a. the athens contemporary art review 12

issu

e 12

- ap

ril 2

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Contents

03 Editorial

05 Drafts

12 White, sometimes black Fotis Georgiadis writes about the exhibition of coloured ancient sculptures in the National Archaeological Museum

20 5th DESTE Prize Theophilos Tramboulis discusses with the nominees of the 5th DESTE Prize

34 Interview Viktor Misiano discusses with Faye Tzanetoulakou

40 Nature morte politique (a review of two tables) Aristeidis Antonas writes about Vangelis Vlachos exhibition 1992

48 What is (to be) done? Penelope Petsini writes with Leninist fervour on the occasion of a photographic exhibition by Nikos Markou at AD Gallery, instead of a review

56 Temporary Dissapearence Christina Petrinou writes about Zafos Xagoraris participation in the Biennial of the End of the World

60 Cities are not seized by air The group intothepill present the presuppositions of their collective action

64 Visits Katerina Nikou meets Dimitris Baboulis

68 Book review Elpida Karampa and Polyna Kosmadaki review Pierre Bourdieus book The Rules of Art

62 Agenda

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The poster with the discobolous posted on Athens bus stops for the nal of the European Basketball Championship had a certain ancientGreek grandeur to it, accentuated, contrapuntally I suppose, by a most majestic Devotion in English just under the statues bottom. Of course, theres nothing new about linking ancient Greek sculpture with contemporary sporting ideals, and its ideological roots can be eortlessly traced back to thehandling of nationality issues posed by Greek sports fans a decade ago with their chant of Hey, Albanian, youll never be Greek. The whiteness of these statues has played a central role in the history of modern-era representations of ancient Greek statuary; indeed, towards the middle of the last century, National Socialism laid claim in this whiteness to a reection of its ownrepresentation of Aryan moral virtues. Coinciding with the exhibition at the National Archaeological Museum, Fotis Georgiadis traces the history of white statues and the sacred place they occupy in the Greek national consciousness.

In Drafts, the Athens discussion continues with texts by Alexandros Kioupkiolis and Philopoimin Sartas. Although s core is its reviews, as I see it the allusive and often tangential nature of the Drafts gives them a little leeway to include some of the best texts published in the magazines rst 12issues.

The 5th DESTE award is the rst that it to be held in the Foundationspremises in Nea Ionia, Athens. Looking ahead to the exhibition, we talked to the six shortlisted artists about the context of their participation and the nature of their work.

Faye Tzanetoulakou talks to Viktor Misiano about curating Art Athina. His

ISSUE 12 APRIL 2007. the athens contemporary art review

Editorial

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curatorial project coincides with the publication of the Acts of the Athens Biennal conference in which the Russian theorist and curator took part.

In view of Vangelis Vlachos show, Aristeidis Antonas considers the archive as a rift. Penelope Petsini writes about Nikos Markous exhibition at the AD gallery. Christina Petrinou writes about Zafos Xagoraris participation in the 1st End of the World Biennale in Tierra del Fuego, Argentina. intothepill sets down the preconditions of its group action, and Katerina Nikou chats with Dimitris Baboulis, whose recent activities included taking part in the Golden Age group exhibition which, staged at a.antonopoulou.art proved a ne initiativethough not without its share of problems stemming from ill-thought-out goals. Finally, Elpida Karampa and Polyna Kosmadaki review The rules of art by Pierre Bourdieu, a recent publication of considerable note.Next issue at the end of May.

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The False Dipole of Modern Greek Provincialism

The category of provincialism and the related experiences have been noted as a constituent part of the identity and biota of modern-day Athenians. The term invokes a narrow horizon and worldview, but also an ambivalent attitude towards the centre, that is evident in villages and towns of the regional Greece. This ambivalence is reected, on theone hand, on a tendency towards indiscriminating, often ridiculous and grotesque mimicry, and on the other on hostile feelings against the otherness epitomized by the centre, as well as on a tedency for excessive identication withthe sacred and superior traditions threatened by the inuence of thecentre. The issue that we often dont realize as Athenians, or we

feel in the characteristic manner of provincialism -tightroping between a semi-enlightened awareness and repression- is our own provincialism. The provincialism of the rest of Greece is simply a distinctive folding of neogreek provincialism that focuses on the Athenian o-centre.

During the recent public debate concerning the History workbook for the 6th Grade of public elementary school, a picturesque story we have witnessed time and again the last fteen years around theMacedonia issue, the ID cards, the Annan Plan, the EU monetary integration and more, was restaged once again. Often the protagonists are the same, Archbishop Mr. Christodoulos, neo-orthodoxists and patriotic anti-imperialist leftists on the one hand and the coalition of reformist politicians, intellectuals and journalists along with the

publisher of Athens Voice free press newspaper and other publications of similar ideological prole on theother. The same, more or less, camps are set up every time, reviving once again a dualism that is said to date back to the late Byzantine period when the friends and foes of the Latin West were clashing, and which revived more times, and mostly after the modern Greek state was established, from the period of the modern Greek Enlightenment and its opponents until the conictbetween Venizeloss followers and royalists.

It has been argued that this discord articulates the fundamental ontological alternatives of modern Greece: on the one hand, the preservation or renaissance of the particular historical prole ofmodern Greeks, which combines elements from antiquity, Byzantium,


06

Orthodoxy and the modern-day popular culture, and on the other hand a faster pace of joining the Western present, by consolidating liberal constitutional institutions, the modernisation of the State, the growth of a competitive economy and technology. Critics of this schematic view have remarked that the aforementioned dualism does not only run across society, but also within each individual, in whom reformist and outdated expressions of the Modern Greek culture merge. They have also implied that there is a fundamental identity at the root of this dual opposition. The two approaches are deviating yet intermingling responses to shared experiences, concerns and pursuits of the modern Greek society in its interaction with the international environment and modernism. It is worth focusing,

though, on something that tends to pass unnoticed. A major aspect of the identity which merges these two opposites is the underlying barren provincialism, which informs in principle the Modern Greek national identity and its paradigmatic epicentre, the Athenian theatre.

The national identity of the modern Greeks became the topic of a more systematic enquiry, and its typical characteristics began to crystallise through the birth pangs of the establishment of the modern Greek State. Historically, culturally, nancially and geopolitically,the nation-state that was being established found itself incorporated into the system of Western modernism, unwillingly or not. Its late inclusion to this relational network, its political submissiveness throughout the longest part of its existence, the meekness of being

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rearmost of all in the rmament ofthe international correlations, the nancial and military shortcomingsand the intellectual and scienticatrophy of the modern Greek society, they all placed it from the beginning at the remote periphery of the modern Western world, whose centres move at times yet without changing substantially the Greek marginality. The provincial, inferior position of the modern Greek nation-state in the historical and cultural constellation where it was planted from birth caused understandable reactions in the national mentality in formation, reactions that came to a dynamic interaction with the typical mechanisms of producing national identities.

In order to highlight its individuality, the nation draws material from the past, subject to

availability. Moreover, in order to provide meaning and resources for pleasure to its carriers in order to secure their faith, it often invents a glory that may be located in the past and projected into the future. It was evidently easy for the combination of the sad shortcomings of the present with the prosperity of applicable historical references to make several manufacturers of the modern Greek identity turn towards the past as well as to immobilize there the subsequent preservers of it. The sometimes obsessive insistence on the glorious past of the Greek antiquity and the Orthodox Byzantine Empire is partly explained by the fact that it is indeed possible to identify happy moments of cultural superiority and imperial power in these historical associations. The times of past grandeur serve

. the athens contemporary art review ISSUE 12 APRIL 2007

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the overcompensation of the current shortcomings and the comparative inferiority. They foster the attachment to past glories (in contrast to the meagre present) for nourishment pride and pleasure, which act as cohesive bres andenergy matrixes for national identity. The concurrent idealisation of the Greek Orthodox tradition and other elements of the subsequent popular tradition that have been highlighted enforces this tendency through the promotion of dieringevaluations which set the Modern Greek universe apart from the contemporary system of Western values and Greek devaluation.

The second approach to bridging the despised distance from the centre goes for another readymade solution: it covers the gap through reformist incorporation. The upgrading of the modern Greek

existence by assimilating modernist models and participating on an equal footing in the competition within Western formations is preferred over a protective self-connement to a traditionalistself-denition. It is a solution thatsurrenders almost unconditionally to the sweeping inuence of the centreand therefore meets the rst onesubterraneanly, to the degree that resorting to the past is catalytically triggered by the conict with thesame periodic force. The factor that classies both the centrifugal andthe centripetal response is mutual, just as mutual as the shortage of creative imagination in both mechanisms that get crushed under the force of the modernist Western centre. Whether it comes down to a reproduction of the fantasised native past or the idealised foreign present, it is reproduction in both cases: the

uninspired response of a remote region of the contemporary Western empire.

