiality of it

A sneak peak at the new unnoticed art exhibit featuring a small work by yours truly

Haïtian art at Kallio Kunsthalle, cut from car tires

Petri Saariko, the curator did well himself too

In the mean while our publicity was great: Ellen Rodenberg’s picture of her Malieveld piece was in a large national newspaper in an article about Platforms project

And I was interviewed by George Oreopoulos for Beton7 Art Radio (my favourite radiostation)

Our Dutch Globalist Willem Jan Smit made a round through the neighbourhood, created a sculpture

And projected it’s shadow on the wall by means of the dust he took off it

And of course some materials he used

One more view at Lo and Behold in the cellar

With work by Linda Weiss

Ed’s Video from Canada had surprisingly analogue art with him this time

End we ended up nearby in a restaurant during a blazing thunderstorm

Nico Parlevliet from Unnoticed Art joined us from Holland and everybody sang for me after midnight because of my birthday!

Platforms Project 2017

#2: Athens – Documenta 14 @ Athens Conservatoire – Platforms Project 2017

20 mei 2017

Today the Platforms Project opened for the public. Before I had some time to visit a venue of Documenta 14, The Athens Conservatoire or Odeion as Greeks call it. In the next reports I will show the works I thought worth while, in the end I shall try to eveluate Documenta as a whole.

At the entrance – David Lamelas: Time as Activity – a three channel live feed from resp. the German parliament, the Acropolis and the Greek Parliament.

Susan Hiller made a beautiful work, a sound-booth with recordings of vanished or endangered languages

Of course, in a conservatory, music can not be omitted. The Contemporary Music Research Centre, founded by Iannis Xenakis, Giannis Papaioannou and Stephanos Vassiliadis conducted research and engaged in educational projects as well as festivals and collaborations.

For instance Mycenae Polypoton, a site specific performance set in the ruins of Mycenae in 1978. It involved musicians, singers, sheperds and lit sheep as well as other recitals of movement and light.

On the occasion of Documenta 14 an old synthisizer was restored, the EMS Synthi 100, a rare analogue synthesizer built in London in 1971. Four compositions have been written for it to be played during Documenta 14.

Akinbode Akinbiyi: Passageways, Involuntary and the Sound of Crowded Spaces – 2015-2017

Pélagie Gbaguidi: The Missing Link, Decolonisation Education by mrs. Smiling Stone – 2017

Pélagie Gbaguidi: The Missing Link, Decolonisation Education by mrs. Smiling Stone – 2017

Guilermo Galindo: Score for Boca de la noche – 2016 (from the series “Border Canto’s”)

Guilermo Galindo: Score for Border Planetarium – 2016 (from the series “Border Canto’s”)

Kettly Noël: Strange Fruit

André du Colombier: Untitled

Peter Friedl: Report – 2016

Ganesh Haloi: Untitled – 2016

Ganesh Haloi: Untitled – 2016

Hiwa K: Pre-Image (Blind as the Mother Tongue) – 2017 A video of a man escaping his country with a stick on his head with mirrors attached to it. He sees his surroundings and himself in the mirrors while we see him walking to his destiny. A voice-over relates his feelings in all this.

Hiwa K: Pre-Image (Blind as the Mother Tongue)-2017

After the Conservatory I walked to the venue where Platforms project was beïng held,. On the way I stopped at some of the places where small presentations in Documenta could be seen. The Nikos Hadjikyriakos- Ghika Museum, one of the four locations of the Benaki Museum is a beautiful house in the centre of the city. It shows biographies of well known writers, actors, poets, composers and painters and sculptors. The building used to be the house of Ghika, one of the famous Greek modernist painters, the two top floors show his living quarters and his studio. In between all this Documenta had placed work of forgotten painters. The paintings were not very interesting, apparently they were chosen because of their subjects: immigrants and other non Greek persons.

Beautiful sketches of renovation of The Niche, the 8th gymnasium school chapel of Athens

And this is the chapel, a nice modernist buiding

A picture of Greek poet Seferis together with Ezra Pound

This is the official document which was given to Giorgos Seferis when he won the Nobel Prize for litterature

36 Black and white pictures by Nikos Hadjikyriakos- Ghikawere added by Documenta

They show Greek living in the thirties

but you can recognise the painter in the structures and the compositions

The Numismatic Museum showed one work: that of Dan Peterman, who also shows at the EMST

It’s a bar of metal, the form suggests gold, from under the sea maybe?

Back in Platforms an impression of what is beïng shown by different artists initiatives:

Oversight EX-MÊKH booth

EX-MÊKH: Maarten Schepers

Maarten Schepers close up with his night-pictures of stars

Ellen Rodenberg: detail

Kees Koomen: oversight

KRAATZ is an interesting collaboration from Berlin with A-Trans’ Isolde Nagel, painter Marian Wijnvoord, musician Yorgos Dimitriadis, Stéphan Gueneau, Louise Crawford and philosopher Forbes Morlock. This installation was to change every day, though I found it interesting as it was

A-Trans showed photographs by Ekkehard Keintzel and pantings by Marian Wijnvoord

The combination of which worked out well

Moving landscapes by Marian Wijnvoord

Rosa Lux collaborated with other galleries again, this is Tiny Domingos at Beaston Projects

With slightly surrealistic pictures too

And this is Linda Weiss at Paper from UK

She had a beautiful presentation by the way, for instance with these Trump Tower grids!

