Kunsthalle Athena presents In the Studio exhibition
curated by Daily Lazy Projects artists’ team for ReMap 4
Daily Lazy Projects collaborated with Lydia Pribisova for the selection and support of the Slovak artists.
curated by Daily Lazy Projects artists’ team for ReMap 4
Daily Lazy Projects collaborated with Lydia Pribisova for the selection and support of the Slovak artists.
Loukia Alavanou (GR), Athanasios Argianas (UK/GR), Erik Binder (SK), Clara Broermann (DE), Stephane Calais (FR), Lizzie Calligas (GR),Thomas Chapman (US), Dionisis Christofilogiannis (GR), Michael De Kok (NL), Christina Dimitriadis (GR), Oana Farcas (RO), Petra Feriancova (SK), Shannon Finley (CA), Dimitris Foutris (GR), Torben Giehler (DE), Helidon Gjergji (AL), Stelios Karamanolis (GR), Vassilis P. Karouk (GR), Michalis Katzourakis (GR), Jan Kiefer (SH), John Kleckner (US), Caroline Kryzecki (DE), Marek Kvetan (SK), Daniel Lergon (DE), Sifis Lykakis (GR), Mathieu Mercier (FR), Svätopluk Mikyta(SK), Ilona Nemeth (SK), Yudi Noor (ID), Ilias Papailiakis (GR), Angelo Plessas (GR), Tula Plumi (GR), Vassilis Salpistis (GR), Georgia Sagri (GR), Frank Selby(US), Yorgos Stamkopoulos (GR), Daniel Steegmann (SP/BR), Henning Strassburger (DE), Julia Strauss (RU/DE), Morgane Tschiember (FR), Brent Wadden (CA)
Kunsthalle Athena, 28 Kerameikou
Daniel Lergon
Lizzie Calligas
Daniel Lergon
from left to right Torben Giehler, Vassilis Salpistis, Daniel Steegmann, Stephane Calais
Clara Broermann
from left to right Jan Kiefer, Torben Giehler
Frank Selby
Caroline Kryzecki
Helidon Gjergji
from left to right Tula Plumi, Brent Wadden, Yudi Noor
Oana Farcas
Henning Strassburger
Morgane Tschiember , Shannon Finley (floor)
Erik Binder
Ilias Papailiakis
Michael De Kok
Michael De Kok
Mathieu Mercier
Mathieu Mercier
Mathieu Mercier
Dionisis Christofilogiannis, Marek Kvetan
Marek Kvetan
Dimitris Foutris
Athanasios Argianas
from left to right Christina Dimitriadis, Dimitris Foutris
Petra Feriancova
John Kleckner
Svätopluk Mikyta
Vassilis Karouk , Stelios Karamanolis
Michalis Katzourakis
Stelios Karamanolis
Angelo Plessas, Ilona Nemeth, Angelo Plessas
Ilona Nemeth
from left to right Georgia Sagri, Sifis Lykakis
from left to right Sifis Lykakis, Yorgos Stamkopoulos
Loukia Alavanou
Thomas Chapman
photos by Stathis Mamalakis
The exhibition In the Studio focuses on
the conditions under which the artwork is created and investigates its
fundamental relation to the artists’ studios. The project finds its conceptual
base in a twofold approach: on one side displaying art as a time-based
procedure and activity, and secondly, to document the private milieu of the
artist studio, the place where this process is unveiled. The exhibition In
the Studio will display the work of selected artists, focusing on
unfinished pieces, works in-progress, sketches, maquettes, models, and other
objects taken from the artists’ studios. It is one of the few opportunities to
present a curatorial project where the artwork and the labour of the artist
share one immediate and intact space, a space co-habited now by the artist and
the audience.
The on-going project In the Studio was
launched in December 2011 and it currently includes more than 130 renowned and
upcoming contemporary artists, based in Athens, Berlin, Paris, Vienna,
Amsterdam, Istanbul, Zürich, Basel, Frankfurt, Florence, Valletta, Cluj-Napoca,
Johannesburg, Kuala Lumpur, New York, Rome, Washington, North Carolina,
Stockholm, Bratislava, Rotterdam, Tampere, Düsseldorf, San Francisco, and more.
Α project originally initiated by Daily Lazy Projects in the form of an
online documentation and showcase of individual distinctive practices (“In the
Studio”: http://daily-lazy.blogspot.de/search/label/In%20The%20Studio), it will
be presented for the first time as an extensive and multidimensional
installation in Kunsthalle Athena.
The final aim is to create an active environment, where both the artist and the
visitor simultaneously attend to the very early stage of the conception and
creation of the artwork, before it leaves the studio to enter institutions,
museums and galleries around the world.