The globalisation of the late capitalist modernism and the acceleration of the modern Greek assimilation through the European integration intensify the regionalisation of the modern Greek formation. This development illuminates to a certain degree the reasons for the more frequent resurgence of the struggle between the two poles in recent years. We are closer than ever, yet this, besides the new social and economic disturbances it triggers, also wounds our narcissism. It undermines the small dierences that made usinto something truly special. It abandons us in a at post-moderncommonplace of various incurable inner intolerances and chronic comparative shortcomings. And

we once again resort to the boring to and fro pendulum motion. A little forward into today in order to overcome in practice the comparative shortcomings that hurt us, a little back into the comforting connement of our tortoise shelland the hallucinating distinctiveness of the past. Besides, we have never found ourselves at the vanguard of the modern present so that we may closely identify with it and claim it as a source of national pride and self-fullment.

Thus the Modern Greek reality is plagued by a chronic poverty and weariness. Throughout the gray buildings where it dwells, the arts and sciences it somehow manages to put together, the ideologies upon which it leaned, the economy it has half-developed, the media and the entertainments where it seeks diversion from its misery and the


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political institutions that administer it so defectively, this to and from between two mimicry reactions which collide, get entangled and merge has left the characteristic imprint of its breathless cachexia. Yet, in the scant rays of colour and light surfacing here and there a new perspective is being shaped, which is repeatedly covered up by the dominating false dilemma of provincialism: to articulate new ideas, patterns, objects and social relations that are not merely rehashes of the past or the present. Perhaps we should detect and reallocate the most critical issue of the modern Greek culture within the very choice between this potential and the uniform false dipole.

Alexandros Kioupkiolis

A Tale of Two Cities

In Greek, the same adjective (/astikos) denotes both the inhabitant of the city and the social class which, in economic theory, earns its living through trade, the provision of services, and the exploitation of capital and the working class. Though this multivalency - urban and bourgeois- may not be especially meaningful, it is deeply rooted; so deeply, in fact, that Greek sociologists, for instance, will often break the rules of adjective formation (to produce /asteakos) to make it clear that they are simply describing a class of phenomena and not loading their discourse with negative connotations. And with the exception of astya noun usually employed by those who wish to use

an archaicism to indicate that they, at least, remain magnanimous and unsullied by the unclean conditions of the presentthe derivatives of the root ast- all require the boost of an academic context if they are not to give rise to misunderstandings.

With its second meaning, astikos is usually a non self descriptive term. It would be unusual to nd someonewho sais yes, Im bourgeois without a touch of self-sarcasm or a desire to subvert social stereotypes indirectly and allusively. Consider this: might there not be a need to provide all sorts of background information to persuade someone that Rodins The Burghers of Calais refers not to a penny-pinching, hypocritical, slightly tedious and well-o provincial class,but to a specic episode in Frenchhistory? Assuming, of course, that you and your friends regularly discuss Rodin and The Burgers of Calais.

Perhaps it is the manner in which Greeces cities were historically formed (missing out, as they did, the intermediate stages between mediaeval castle and modern city), that is to blame for this multivalency; or else the circumstances in which the Greek communist party, the bourgeoisies prime critic, developed here as a primarily agrarian, rather than urban, formation. Then again, we could always put the blame on a long tradition of Greek Orthodox representation of the person with strong resistance, which could never accept the diusion of personalitywhich is one of the prerequisites underlying the formation of the modern bourgeois. Whatever the case may be, this semantic convergence conceals a narrational contrast.

Like two traditions ghtingagainst each other, over claiming the


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terms denotation for its own side: On the one hand, a narrative which recognizes in Athens mainly the features of modernity and seeks to conrm their traces in relationshipsand buildings, in the stories that take shape on the streets. And on the other, a narrative which considers the city as a historical accident, a sentence passed by a hostile world which deprives people of their identity by downgrading them to the status of inhabitants.

On the one hand, there are narratives like this one by Stefanos Koumanoudis, who saw Athens shaping up into a city after 1853 and wrote with nearly adolescent pride:

Athens, this beloved of the Greek nation name and deed, though no longer Pindars these old venerable, bewreathed Athens, no longer the admirable and much-sung city of Aristophanes, no longer Pericles

Hellas Hellas, is still a great city and a delight to all patriotic Greeks, to every citizen not prone to grumbling and impatiently demanding the instant gratication of their hopesSince 1835, which is to say for 17 years now, it has provided a digniedhome to thirty thousand souls, the Greek lite, the nations sovereign power, and to numerous embassies and other representatives of foreign powers

( [An all-embracing panorama of Athens], MIET 2005).

And on the other, narratives like that of Julio Kaimis, who in 1934 contrasts the value of folk architecture, of tradition, of the non-rational model which does close inwards but opens outwards with the European demand for the contemporary modernistic city in relation to Rodakiss house on Aegina:

We recognize that it is ridiculous given the contemporary conditions to want to take on todays monster and hope to win. We cannot demolish every megalopolis in the world today, every aesthetically oensive miasma, with these weakarms of ours. But we have a duty which makes it imperative to reveal and appreciate that which, despite all the misery, keeps our lives pure: the pure mans relationship with nature, which is of interest to but a few souls amidst the chaos of modernism We shall let the passing of time transform Mankinds tragedy into purity and simplicity. We let our architects go on serving the social evil with their individualist mode of perception. ( [Rodakis home on Aegina], Akritas 1998).

In a way, those of us who live in Athens live in two cities, one built

out of the ancestral myths of the provinces and of pre-modernity and on the point of collapse; all it would take is us summoning the strength to stand up to it, at Easter perhaps or in the summer, just as soon as we locate rural fragments or the imperfect incorporation of the rural into the urban fabric in certain Athenian neighbourhoods (Anaotika, Petralons, the emptyspaces of Botanikos); in a city of mourning which allows us to keep the memory of some paradisiacal place without history alive. And in a city made up of layers of topicality- of neighbourhoods that have changed over the years (the house my mother grew up in just a stones throw from the DESTE Foundation, the factory that became the Athens School of Fine Arts), of shops and roads, schools we once attended, apartment blocks whose bells we


10

once rang or to which they gave us keys; made up of the stories we happened to hear-a murder here, on the corner of Arachovis and Ippokratous, in the opening phase of the civil war, coee shops t/here at the Brazilian with Sachtouris and Gatsos, Giannoulis Halepas house here on Dafnomili street- being kept safe by the streets where we once talked or shagged in the shadows.

And perhaps a text latent in the organization of the Athens Biennale conference, entitled-if you remember--Prayer to (passive?) resistance, was the following paragraph from a novel which isnt Greek, but does deal with this referential paradox:

It looms [the Acropolis]. Its so powerfully there. It almost forces us to ignore it. Or at least to resist it. We have our self importance. We also have our inadequacy. The former is a

desperate invention of the latterDon De Lillo, The Names, Picador,

1982

Acclaimed Ad

An acclaimed Female Greek Artist, according to her own description at least, posted this little personal on the Web which I happened across by chance. Of course, this modest artists identity remains unknown, but we may still note that:1. She hob-nobs with the crme de

la crme of high society and the Greek artistic community;

2. She regularly dines in fabulous restaurants;

3.Shes a tortured artist;4.She has her own place equipped

with a maid, cook, chaueur andso on;

5. She obviously pops too many pills

to manage on her own.

For her part, of course, the aspiring secretary/assistant must:1. Have an iron stomach;2. Be able to drive, laugh and

produce structuralist criticism of the latest shows all at the same time;

3. Not be an illegal immigrant, seeing as a passport is a must;

4. Know how to deal with the menial sta;

5. Be able to carry three posh supermarket bags in each hand without complaining

And then theres us saying poor old Greece doesnt have any artists of international stature

Acclaimed Female Greek Artist seeks Secretary/Assistant

Reply to: job-319**** Date: 2007-04-26, 1:53PM EEST Internationally known female Greek artist is seeking an assistant/secretary/companion PLEASE NOTE THAT YOU MUST EITHER LIVE IN GREECE ALREADY OR PLAN ON COMING/LIVING IN GREECE! Some of your responsibilities include:

- Driving to various nearby destinations within Athens and suburbs

- Attending openings and cultural events: performances, galleries, museums, dinners, etc

- Eating in fabulous restaurants- Meeting the creme de la creme

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of Greece- Some domestic or International

travel may be needed (so, passport please!)

