Ιανουάριος 2017

FLYING OVER THE ABYSS

Thirty four Artists Flying Over the Abyss at the Athens Conservatoire

To enter the exhibition Flying Over Abyss[1] one has to descend the stairs that lead to the first basement – closed and unfinished for four decades and now refurbished and uncovered for the needs of the exhibition– of the Athens Conservatoire. An emblematic building that is among the supreme expressions of the radical modern spirit of Bauhaus and was designed by the architect and professor Ioannis Despotopoulos, who studied under Walter Gropius in Weimar.

The exhibition organized by NEON[2] –the nonprofit organization founded in 2013 by collector and entrepreneur Dimitris Daskalopoulos- reflects upon the panhuman, fundamental philosophical issues of birth, death and the space in between – “the luminous interval life” as Nikos Kazantzakis, the important Greek writer and philosopher, names it in his book The Saviors of God[3], which is the exhibition’s epicenter and source of inspiration.

This is the first time that the manuscript of The Saviors of God is presented along side an exhibition. We read Kazantzakis words from the book’s prologue:

27 Ιανουαρίου 2017 by Ελένη Ζυμαράκη

Γενικά Άρθρα

CJM: FROM GENERATION TO GENERATION

Facing memories that are not ours, dealing with Postmemory

Interview with Pierre-François Galpin

According to Dr. Marianne Hirsch postmemory is “the relationship that the ‘generation after’ bears to the personal, collective, and cultural trauma of those who came before—to experiences they ‘remember’ only by means of the stories, images and behaviors among which they grew up. But these experiences were transmitted to them so deeply and affectively as to seem to constitute memories in their own right.”

Through their work, the twenty four international artists in this exhibition search, question, and reflect on the representation of truths related to ancestral and collective memory—ultimately attempting to deal with their own past. They remember and recall stories that were never theirs and assemble them in a variety of media to be seen, heard, and experienced by others. At once intimate and shared, the memories they work with are second-hand experiences, culled from a photograph they saw, or a story they heard, or even a once subconscious memory. The artists are secondary witnesses to the past events they use in their works, and it is precisely this distance in time and space that allows them to offer powerful narratives open to a wide range of interpretation and expression.

The exhibition is co-curated by CJM Assistant Curator Pierre-François Galpin and independent curator Lily Siegel.

Working in a variety of media the artists featured are:

Christian Boltanski, Nao Bustamante, Binh Danh, Silvina Der-Meguerditchian, Bernice Eisenstein, Eric Finzi, Nicholas Galanin, Guy Goldstein, Fotini Gouseti, Ellen Harvey, Aram Jibilian, Loli Kantor, Mike Kelley, Lisa Kokin, Ralph Lemon, Rä di Martino, Yong Soon Min, Fabio Morais, Elizabeth Moran, Vandy Rattana, Anri Sala, Wael Shawky, Hank Willis Thomas and Yamashiro Chikako

Pierre-François Galpin talked to Eleni Zymaraki Tzortzi.

21 Ιανουαρίου 2017 by Ελένη Ζυμαράκη