In the Studio attempts
to reveal the invisible facets of art and it concerns a curatorial proposal
which covers a variety of research, conceptual, aesthetic, creative and
experiential interests, inviting us to meet art in the most direct manner.
Angelo Plessas presents works straight from the studio; collages from his websites.
Athanasios Argianas: Proposal for reading consonants as noise (foam froth). Test piece. This is one of the first experiments in electroforming copper onto the surface of sea sponges for a new series of works. The copper this time somehow corroded very rapidly, so the piece was then electroplated in pink gold to cover the corrosion- but this also ended up looking inconsistent. The result is unrepeatable, part oxidised copper, part sponge, part pink gold. The series that it was meant for required a repeatable result, so this is now left on its own - like a lost quantum twin.
Brent Wadden presents chairs dressed in wool blouses. Wadden thought that the chairs in his studio were so ugly, that he decided to dress them up with XL size wool blouses. The geometrical style and pattern of these blouses was later embodied in his work.
Caroline Kryzecki: I present a collection of dried paint rollers. I used them for a series of works with lacquer on wood from 2010 until today. Each paint roller has dried in one of five colours (black, white, yellow, turquoise, salmon orange). They will be showcased on the floor in a line.
Christina Dimitriadis presents a model.
Clara Broermann: This sketchbook has been lying around my studio for a few years. I found it at a bus station in Berlin somewhere. It’s quite old, heavy and well made. (On the cover it says “Schwaneberger Deutschland”, which is a publishing corporation, I think.) It is only half-full with sketches for paintings and some collected pieces of paper; photographs, postcards, copies etc. It shows the way I think about paintings- my ways to construct and plan a painting and what inspires me. A lot of the paper pieces are not fixed; also, there are still many blank pages - it gives the impression of an ongoing process.
Daniel Lergon: Until recently I used to work a lot with light sensitive fabric onto which I painted with a transparent lacquer. However, since about a year I use pulverised metal (i.e. iron, copper, etc.) as a painting ground and paint on it with acidified water, which simply lets the metal oxidise, i.e. rust. Thus, I work again with a transparent medium on a ‘loaded surface’ so to say, but this time a surface not loaded with light, but with the chemical potential to oxidise.
I think that traces of this work fit very well in the show, as the process and the testing of the chemical reaction is crucial for me to understand these works. I do not however want to glorify some “magic, alchemist” artist in studio romance or nostalgia…. but prefer to see it rather sober and neutral. Nevertheless, the ideas of traces, process, testing of oxidising surfaces etc. will find its way into my presentation in Athens. I am working a lot with models for the upcoming shows and might take some weird model objects, rusting or copper model objects.
Daniel Steegmann: This is something that touches me entirely: When is a work ready? Isn’t the work really the process and the artwork just the rest? I’ve been asking myself this questions since very early when at a show I decided to exhibit the objects in the studio as they were, without distinctions of what is ‘finished’ or what is not, what is good and what not…
Dimitris Foutris: What I am planning to present is a ‘sample’ of the space I experiment and create as an artist. It will be a puzzle with all the material I collect for a new piece and hopefully it will allow the viewer a more intimate approach / introspection on the concept of ‘idea’ (what an is idea after all). It will be comprised of sketches, some photos, perhaps some of my poems, unfinished works, as well as some elements from my regular day job, religious iconography; for example, patterns of byzantine ornaments and photos of the now finished ornaments on the wall.
Dionisis Christofilogiannis presents an unfinished painting.
Erik Binder: Painting after painting (borders on papers, which remainafter painting).Painting after Painting represents a derivate (leftover) of the painting. It is created secondary, without intention or calculation. It is a note, testimony of activity. A documentary and an inverse antipole of activity, of intention and effort. It rises from everything connected with the painting.
Frank Selby: I had this idea that it might be interesting to present a group of these unfinished drawings that I have in my studio. I have perhaps a dozen drawings in various states of incompletion that I gave up on for various reasons; often because I ran out of time before a show or something. I’ve often thought they would make an interesting show on their own; they’re quite fascinating to look at and think about, and also beautiful in their own right.
Georgia Sagri presents We Are Already Dead leaflet. I wrote this text in the beginning of the 2013. Later the text became a leaflet and it was printed 50 times. It was distributed to various places in NY and Athens between July and August of 2013. The 49th copy is presented in the show.