- May coordinate household staon behalf of artist: maid, driver, cook...

- Shopping for clothing and groceries or other household needs

- Administering pills You should be able to drive, laugh, talk and be interested in life, culture and arts and it would help if you speak English! Salary and hours are exible andupon negotiation. This is an ideal job for someone who is changing careers or is just bored with their present work. It is a challenging job but it is a

lot of FUN many times! * Location: Kissia, Athens * Compensation: to be determined * Principals only. Recruiters, please dont contact this job poster. * Please, no phone calls about this job!

John Stathatos

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Fotis Georgiadis examines

why the contemporary

representation of ancient

greek sculpture is

associated with white

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We are all familiar with the view of white marble statues, both in museums as well as in public spaces, either ancient or newer. We are also accustomed to colorful sculpture, either as contemporary mixed media artworks, or as products of dierent cultures, suchas Asiatic colored statuettes, for instance. And at the same time, we are all astonished at the view of a colorful marble statue. On March 15th, 2007 the exhibition Colorful Gods at the National Archaeological Museum of Athens closed its gates, an exhibition based on 25 years of research at the Ludwig-Maximilian University of Munich about the use of color in ancient sculpture, an exhibition which presented colorful plaster casts of renowned pieces of ancient sculpture, in an attempt to oer us a colorful aspect of themwhich lies closer to the reality of ancient art than the white marble we are accustomed to. The colored plaster casts of the exhibition, with their at, comparativelystrong colors, often incompatible with our sense of chromatic harmony, what is more, incompatible with our sense of what is classical, surprised the visitors and were often the subject of debates; even those involved closely in ancient art were taken by surprise, although the coloring of ancient sculpture and architectural features constitutes an accepted, basic piece of knowledge. How it is then that such knowledge has not managed to be integrated into the self-evident notions of representation of ancient art? And as it has already been known since at least- the 18th century that ancient sculpture was colorful, what is the origin of white sculpture?

It is known that white sculpture has its roots in the renaissance notions of clearness of both form and shape which were partly caused by and reached their ideal expressions in sculptures such as the Apollo Belvedere, the Venus of Medici and others. Those sculptures, mainly Roman copies discovered in Rome during the implementation of the great construction projects of the 15th and 16th centuries, with their white, well-polished surface set established the prototype of ancient beauty and correct sculpture. According to such notion, the virtues of form and plasticity are autonomous and self-sucientand should not bear any relation to the merits of color, as those regard painting only.1

Such statues for a series of centuries were accepted by the western world as higher examples of the ideal beauty.

In 1764 J.J. Winckelmann published Geschichte der Kunst des Altertums, his two-volume momentous work on ancient art. In his book, which set the foundations of the sciences of ancient art and presented its chronological narrative for the rst time, some allusions of polychromy could be detected.But along with statements as color adds to beauty2 the barbarous custom to paint marbles and stones is being denounced.3The neoclassical notion which had been bequeathed by Renaissance and legalized afresh by Winckelmann and other contemporaries, demands the clear and complete discrimination between sculpture and painting. Sculpture employs plastic values and form on its own suces in order to express the ideals of art. Andit is not only sucient: according to Johann Gottfried Herder4 colourful

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sculpture threatens to cross the boundaries which separate sculpture from painting and dangerously approach nature and as a result distantiate the artwork from the prestigious realm of the ideal and art from its truth.

It is quite interesting that Winckelmann, in order to defend the ideal of the white statue summons up arguments also from the domain of natural sciences, from the Newtonian theory of the analysis of white light which provides the knowledge that sunlight includes every color of the spectrum: white is the only color which reects the most of light rays, it is therefore themost sensitive and in a similar way: the whiter a body, the more beautiful.5

So, according to Winckelmann, amongst all materials white marble is the one which is closest to light. Sculpture exists with no need for chromatic antithesis or harmony: color can only function misleadingly. The worship of white marble by neoclassicism constitutes an easy consequence of the traditional discrimination between the roles of color and form in European art.

Neoclassical thinkers were however aware of a considerable number of indications of color on ancient statues; they had only chosen to disregard them. The respective references in ancient Greek literature were misinterpreted by means of translational acrobatics, theses on colors in ancient Greek art as the genuine reality of traces of color material on ancient sculpture were smoothly overlooked by the establishment of the notion that the painting of sculpture had been an early characteristic of civilization which was overwhelmed by the development of the arts: the latter is only represented by white sculpture.

The essential discussion on colour in ancient sculpture originated in 1814, with the publication of the French archaeologist and art theoretician Antoine-Chrysostome Quatremre de Quincys (1755 1849), study Le Jupiter Olympien. Quatremre de Quincy had been the rst who focused on theissue of polychromy of ancient statues, starting from the chryselephantine and therefore colourful ones. His study paid emphasis on the literary sources which clearly refer to the colours of sculpture.6

In his research on the issue of the chryselephantine statues which had been created with a long since obsolete technique, he distinguished between ancient and modern sculpture in an attempt to liberate the representations of ancient art from the aesthetic notions of his time. In his eagerness to maintain the clear distinction between the arts of sculpture and painting he ended up in a compromise between the denite references ofthe ancient sources, the indisputable observations of the presence of colour on sculpture and the neoclassical aesthetic ideal, with the conclusion that ancient Greek sculpture only employed colour materials of light nuances which did not however contradict the impression of the statues unity of material.

There were some voices however that stood by the reality of the ancient statues polychromy. J. M. von Wagner reacted against the established expression of repugnance against (painted) marble sculpture and remarked on the (colourful) architectural sculptures of the Temple of Athena Afaia in Aegina7, Had our been pure and unprejudiced and if, at the same time we were fortunate enough to be able to see one of the greek temples in its



original perfection, I bet you we would change our minds and we would applaud what we now condemn.

The Afaia sculptures commented on by Wagner are a very typical example, which allows the clarication of the political connotations of the issue ofcolour on marble sculpture.

Since the early years of the 19th century, the rivalry of European capitals on the issue of housing classic antiquities in their museums had been evident.

In 1811, a group of north-European aristocrats and architects discovered the architectural sculptures in Vasses and Afaia. Ludwig, crown prince and later king of Bavaria and father of Otto bought the sculptures, in 1813. Bertel Thorvaldsen, one of the most acknowledged neoclassicist sculptors of his time restored them- with occasionally extensive ll-ups-on Ludwigs ordersin 1817, in Rome. The fronton sculptures of the temple of Athena Afaia in Aegina, typical examples of the austere style of 490-480 b.C, ended up in Munich, housed in Leo von Klenzes neoclassical Gallery of Sculpture and were exhibited in 1828. In 1901, Adolf Furtwangler, director of the Gallery excavated in Aegina and located the bases of the fronton sculptures thus cancelling Thorvaldsens ll-ups, which in some cases proved considerablyincorrect and also investigated the issue of colour; as a corrective initiative he exhibited a proposal of their supplementation on plaster casts under scale in the sculptures hall in Munich: the sculptures were now colorful.8

Some decades later, neoclassicism was adopted by fascist regimes; the white marble statue constituted a part of their adopted neoclassical attitude. In the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games, Leni Riefensthal integrated the classical

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proper movement as, during the second half of the 20th century the view that newer restorations destroyed the authentic aura of ancient works prevailed.11 Furthermore, the adoption of neoclassical symbols by the Nazis played a major role in the removal of the restorations. Within such context, it is interesting that one of the major centers of modern research on the coloring of ancient sculpture is the Ludwig -Maximilian University of Munich.

In Greece, both national ideology as well as the rearrangement of memory within the framework of the emergence of the national state dened classicistaesthetic ideals to a great extent. The ideal of the ancient white statue prevailed, despite the discovery of the layers of the remains of the Persian disaster of Acropolis in 1886, when multiple sculptures and architectural elements with equally multiple traces of color were found. The most severe blow against neoclassical representation however was cast much later, when they were adopted by the 7-years long dictatorship of the colonels, which actually ridiculed and deprived them of any possibility of acceptance and legalization.