National TV was present at the opening, interviewing Dutch globally based artist Willem-Jan Smit

The cellar was the real underground with nice work at ID:I

At Future Scenarios pictures were taken of the public

I don’t have the name of this collective, but it was a lively lot

At 24 hours project a daily change would take place also, I liked this as it was though!

With great graphic art up in the corner

and a protagonist on the side

Unnoticed Art presents an unnoticed exhibition, but it also executes performances of these artists regularly!

Unnoticed Art makes one curious for its intentions

but it appears to be a very intimate exhibition, featuring the works of EX-MÊKH-members

This is the wall in the cellar where the Lo and Behold shows their project, EX-MÊKH is presented in a nice context

After the opening of Platforms drinks in a local bar. On the way there we passed the Panathinaikos stadium, covered with grafitti!

Platforms Project 2017

Documenta 14

 

Platform Project & Art Athina 2016

May 27, 2016

In spite of the crisis atmosphere in Athens and the refugee-problems that haunt the country the Athens artfair took place again this year. The Taekwondo Stadium had been occupied with refugees in winter during heavy rains which resulted in a lot of problems.  Nevertheless, the fair continued but the big galleries in Greece didn’t show up and the galleries that did show up were very conservative in their choice of artists. The Platform Project on the other hand was very interesting this year. It is always worth to visit but now the side show for non-commercial art platforms showed great art and awareness of the human and the political situation which in some cases led to  moving art works.

Look at the fair from the platforms

Derek Liddington at 8Eleven, a very interesting sculptor. these are studies after an Elsworth Kelly drawing

This video was shot by Liddington, having four actors making a pillar of clay and creating a tension between disciplines

 

This was an ongoing performance in 8eleven in which a dancer would reenact the choreography “Ode” which was executed by les Ballets Russes in 1913. The floor on which the dancer moved was a square meter of clay

I found this work very moving: in an inter-active work, Navine Khan Dossos tries to paint the 2000 people that have sought refuge in the Taekwondo Stadium last winter. Visitors and colleagues are invited to contribute as the artist will continue to paint until the end of the fair.

This beautiful Painting has been made by an icon-painter for Kallio Kunsthalle (FI), following the text that Petri Saariko had prepared.

Andreas Martí installed this drawing installation at Dienstgebäude

It is continuing to draw during the fair

This wall sculpture of Bettina Diel could also be seen at Diensgebäude

From Nantes (FR) came Extra Muros in which these wall sculptures by Romain Rimbaud were shown

Interesting painting at Foss (GR)

A short visit to the real fair: here a photograph by Sarah Lucas

Nice political drawings by Tasos Pavlopoulos

Collage by Maria Ikonomoupoulou

who also made beautiful embroideries on newspaper, shown at Mulier Mulier

Where also work of the painter Guy van Bossche was shown

I rather liked these collages because of the use of material. made by Nikos Varitymiadis

Taubert Contemporary showed an artist with over-all design: Lars Arrhenius

Curator of Platform Projects, the wonderful Artemis Potamianou, an artist also, showed at the floor of the fair

Kallio Kunsthalle showed performance “about the self-determination of women”

At MUU (F) the performance artist Helinä Hukkataival showed a very sensitive performance

resulting in a beautiful series of personae

From the Netherlands came Bcademie, a post-graduate training for artists (after A you have to say B). Here initiators Alex Jacobs and Daan den Houter talk with their students, of which six were doïng performances durig the fair. One for a Euro!

The students found props in Athens and used those to arrange their space

They proved quite popular, here Elsemarijn Bruijs working on chewing gum

The shift was together with Philippa Driest

Who showed pictures of urban places accompanied by sounds of airplanes

AKA artist run from Saskatchewanm, Canada with sculpture of Svea Ferguson

Super 8 video by Leslie Supnet

and Lori Blondeau who researches diverse persona’s

The Lo and Behold (GR) wants to fertilise the soil in “Bureau of Soil making” by Yiannis Hiridoglou

From Boston (USA) the Museum of Contemporary Cuts with heavy conceptual work with a direct approach

Which works rather good I think

Then an installation of Amiraly from Parking Gallery/New media Society from Iran, a presentation which is well worked out

Cut the Fence, a project of Copa & Sordes: the 657 meter long fence of a Swiss refugee camp is transformed in to the same length of African damask fabric with fence pattern: everybody who cuts a piece of it contributes to the destruction of the fence

Groupshow at SCI (UK) with very nice works, some fresh from the boats coming to Greece

Ed video: always interesting video-stuff, here by Iris Fraser and David Hanes

Foreign Affairs, A beautiful collaboration by Bella Easton, Tiny Dominguez and Julia Riddlough of resp. Beaston projects, Rosa Lux and A Brooks Art

The beauty of statistics, by Tiny Dominguez

In the mean while the Capacity-project of Navine Khan Dossos is a large succes

 

The refugee-camp is turning in a large field of flowers!