Ancient art in Greece however bears the trace of singularity, which distinguishes it from its reception and employment in the western world. And that is nothing else than the sacredness of the ancient artworks for modern Greece, as fundamental elements for the legalization of the new Modern Greek state itself. Greek archaeological museums do not host ancient artworks but holy tokens: the formulation of national identity as well as of national identity was based on them-therefore they are considered as sacred.

statue of the discus-thrower in the form of Arian men. 9Public spaces like Thingplatze (open spaces of assembly) were designed in neoclassical style. Knigsplatz in Munich, the square where the Glyptothek housing the Afaia sculptures stands, a neoclassical style square, during the period of the Third Reich was the place of assembly of the Nazi party: two Doric Ehretempel (monuments of the Nazis who died during the 1923 coup) and two Nazi buildings by Paul Troost closed the until then open east side of the square. Knigsplatz had been an important, heavily-loaded place for the Nazis, at the very centre of Munich, a city which had been a nodal point of reference for the National-socialist movement. National-socialist Knigsplatz, part of which were the Afaia sculptures exhibition, had been the place which represented the link between the Arian present and the classical past. Thorvaldsen was exceptionally respected by the regime-loving art theoreticians and his work was considered as an excellent example of the fruitful contact of the German/northern character with the south, with antiquity.10

So, after the Second World War, the neoclassical style of the Aegina sculptures restored by Thorvaldsen and their position in the Glyptothek on Munichs Knigsplatz, a place heavily loaded through its use by the Nazi regime made them politically problematic, part of the entire squares problematic memory.

In the post-war Federal Republic of Germany, in 1962-1966, the Munich Glyptothek, under the direction of Dieter Ohly, removed Thorvaldsens llingsand the sculptures were re-exhibited on the new opening of the Gallery in 1972. The removal of Thorvaldsens restorations was generally accepted as a


18


The results of the research on the coloring of sculpture therefore encounter problems of access for the audience and remain relatively limited within the ivory tower of the scientic community and they are not widelydiused and do not contribute to the collective notion of ancient sculpture.It could not be otherwise, as the association of modern Greece to those sculptures is structured on a complex network of representations, in which the respective notional issues play a minor role. So, a large number of the exhibition-goers would feel exceptionally familiar with von Wagners remarks in 1817, Taking into consideration both present taste as well as present ideas, it would rather surprise us and it would seem weird to gaze at statues perfectly created in marble, which have been partly painted The evidently bizarre taste troubles us and we consider it as a barbarian practice Later in his report, von Wagner rejects his earlier rhetoric position. It then remains to discover how relaxed we shall feel by doing the same today.

1 The long tradition of such knowledge partly explains also the relative easiness colors in

ancient architecture were accepted with, while in the case of sculpture in which the ndings

that bore the trace of color were at least equally convincing have encountered much stronger

opposition.2 J.J. Winckelmann, Geschichte der Kunst des Altertums, 1764, Berlin 2003/Version 1.1, E-Book

Edition at http://www.math.hu-berlin.de/~mrw/Geschichte_der_Kunst_des_Altertums.pdf, 1283 See, A. Prater, The rediscovery of colour in greek architecture and sculpture, in M. Tiverios-D.S

Tsiafakis (ed), Colour in Ancient Greece, the role of colour in ancient Greek art and architecture (700-

31 b.C.), Conference Minutes Thessalonica,April 12th -16th,Organization: J.P.Getty Museum and

Aristoteleion University of Thessalonica, Thessalonica 2002,24,footnote no 3,which refers to

Winckelmann, Geschichte der Kunst des Altertums, 1764, 1 6.4 Karina Trr, Farbe und Naturalismus in der Skulptur des 19 und 20. Jahrhunderts, 1994, p. 103-

cont.5 J.J. Winckelmann, Geschichte der Kunst des Altertums, 1764, Berlin 2003/Version 1.1, E-Book

Edition at http://www.math.hu-berlin.de/~mrw/Geschichte_der_Kunst_des_Altertums.pdf,

129.6 See Vinzenz Brinkmann N.Kaltsas R. Wnsche, Colorful Gods, Catalogue of the

exhibition at the National Archaeological Museum, Athens, 30.1.2007 24.3.2007, 2007, 16.On

the ancient sources, see, Oliver Primavesi s, Colorful sculpture in ancient literature-Proposals for

an alternative reading in Brinkmann a.o. 175 - 191). For Quatremre de Quincys contribution to

the respective discusssion, see A. Prater, ib. 28, cont.7 8 J.M. von Wagner, Bericht ber die Aeginetischen Bildwerke im Besitz Seiner Kniglichen

Hoheit des Kronprinzen von Bayern. Mit Kunstgeschichtlichen Anmerkungen von F.W.J.Schelling,

1817, 599. Von Wagner composed a report on the Aegina sculpture which had been purchased

by prince Ludwig of Bavaria, accompanied by F.W.J. Schellings comments. Von Wagner receives

greek art as a unity of sculpture and painting and considers colour as their unifying factor. 9 See, Dieter Ohly, 1966, Die Neuaufstellung ser Agineten, Archologischer Anzeiger 1966, 516.10 It is characteristic that Hitler, a fanatic admirer of the statue, bought a roman copy of the

discobolus which had been housed in the Capitol Museum in 1938, after negotiations with

the Italian minister of Foreign Aairs G,.Ciano for the sum of 5.000.000 Italian Lire. In 1948 the

statue was sent back to Rome.11 Paul Ortwin Rave, Bertel Thorvaldsen zu seinem hundertsten Todestag am 24. Marz 1944, Die


19


Kunst im Deutschen Reich 8, 1944, 71, in William J. Diebolds, The politics of derestoration: the

Aegina pediments and the German confrontation with the past, Art Journal, 54.2 (summer 1995),

footnote 26.12 Discussion on the issue of the removal of Thovarldsens restorations, Michael Maass,

Nachtragliche Uberlegungen zur Restaurierung der Agineten, Mitteilungen des Deutschen

Archologischen Instituts, Athenische Abteilung 1984, 165-76.

The exhibition Gods in Color- Colors on Ancient Sculpture was held at the National

Archaeological Museum of Athens (1 Tositsa str., tel: 210 8217724) from the 29th of January until the

25th of March 2007.

Theophilos Tramboulis

(sometimes Yiorgos

Tzirtzilakis too) discusses

with the nominees of the

DESTE prize about their

shortlisting, about politics,

vagueness and populism

5th

DES

TE p

rize


21

Theophilos Tramboulis: So what are you going to show in the exhibition?Yannis Grigoriadis: Im going to make a series of photographs and videos as these are the media that I have been working with during the last few years, the tools of the traveling tourist. I am going to go to Pristina, in Kossovo, where I will record a particular street, Bill Clinton Avenue, which has the famous 12-meter billboard of Bill Clinton showing the city. It will be a recording in terms of the way the city is usually recorded, with a mechanism that can be pre-programmed even from here. Every 50 meters I will click the camera or I will wait for a car to pass from the opposite side. But, in spite of all that, during such a process, because it is actually happening, new situations might occur.Loukia Alavanou: Im going to create an installation with two animation projections. It will consist of a sampling of thriller lms and cartoons fromthe early 20th century and the spectator will nd himself trapped in a violentbattle of images.Savvas Christodoulides: Im going to create a work that will not be dramatically dierent from what I usually do.Nikos Arvanitis: My work will be an approach to electricity. I will present an installation in which I will try to nd the eld that will electrocute me. Its verygeneral, I know, but I dont want to be more specic.Eleni Kamma: Im thinking about it as I havent decided yet. Well, anyway, Ill tell you, to help you out, that I will probably continue to roam around in gardens.Socrates Fatouros: And Im going to make a construction with a drawing and a painting. It will be in two pieces, in which one supports the other. The one

piece stands up because of the other. They support each other thus creating a relationship of interdependence. It will be large and will reach about 50 centimeters below the ceiling. The base will be about one meter.Th.T.: Before putting on the tape recorder, Yannis said that weve become used to having galleries and that we adapt our works to some extent to specic spaces, which are commercial in character. The gallery wants tosell the work. If you want to create something conceptual they tell you do the conceptual work, but then create an object, too. The conditions are dierent here. How do you create in the context of the prize? Especially sinceinstitutions and art centers in Greece are rare? DESTE is a private, prestigious institution and every two years it selects ve or six artists and oers a prize.I see this as being something unique and I wonder if you take that into consideration.L.A.: I feel that we have somewhat greater autonomy because the galleries usually intervene more. Either so that the work will sell or so that it will be extremely contemporary and be within certain boundaries. Here there is freedom. S.F.: A gallery is a space with precise dimensions that you have to take into consideration. This means that the shape or size of the space where you work plays a role. But this doesnt mean that youre limited as to the kind of work you will create or its quality. I think we all do what we did before, whether we were in a gallery or we were curating an exhibition or, as now, in the context of a prize.N.A.: We cant be very absolute because it isnt enough for any of us to

5th DESTE prize

22

Loukia lavanou, chop chop, video stills , video installation, 2007


23

show in a gallery and nor are galleries the only spaces that exist. And nor are, generally speaking, museums or other institutions. You can also show your work in project spaces where we are all much freer; there is also the tradition of the public space, which isnt so widespread in Greece as it is in other countries and in Europe where it is a reality. You are given the opportunity, there is nancial support, even state nancing to go out andcreate conceptual projects without having to deal with public relations or organization.E.K.: Also, each space, even the most independent and most alternative space has its limitations. Not only limitations of space and dimensions but limitations of a dierent kind.S.Ch.: There is also something else that is very important and that is that there is no particular concept for all. I mean, there is no theme. Each one of us exhibits work, either in a gallery or here and the process, the basis of the activity, the fundamental nature of the activity, is more or less the same.Y.G.: So you think that if there were a concept, it would make the situation more dicult?S.Ch.: Yes, of course.Yiorgos Tzirtzilakis: How is this exhibition dierent from one in a gallery?I dont mean this from the commercial point of view. As you know, that isnt its function. In the gallery there is a public that you want to capture. Lets not forget this. This exhibition has a unique feature, a serious unique feature. In practical terms, even though you are addressing yourselves to the public, ve people will decide about the prize. The dierence is what

you call in England and it enervates me because everyone who has come from England says it the display. The display of the work is the work. It is a unilateral relationship. Does this play a role for you? How does it aect yourwork?S.F.: Our meeting has to do with the artistic personality of each one of us and that, on its own, is a platform.N.A.: There is a particular institution, but there is no conceptual platform.S.Ch.: No, on the contrary, it operates in the sense of an open dialogue.E.K.: Yes, after a certain point, we are interested in how it will work as a group show. The prizes are certainly a group show. We take each others works into consideration.L.A.: Yes. Ive also understood that we will present the best we have under very good conditions, of course, because that also plays a role.N.A.: I believe that, when you start out to present an exhibition, you always have to show your best self. Why should you do that here more than at any other time? Perhaps we can turn your question around so that we can sort things out. Let me return to how we feel or if we are referring to the spectators, to the committee or to the people that will eventually come. How would they feel perhaps this is another good question if they saw the same works in a project space? And perhaps this is the dirty part. Dirty in the sense that the people involved are burned. And we return again to the fact that we are in an institution where a selection has been made and we came here, most of the guys I see here for the rst time, and there is no concept. Ifthere were a concept, then the dierence between whether the exhibition

5th DESTE prize

Nikos rvanitis, Gimmie Gimmie Gimmie, preview drawing


25

was to take place or be presented with the same concept in Athens or in Sarajevo would be dramatically large. Th.T.: Fine. Lets end it. Im taking o from what Nikos said regarding theframework of the exhibition and the city in which it is being presented. An issue of political reality is posited. I was looking at Yannis work with the cars in dierent cities of Rumania and Albania and I thought that the Balkans area part of the Greek imaginary insofar as the identity of Greece is concerned and that this work with the comparison of cars also shows the relationships of dependence between the Balkan countries. I could say the same about everyones work. It may be my own persistent idea, but I wonder in which way political reality nourishes your work. During the past few days we have had daily demonstrations and unrest in the center of Athens. Does this concern you?Y.G.: Personally, it concerns me a lot. I have been to all the pan-educational demonstrations. I was also in yesterdays protection group but it may also be due to my research space in the university that plays a direct role. Generally speaking, however, because you mentioned the cars, I am searching for the Greek condition through that process. Im trying to understand the origins of the immigrants in a multi-cultural Athens. Im trying to understand Greeces role in the Balkans. Its a process that isnt devoted to the image but one that presupposes research that has a purely political basis. Lets say, it seeks to ndthe role of Greece, the relationship between Mitsotakis and Milosevic. I am also trying to nd my personal identity as a Greek.E.K.: It concerns me, too but I am interested in Greek reality and Greek identity

in an entirely dierent way. Looking for the motifs of other cultures that havepassed through Greece, the issues of continuity and non-continuity, what leans on what and how much we can step somewhere and see who we are. Th.T: Is this how we should view your interest in architecture, in disturbed states;..: Yes, even architecture. Politics can be manifested in innite ways. Eachone is like focusing on something. I am under the impression that if you completely ignore what is happening, it can be scary. For, it is like repressing it, and then it comes out even more aggressively.S.F.: I personally cannot say that I am as interested in reality as Yannis; I do not focus on all of these things which are presented in the media, for it may simply be an exaggeration. Yet, I give the facts some time to settle down in my head, and if they eventually come to me with the force and power of personal experience, they may enter a work. And in this case, they are welcome to enter, but I do not focus on documents, nor do I recall them directly; I do not function in a specic manner. I feel that if we see things in ahistorical perspective, it is somewhat picturesque to occupy ourselves with each protest march, or with a single decade in general. I let things ow furtherin order for them to reach another state in front of my eyes. So that they can function in contradistinction. I forget facts and may remember them later on because they alert menot because I hold them there, in front of myself.Th.T.: You call your works Parasites. This parasite-host relationship, which is able to be invoked in a work, is perhaps also a form of political activity. Besides, what is called a parasite by regulative biology is also an autonomous

5th DESTE prize

26

6o

Yannis Grigoriadis, YUGO PANORAMIC, 2007

27


form of life, which has its own rules and is just as non-moral as a little dog, wagging its tail.S.F.: Even living together with another person can sometimes be parasitic. We sometimes attach ourselves to someone, we carry or experience elements of his life, without even acknowledging it, simply so that we may survive together. This is how this situation functions in my work. It is not the specic architectural parasite, which we know attaches itself on a building. Itfunctions like a living organism rather than an architectural term. In fact, I can think of cases in which even the main organism cannot survive without the parasite; in which the host tolerates the parasite because the latter cleans it up; there is continuity between the two organisms..: I also follow the social and political aairs with interest, yet I cannot saythat I focus on the Greek reality. I am interested in evaluation. Sometimes it functions and sometimes it does not. Each codication in a language,each form is your evaluation of something. The German architect Burkhard Grashorn gave a lecture on this topic in Weimar; he presented his work to us, arguing that Art should not practice politics but be political, toying with these concepts of practicing politics, or being political. The one major problem is political art; the other, becoming pedantic. Moreover, the question is if it is good art or bad art, or if its way is good or bad.Th..: You should not stick to Greek reality, though. I dont mean if you are interested in the Burgas-Alexandroupolis pipeline deal.Y.G.: But the way of approaching things is something much broader. In other words, the pipeline is 272 km long and one meter in diameter. This

conjures up several scenarios of environmental development, how the nancial framework changes, how the landscape in the area is going to betransformed. How the pipeline changes and mutates the area. These are amazing things, which are not so related to each artists work; it may be a broader question, transcending a specic artistic gesture. It also depends, ofcourse, on the way one perceives these facts.S.CH.: Reality is a blend, and our work is also a reality that is made up of many things. It is not one thing only. It is the protest march and the pipeline, as well as anything else our ears pick up in the course of each day. All those things accumulate on the work indirectly; they are there. The work is not nakedit does not exist of itself. The work is a reality; it is everything we experience and nd out, whether it occurs in Greece, in France or in Cyprusit is somethingbroader than reality. Reality is not something specic. We simply make itspecic through our work. Reality is everything. What is in front of us, behindus, over our heads, underneath our feet. What interests me is to be able to see. To be capable of seeing; to make everything around me specic. To translateit into a visual language. Into form. Into the form of that which I comprehend. I can reply to your question only through my work.L..: I will answer in the same way. Well, as to the Greek reality, I have been living in England for the past ten years; my work is not political like Yannisperhaps indirectly, from personal experience, there is something of that, but it is not anything specic. As to my relationship with the real, there is a lot ofreference in my work to the cinema, and I will quote iek, who has been a great source of inspiration for me. He said that, reality on the screen is more