At A-Trans beautiful work on paper by Marian Wijnvoord

Who also burns down the Netherlands in her Photo-collages

The line in Andreas Martí’s installation is lengthening

Bcademy’s students don’t stop performing, here Maud van den Beuken moves sand

from stage to visitor

and Casper Braat plans a make-over for your humble reporter

Various Artists from Belgium, a research in shit which Belgians find interesting in general

Trying to find the pearls which are being digested by test-persons

And also the deterioration of Bonsai-trees under water is a process that results in esthetic pleasures under the name Agua con Gaz

The very big collective EN-FLO (GR) installed suit-cases with fillings

And then there is the very interesting Milena Principle, showing projects that relate to our own activities. Action in public space about silence and slowness.

In Venice

And Athens, we will hear more from them!

Last but certainly not least Kunstenaarsinitiatief Elders from Den Haag (NL), here an expanding painting by Lucius Pax

Painting by Liesbeth Bosch

And surprising ceramics by Corine Barendregt

Art Athina 2016

Art Athina 2015-VII

6 juni 2015

This is an oversight of the to my taste most interesting initiatives at the Platforms Project of Art Athína:

8eleven from Toronto Canada with collective work by Laurie kang, Nadia Bellerique, Rosa Aiello and Lili Huston/Herterich

Lamprini Markou on virtue and attitude at Lustspiel from Greece

Mirka Minnula @ Rajatila Gallery from Finland

Mirka Minnula @ Rajatila Gallery from Finland

Martin Creed @ Kappatos Athens Art Residency

Martin Creed @ Kappatos Athens Art Residency

Martin Creed @ Kappatos Athens Art Residency

Le vide dans le vide ou la disillusion

 

Then, lots of activities at B’Printmaking Studio A.S.F.A. – TCA

With a very engaging project

Resulting in occupancy of the total surroundings of the booth with beautiful works

With 3D sketches of Istanbul

Near this we find a paradoxical booth of Provo Principles from Greece, clearly engaged in the present situation

With a heap of débris from the artists studios

and art in small match boxes

which work out nicely

Atrans from Berlin shows Marian Wijnvoord again with romantic landscapes

The artist has created. work in new techniques, oilpaint on photopaper

and she is clearly satisfied with the result. We are happy that Atrans will coöperate with EX-MÊKH in Berlin in september. Here you see Marian Wijnvoord and Isolde Nagel, the initiator of Atrans in front of their booth.

Another detail from the EX-MÊKH booth with a drawing of Ellen Rodenberg and a selfportrait of Kees Koomen

The crowd at EX-MÊKH’s booth with Maarten Schepers explaining

A view at Grauzone from Austria

And the Dada Academy from Austria

Which shows also the right couch for underneath your painting

I liked the booth of the Wiener Art Foundation from Wien (I guess) where painterly action was applied

and nice sculptures were to be found

IS-Projects from Leiden (the Netherlands) was one of my favourites

With an exhibit of abstract art curated by John Tallman

an esthetic oasis in this context.

With the work of initiators Guido Winkler and Iemke van Dijk next to eachother

Lo and Behold is a very interesting initiative witrh actions in public space

with a great number of artists participating, amongst whom a favourite of last year: Maria Lianou

and others whom I don’t know

Incart from Mallorca made a very lively impression

From Rotterdam came our friends of the Tupajumi Foundation with the TFHMF-award

This dynamic work was selected from the USA and came in just before the opening of the fair due to delay at customs.

I personally voted for this piece by Maarten Bel

The Tupajumi members took the votes from visitors

Dienstgebäude had a nice booth too with a.o. the work of initiator Andreas Marti (bottom)

Dutch artist Bob Gramsma

and Ingo Giezendammer with psychedelic wallpaper.

VHS-Blues by Julian Boily @ AMV from Canada

VHS-Blues by Julian Boily @ AMV from Canada

The French Extra Muros from Nantes (FR)

With an inventive 5 € lampshade

En Flo from Greece had an impressive socially engaged installation: Micro History

With jobless women sowing printed cloth together and handing it out to the public

empty solidarity….

@ Skouze “Errare ergo sum” the wine was bitter-sweet

and the floor contemporary in traditional technique

Campus Novel showed a very interesting project about the ever-changing sign of a restaurant in Athens

Kunstenaarsinintiatief Elders from Den Haag (N) was present with strong work by Liesbeth van Woerden, like this sound piece

And Architectural studies by Liesbeth Bos

This piece by Liesbeth van Woerden was particularly popular, you took some time for it by stamping a ticket

A Greek fan from last year came by to see our new installation

And documentation was dutifully taken care of by Maarten Schepers

Platforms Project