5th DESTE prize

28

Eleni Kamma, Untitled , 2007, ink and colour markers on tracing paper, 21x29 cm

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real than the reality hidden behind it. In other words, he toys with illusion and reality with respect to the cinema. Now, indirectly, I dont know if this is political...: At any rate, illusion is also part of reality, and in some cases it is one and the same thing. It depends, though, on the way you understand it, how you feel about it, you experience it. You may be going through a total illusion, or a wonderful reality. There are purely political implications, of course. And, to go back to Yannis, illusion is part of the system in which we live.Th.. I am thinking of your works. That is, you, Nikos, you take a solid rock, install it in a public square, opposite Goethes and Schillers statue, and begin to carve it. People gather to watch the open-air sculptors; this process takes days, and nally you simply destroy the stone completely and throwout the rubble. Or your work, Loukia; you take Papazoglous photograph of a priests funeral and produce a video which comments on the medium of photography as well as history. In these works, I do not discern Yannis archival approach perhaps, but I see a kind of mixture of illusion and reality.Y..: Somehow, there is a political element in all of you...: Political art does not mean only to adopt political ways and political forms. This seems very simple to me. I believe that the political exists in art in a dierent way. I do not merely create a manifesto so that others canunderstand it. And this might be less eective, too.S.Ch: It is a matter of personal experience.Y..: In other words, the motto of the 1980s is true: the personal is political...: And for us Cypriots it works the other way round, too. The political

becomes personal as well as the personal political.Y..: So, you feel that you live at a time and a generation that retries concepts? In other words, could we say that this is a distinctive quality of the DESTE awards series? Is it a feature of the art and the artists of our times?..: We live during a very charged period. All around the world, everyone is wondering what is happening. It is everyones concern, one way or another. Quite simply, not everyone comes up with a manifesto. It is introduced in their work in other ways. Yet, it is very common to think that you should make your work very comprehensible so that other people will know right away that it is political. This does not necessarily seem political to me. Y..: There may be a trend towards political art in an era of increasing doubt. This seems a paradox, as politics is considered to be clarity and resolve...: The need may be there. Perhaps because we often all feel the chaos around us, we all try to redene it right from the start.Th..: I would still say, though, that vagueness is something that characterizes your work. Vagueness of forms and of use. The vagueness of national identity in Gregoriadis work, the vagueness of cinema genres, of the familiar and pop in Alavanou, the vagueness of memories and objects in Christodoulidis, the vagueness of levels and architectural space in Kamma, the vagueness of the surrounding space and the visual object in Fatouros. This is an intentional shift and diusion of meanings and forms. It is something characteristic of theartists in this show.S.Ch.: I would not call it vagueness as much as alternation of forms and use. It is not vague. It is doubtful, ambivalent. Vagueness is a negative term.

5th DESTE prize

Socrates Fatouros Photo of a model

(scale 1 / 20)

31


L.: It is a production of hybrids; an art that draws elements from two dierent areas, resulting in a new genre. In this respect, it is vague, for youcannot know in advance what this new genre will be like...: I prefer the term ambivalent. Vagueness obscures both poles on which you draw. Whereas by ambivalent, I feel that the two poles remain clear and, nevertheless, you can place them one with the other, or one against the other.Y.G.: I feel that what is important is to preserve the political syntax and grammar, which are rooted in a purely political art, and at the same time allow more levels of comprehension. We should not forget that art is a process, a logical order of things in order to regain personal things which exist alongside the political. As to the purely political art, I would like to cite some examples from the cinema. If the Oscars and the blockbusters in the last two years are anything to go by, anti-Americanism is selling like hot cakes in the States. Placing into doubt what had been taken for granted up until now is directly related to what the public is looking for, from a safe distance.Th..: Do you believe that this also applies to art, or would you use other terms for the cinema and other for art? For, major art events also share these characteristics. I dont know what the equivalent of Hollywood is in the visual arts, of courseperhaps the Biennials...: But these have a smaller public. The cinema is a mass art. Whereas its your choice if you want to go to a Biennial.S.Ch.: A Biennial is also a local eventwhich does not apply to the cinema.S.F.: It is a question of marketing. The same mechanism is available for

the benet of both pro-American and anti-American lms, and even anti-American lms become easily assimilated through this mechanism.Th..: Yet, the Tate is also one of the wealthiest foundations in London and one of the major tourist attractions in the city. Art may be local, yet the major tourist destinations, such as London, New York, Paris, invest in their museums. Political thinking may be a tourist destination. As J.G. Ballard put it in Millennium People: Royal Academy, Serpentine, Tate, a middle-class Disneyland. S.F.: Yet, could it be that events such as those, or like RRRIPP!! Paper Fashion at the Benaki Museum, and other blockbusters, are populist? Are they an indication that we have decided to make art more accessible, to bring it closer to other, more familiar forms of expression? The peoples relationship with what they go to see does not after all become any more meaningful; people simply like it, become attracted to it. They go to see a costume designed by an artist, not a work of art...: So would you prefer it if they didnt go at all? For, the alternative is for them not to go at all...: Does that mean that an easy language or form is populist? Populism is an ambiguous concept and a tricky one to prove, too. How does it relate to pop culture, to music, the cinema, the cultural industry? What are the limits of populism?S.F.: In Greece, at any rate, populism clearly originates in politics. It denotes appealing to the public and attering it at any cost...: I simply feel that the way in which you employ the term populism

5th DESTE prize

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Savvas Christodoulides, Garden furniture, 2001

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devalues the eort to approach those people who would otherwise perhapsnot go to a museum, or who are not very familiar with art.Th..: Lets stop here. I would like to thank you for your time and I wish you all good luck.

The 5th Deste Prize exhibition will be held at Deste Foundation Centre for Contemporary Art (11

Filellinon & Em. Pappa str., tel: +30 210 2758490, www.deste.gr), from the 25th of May until the end

of October 2007.

5th DESTE prize

Faye Tzanetoulakou

discusses with Viktor

Misiano about his

curatorial project in Art

Athina and entertainment

art in contemporary Russia

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InterviewViktor Misiano

When you come face to face with one of the leading representatives of contemporary art criticism and he is putting forth a fascinating polemic from within, regarding this period of unrestrained biennialism, and this is happening at the ocial conference of a new biennial, the 1st Athens Biennial, you realize that you mustnt miss the opportunity to have a talk with iconoclastic theorist Viktor Misiano. Viktor Misiano was born in Moscow in 1957. From 1980 to 1990, he worked as curator of contemporary art at the Pushkin Fine Arts Museum in Moscow. From 1992 to 1997, he was director of the Contemporary Art Centre in Moscow (CAC). He has curated a great number of international exhibitions of contemporary art and was the Russian commissioner at the Biennials of Istanbul (1992), Venice (1995, 2003), and Valencia (1999). In 1996, he was joint curator of Manifesta I in Rotterdam. From 1993 until today, he has been the founder and editor-in-chief of the Moscow Art Magazine. From 2003 until today, he has been the founder and publisher of the Manifesta Journal - Journal of Contemporary Curatorship. In 2005, he created the rst Central Asian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale.

F.T.: What brings you to Greece?V.M.: In ART ATHINA, I am going to be the curator of the exhibition-activity Critically in between, with the participation of Russian and Greek artists proposed by the participating Greek galleries.I am not interested in creating just another exhibition at a foire or a biennial, a passively functioning at a time of an endless number of exhibitions.

I believe that the value of art is greater than its price. Im interested in presenting, at an event of a mostly commercial nature, a non-prot situation,one involving doubt and questioning. We are going to develop a series of interventions, such as Yuri Leidermans activities, of a critical and intellectual, often subversive character, against a supercial system of thought andcriticism, which is going to function as part of the events at an art fair. It is not a specic work of a limited scope, but the artists stance in life, basedon his analytical thought, a stance of social involvement, of activity, with an eye to change himself rst and then the world. I will also curate exhibitionentitled Progressive Nostalgia at the Benaki Museum, concurrently to the Foire, with the participation of international Russia-born artists, which will also be presented in part at the Art Museum Kumu, Tallinn, the Centro dArte Contemporanea in Prato and the Kiasma Museum in Helsinki.

F.T. A neo-Marxist sentiment seems to inform your attitude.V.M.: Essentially, its not of interest to me to renounce commercialism in art, but I consider it important for us to create our own personal, independent space, in which we are able to act free from external hindrance and inuence,in a way perhaps not necessarily comprehensible by everyone, a way often fragmentary and incoherent, compared to systems based on common sense.

F.T.: How dicult is it for you to present something of a post-dada nature at a time characterized by an obsession to rationalize the void and celebrate the commonplace?


V.M.: Although art seemed to have become accommodated in a broader social framework, due to market growth and certain blockbuster international visual art productions, after the 1990s art seems to have lost its true social prole and involvement, as well as contact with itself. Fairs, on the otherhand, besides their commercial nature, have also developed a social aspect, as various policies come to bear on them, establishing a new framework, embracing, dening or limiting art. In large fairs, such as Freeze in London,a metropolis in which there is a great number and variety of expressions and events, artistic production has now casually become a part of the large entertainment and leisure industry.

F.T. :Thats true, but isnt this new, more communicative prole, which createsever-increasing interest, good for the ultimate survival of art?V.M.: Indeed it is. Yet, art is more productive for society when it is sophisticated and defends its intellectual character, when it is critical, innovative and reective. And it is not necessary to present everythingaccompanied by a manual of instructions and illustrative captions.

F.T.: Do you then believe that it is good for a work to exhibit a certain restlessness?V.M.: Precisely. But let me clarify this. Entertainment, humour, even lassitude, are all part of human nature; they characterize it. Its just that when they predominate over other elements, there is a problem. And entertaining has always been like that. It has never denounced anything. This is how



37


serious criticism came to be considered boring and disturbing. In the 1990s, this trend was casually adopted towards a non-stop, at, supercial andephemeral entertainment, post-everything and in-material, as I like to call it, whose relativism and pervading holistic tendency is reminiscent of the experience of a visit to a Starbucks, for instance.

F.T.: How is it then that these elements can be used as ammunition for our little revolution?V.M.: When you get a critical message across in entertainment, which is otherwise carefully and systematically organized by the control policies in force, this is a small, yet major intervention, as the other stands out and deviates from the canon.

F.T.: It is interesting to hear all this coming from someone who has direct experience of the new cradle of capitalism.V.M.: Oh, yes! Russia is currently investing in the power of entertainment! Something like ancient Rome, in other words. Theres the federal agency for culture, the chairman of which also runs talk shows, pop music programs and media game shows. The society of Spectacle vs. a way of life nourished on authentic sources. This is todays Russia, in-between, but unfortunately without the prex critically, which I use in the title; with a lot of entertainment and aminimum of educationsomething that represents a major political problem. And even though there is a lot of optimism in other respects, with the new investing capital from natural gas and oil, culture does not benet at all, being

plagued by unemployment, the lowest museum curator salaries, a shortage of funding and a lack of an artwork market or donations. We therefore experience a pretence of prosperity that is far from reality.

F.T.: Starting from a critical point, what do you think art should propose today?V.M.: Art, as we have already said, must be critical and propose alternative values, besides merely condemning kitsch or corruption. It is not enough to merely attack what is not right from a safety distance.

F.T.: What do you think of museums as an institution?V.M.: I have nothing against museums. On the contrary, Im interested in the sentiment they foster of a sense of hierarchy, of history and knowledge. The critics job is to deconstruct the state of things, not their physical location. Regarding the sense of hierarchy, encouraged by museums, it all has to do with a system of values that ought to foster free thought, rather than mere spectacle. Until the 1970s, we experienced a lively ideological state which encouraged our ability to choose; then post-modern came in, and the ideology of relativism became the focus of interest. It is very important to practice criticism and to evaluate. Yet, hierarchy today seems to have gone at; there is a general atness, the present seems to be eternal, everythingis of equal value, thus entertainment becomes a dominant value, since everything is ok if it funny, easy and there is a lot of zapping going on. At the same time, the political discourse is not very clearly articulated.

Yuri Leiderman, Dance of lost Trojans, 2006.


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F.T.: Speaking from your own experience, what do you think of the new vogue of biennialism? How can a biennial stand out from the crowd?V.M.: The goal is not to come up with new biennials all the time. The various ocial exhibitions around the world are somewhat reminiscent of the Agora inancient Athens, the meeting place for people and ideas. The dierence being thata modern biennial is the homogenised model of the heroic face of globalisation. It is the large, ephemeral events, which propose quantity, which are in fashion; only that the quantity of information we receive is ultimately considered more important than quality and substance. The most important objective, moreover, is not to expose ourselves to new material constantly, but to think, to comprehend and to assimilate what we see. This may be feasible if it comes at a smaller scale; if it is done in a smart and witty manner, rather than as a saga the size of a pocket novel. In small shows we often see more interesting results.

F.T.: What should be the position of todays artists?V.M.: First of all, artists should not be preoccupied with the readability of the work, the fear of the public. They should be as hermetic and enigmatic as it takes in order to escape the society of entertainment. Artists should perhaps rediscover the benets of eccentricity, of the absurd, and why not, of idiocy.In this way, artists will be able to transcend the boundaries of the political and social conventions, to give food for thought, be funny, to liberate themselves. The point for art is to be able to penetrate, in biennials or foires, the deadly complacency of contemporary society, like a tiny, yet poisonous virus, and wake people up somehow.

The 13th ART ATHINA- International Art Fair

of Athens will be held at the HELEXPO PALACE

(39, Kisias str., tel.: +30 210 7567723, www.

artathina.com) from the 30th of May until the

3rd of June 2007.

Aristeidis Antonas writes

on Vangelis Vlachos 1992

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GROUND-FLOOR TABLE:one architectural model of the Parliament building in Sarajevo as destroyed from the war, constructed in scale 1:150 / one architectural model of the Parliament building in Sarajevo based on the architectural drawings and illustrations that present the buildings future image, constructed in scale 1:150 / one folder 35 x 45cm, containing found images on the Internet of the building after its destruction during the war and found images of the building while the building is under reconstruction / one folder 29 x 32cm, containing progress reports and images of the reconstruction works, as given by the Greek construction company (Domotechniki) / one folder 50 x 63cm, containing the ocial architecturaldrawings, sections and technical details of the building, as given by the construction company / one folder 28 x 33cm, containing news found on

newspapers and on the Internet related to the agreement between the Greek State and Bosnia for the reconstruction of the building /one folder 28 x 33cm, containing articles, interviews and texts related to the economic diplomacy of Greece in the area of the Balkans the last 15 years, and information on the Greek Ministry of Foreign Aairs programmeESOAV - Greek Plan for Economic Reconstruction in the Balkans / one folder 35 x 45cm, containing newspaper clips related to the Greeces political and economic role in the area of the Western Balkans the last 5 years / one folder 28 x 33cm, containing newspaper articles and found texts on the Internet related to ocial Greeces relationships withMilosevics Yugoslavia

BASEMENT TABLE: one model of a new building of the National Bank of Greece (architects: Morpho Papanikolaou / Rena

Sakellaridou) constructed in scale 1:50 / one model of one building of the National Bank of Greece from the 60s (architect: Nikos Valsamakis) in scale 1:33 / one folder 35 x 45cm, containing images and information related to the new building of the National Bank of Greece in Thessaloniki / one folder 35 x 45cm, containing images and information related to the 60s version of the National Bank of Greece in Thessaloniki along with information and images of branch oces of the Bank at that time / onefolder 35 x 45cm, containing articles related to the Greek banks eorts tobuy banks in the area of the Balkans the last 3 years and newspaper clips that record progressively the process of each bank acquisition / one folder 35 x 45cm, containing newspaper articles and interviews related to the National Bank of Greeces policies in the Western Balkans along with information related

to the Greek States investments in the area

[The description of the two tables by Vangelis Vlachos on display at the breeder consists of fragments from the printed brochures detailing the two works in the 1992 exhibition.]

Art is not political owing to the messages and feelings that it conveys on the state of social and political issues. Nor is it political owing to the way it represents social structures, conicts or identities. It ispolitical by virtue of the very distance that it takes with respect to those functions. It is political insofar as it frames not only works or monuments, but also a specicspace-time sensorium, as this sensorium denes ways of being together or beingapart, of being inside or outside, in front of or in the middle of, etc. It is political as its own practices shape forms of visibility that reframe the way in which

ature morte politique (a review of two tables)


practices, manners of being and modes of feeling and saying are interwoven in a commonsense, which means a sense of the common embodied in a common sensorium. Jacques Rancire

THE HYPERTROPHIC RESOLUTIONWhat future can we see for a politics of aesthetics in the light of Rancires words? Political art neither conceals messages within it to be decoded nor represents social conditions. Political artall artcreates distance from the actual function of the message and the depiction.But Rancire demands another form of denition from art as well assome form of shaping: the shaping and the denition of an alternativereframing. The subject art observes is rendered a subject for art because the way observation is organized shifts the observation framework.


There is an attempted renegotiation of the concept of representation behind Rancires proposal. His ideas on art are still bound by a modernist perspective. There is an adequately dened subject thatis to be recomposed through its reframing by the artwork. Yet having explicitly abandoned the message and the representation doesnt reframing restore representation via a dierent route? Instead of rejectingrepresentation, might art not be in search of new terms by which to refer to it? This is something extremely interesting here, especially if one notices in advance that, for any event, there is no frame to reframe: every framework is always already a new construction of the framed subject. Frame and subject are constructed simultaneously and cannot be separated from the work itself.

Vangelis Vlachos, 1992, 2006-2007

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is produced at the moment such a rupture disturbs the homogenous eld to which it belongs. And thework is read, in every eld, as arupture in the homogeneity of the eld. Here, the depiction of the workis the moment of a crystallization. Decisiveness about the action of the authentic moment abounds.Still more, the homogeneity of the eld of reference is formed by thegaze of the Other. In other words, we recognize any extant, formed gaze as homogeneity, and any active realization and action in the mistaken glance of the Other as a rift in homogeneity1. We have grown accustomed to reading the poetic work in modernism as a decisive rending of this sort2.Similarly, a political rendering in a modern art-work is also achieved by means of a rupture. A political proposal is rendered via a rift. Here,

like to ponder for a little longer on the art of archiving. An archive is a frame. Reframing remains a momentary ash. Does that meanwe need it? On the contrary, the frame, the construction of a frame and the archives speech, as a speech of the leaks between archive entries, are signicant in a way that hasnot been paid sucient attention.The frame organizes a certain area by subject, not centred on some preconceived idea dominant in that area, but as a consequence of the association of dierent fragments.The subject isnt an idea but an accumulation.The task of presenting an archive in the art sphere displays a unique condition. After Modernism, when we talk of a work of art or a work in the sphere of art, we mean something which violently ruptures its reference zone. A work

too, the rendering is perceived as an action against some one-sided, recognizable and homogenous eld.The decisive rift in any normality runs through the organization of political discourse. Normality is inauthenticity. Meaning that political discourse needs the inauthenticity of formed zones in social life if it is to inscribe an authentic rift in its body. The rift would only appear authentic as a response to the inauthentic eld.Meaning that a political rendering can be read in any eld as a ruptureor disturbance. The political rupture bypasses the other ways of opposing a subject in order to focus on one of them. And a political resolution (to be rendering with a rupture) resembles a poetic resolution: political and poetic resolutions alike require the hypertrophy of a viewpoint.

Might political arts dmarche still be the attempt to make an enunciation? Might abandoning both the message and representation as Rancire proposes not lead to something less ambitious and supercial than a reframing? Mightour obsession with denouncing representation not make us blind by choice? Isnt reframing a depiction, too? And if the dmarche of political art isnt an enunciation, then what sort of suspension does it bring to the fore? Isnt the suspended dmarche once again enunciative in nature? Finally, couldnt the irritating idea of some sort of healthy reframing at least be omitted when assembling an archive? Let us accept as a working hypothesis that the frame is the subject: what sort of pendencies are staged by a frame?Having asked all this in relation to the frame and to reframing, I should


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Vangelis Vlachos, 1992, 2006-2007

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THE GAP BETWEEN THE ENTRIESDespite the strategies that require the hypertrophied viewpoint to be intercepted (and which characterize a parallel course in the history of thought and of art), the following description can safely be propounded:--after the history of these strategies--the hypertrophic resolution, which is at odds, alone, with its entire eld of reference, canneither be cancelled nor postponed. Postmodern hypertrophy functions simply as if the hypertrophic resolution construction were temporarily at least the only rational view. The only way of cancelling the hypertrophy is through non-sense or its ephemerality.Thus, the modern art-work and the contemporary political resolution both rely on simulating the classical versions of themselves on a temporary basis. Without this

ephemeral as if: the political risk is lost, as is every sense of contrast andat least, if we have understood these concepts in their classical sense--poetic creativity. Political risk and poetic creation of every sort is based in the decision which provides the as if from faith. Postmodern politics and artistic decisiveness rely on a ritualistic, theatrical nature: in no sphere of political discourse are acts of faith or supposed simulations of acts of faith undertaken: as if certain legitimate hypertrophic rejections could counter organized social forms of the Other. Political action and production in the visual arts rely on a form of theatrical impersonation of the hypertrophic resolution.

THE TABLESPolitical and aesthetic resoluteness is the reference zone for Vangelis

Vlahos idiosyncratic archival work. Can an archive (which disengagedly describes an environment) present the rift, meaning the now classic element for recognizing the postmodern work? Or should we view the dmarche of the presentation of the two tables dierently?An archive assembles traces already created. It is a eld of assembly, anorganized frame for collections. The ordering of traces and fragments that reference a given subject without constructing a viewpoint on it and leaving the reading open does not seem, at rst glance, to producea rift in the eld of reference. Thecreation of a series of traces and fragments referencing a given subject seems radically alien to everything we recognize as poetic and as political, meaning it is free of the univocality and the sort of rift

that customarily denes political andpoetic decisiveness.

The art in the archive/work3 generally lies in the moulding of a violent discomfort imposed by the collection itself. It is this discomfortone might say in the rst instancewhich transforms anarchive into an art-work.The archive would seem to be unied4 by the disquiet that exists between the entries. And the landscape of the archive maintains its intensity in the gap in which distance is moulded between the entries and not in the entries per se.The discomfort that seeks the locus of the rift via a series of entries is thus the rift per se. The entries seek the law of the archive with the dynamic of the rift. The discomfort seeks the provenance of the entries and makes the archive an art work.



Any obscurity in the rift becomes the very rift that seeks to have the archive categorized as art.In this way, the violence of an archive-rendered-art lies concealed between the entries rather than in the entries themselves. And this viewing mode would be the rst weapplied to reading the landscape of the two tables. But then the archive, viewed as a secret unied moment,will function as a simple art-work, which is to say as a simple exception to something we overlooked, as an exhortation to peruse a moment in time.

This opens up yet another perspective for understanding an art-fully assembled archive. Looked at in this way, the archive is not organized as a collection of unique moments and does not claim its presence as a unied

move. It seeks instead to be given a diused reception as areceptacle which allows notional ows between entries. The owof meaning between the archive entries describes their simultaneous contribution to a predestined gaze; no longer uniting them, it correlates them. This is the second reading of the type of entries to be found in both of Vangelis Vlahos tables.The void which, along with the archive, forms the centre of the collection is presented as a subject of the collection: the brutal absence that controls the collection5 as though it were controlled by the gaps between the entries.The gap between the archive entries constitutes material which is moulded at the point of deciding to assemble the archive. Every entry could dier from what we seeprecisely each time. The fragments


47

are in place, but the work is not at risk from all the fragments being replaced by other, similar ones. The materiality of the archive is organized in such a way as to do away with the signicance ofmateriality. No one entry controls the work at a profound level. The dynamic of the assembly of entries and the works profundity arise from the entries proximity and the distance between them. When arranging the archive, the distances between the objects were more important than the objects themselves. The tables-archive does not require that every entry be carefully studied; it requires us to focus on the gaps.Among the entries we nd modelsof the buildings. Every archive is a landscape for a building, though the building, too, is itself just another part of the archive. The

representation of the building and of the political condition appears as a function of a complex crystallization on Vangelis Vlachos tables. The form of crystallization is as important as the fact of the crystallization. Which is how we can set about mourning the politics and aesthetics we knew: by referencing something that doesnt change, just as the material substance of the buildings doesnt change.

1 The hypertrophic nature of this split

comes with a signature appended: art is

identied with the name of the person who

rends it. The history of art is this identied

with a series of signatures. 2 This rending, which is not referenced

here as something to be avoided, is achieved

via the hypertrophic resolution technique.3 We looked at a number of archive works

produced in recent decades.

4 This unity is perceived by its thematic

denition: but it is produced by the archive

frame and is not precisely organized

in advance: the thematic denition is

constructed with the simultaneous provision

of dierent entries.5 The archives subject is determined

via the unication method described by

Simmel in his theory of the landscape.

An archive work is, in Simmels terms, a

landscape: it unites dierent fragments.

See The philosophy of the landscape in

sociological,

philosophical and aesthetic texts, pp. 178

192, Alexandreia, Athens.

Vangelis Vlachoss exhibition 1992 was held at

the The Breeder gallery (6 Evmorfopoulou str.,

tel.: +30 210 3317527, www.thebreedersystem.

com) from the 8th of March until the 14th of April

2007.


Wh

at is

(t

o b

e) d

one?

Penelope Petsini writes

with Leninist fervour

on the occasion of a

photographic exhi

Documents

a. the athens contemporary art review 12