Helidon Gjergji: I realised a series of paintings that expose the uncanny ritual of self-exhibition in which the traveller per force participates to traverse and successfully pass airport security. I committed the perfect global crime of painting the images that are screened on the monitor of a security x-ray machine at Tirana’s airport while it streams the most personal - if not intimate - essentials of international travellers: underwear, Turkish coffee, an Anri Sala catalogue, lipstick, an Enver Hoxha pin, a socialist pioneer CD, slippers, brandy “Skenderbeu”, a rock from the beach of Vlora, plastic bunker souvenirs, and so on… How can I distinguish all these things on the monitor of the x-ray machine? Well, I can’t; that’s why I chose it. As a media painter, I am fascinated by the possibilities of this electronic canvas, as it both aestheticizes the quotidian while abstracting from it, returning our essentials back into colour-coded materials and forms. In other words, it is a source that offers the maximum visual impact with the minimum cultural content. By translating a torrent of cultural objects into a wondrous sequence of transparent colourful shapes, compositionally squished within the visual frames of international luggage, the airport x-ray.
Henning Strassburger: The basic idea behind Henning Strassburger’s exhibited work is always to have the most actual piece in the show. Therefore, the large canvas only shows a spray painted and rastered frame that contains a poster out of a youth magazine. The first one is a poster Strassburger bought in Berlin from the popular Bravo Magazine and shows a singer called “CRO”. During the show, the curator has to change this poster every day into a new one taken from a more current youth magazine. So the ‘painting’ stays in progress and is always on top of time. The artwork itself turns from an unfinished project into a complete piece of art during the show as it deals with the context of being exhibited and being in progress.
Ilias Papailiakis: I present notes, researches and a painting from the series Skin, Bones and Various Greek Landscapes.
Ilona Nemeth presents pages from her diary. For many years, she is continuing to do for herself a schedule of all her life, meetings, exhibitions, lectures and private activities - by hand, with different ways of designing particular activities, with the use of various colours and symbols. These diaries are some special kind of drawings; her private mental exercise for planning the future, for preparing the projects. Actually, she has circa ten of these works, in measure of A2.
Jan Kiefer: There are three models for aluminium casts I wanted to produce; I made three figures in kind of sport poses consisting of various fruits and vegetables. For the models I used plastic fruits that are glued together. I think that because of the glue, which is totally visible, you definitely see that these figures are only sketches, and not finished pieces…
John Kleckner presents the first vinyl record collage he created, which is considered more like a study than a finished artwork.
Joulia Strauss is present on webcam as often as she can, and transmits all her activities to a projection in the exhibition space. Be it her drawing portraits of refugees, or a screen share of herself working on her next video about protests, she shares the process of making art as agency in the information age. Sometimes the visitors are able to have a conversation with Joulia, sometimes to attend a streamed lecture of the Autonome Universität, Berlin. It could even be possible that the projection would merge with the exhibition space and a live performance would happen all of a sudden.
Lizzie Calligas presents an installation of drawings, photos and works from her studio.
Loukia Alavanou presents a video of recording herself editing a video in her studio.
Marek Kvetan presents a model of his atelier created by mirrors, both exterior and interior, in a scale 1:10. The project is accompanied by BW prints and description of the working process.
Mathieu Mercier: The studio is not only a place full of experiences and joy. It is rarely a magic laboratory, and, much more, a temple of crises and doubts. The little pieces I chose to exhibit show some processes with common true ideas about the artist’s environment, way of thinking and way to deal with every day abstract feelings. The ‘puzzle’ chess game mixes a double pleasure or a double problem regarding the way you consider it. As an industrial quality was necessary for this piece, I did an affordable edition of 1,000 - all numbered and signed. Mr is a silkscreen edition of an ophthalmologist eye test, on which I added a line of spray paint, which makes the expressions of a character different each time and carries out then a psychologist test, as well. Drum and Bass is a series of compositions of primary-coloured objects on industrial black shelves. They are in reference to the avant-garde project of a “total art” - an artistic idea where everything should be produced and designed by an artist.The paper ain could illustrate a common idea of the relationship of the artist with his model. This is a sculpture I would like to develop as a pop-up book. The folding rectangular shape is a path framing the choice of a point of view on a model.Hammer and cap (San Trite) is playing with political symbolsand especially with two objects particularly appreciated in our suburbs. Y-Socket Lamp is a burgeoning structure where the light energy is flowing. The photograph is from a series that creates a relationship between a measurement device (here a Kodak colour chart to control colours) and an object laid on the surface of a scanner (here a flower picked in park in Copenhagen in August 2011). The result has a protocolar reference (if we consider the colour chart design not so far from some army signs, or the flower as a celebration gift), a romantic approach (the wild flower) and modern (the geometry of the chart), as well a hyperrealistic (the ruler gives a dimension and the back of the flat scanner shows the long mechanical process, as this is not a snap shot through a lens). The whole history of art is in this picture: romanticism, ready-made & abstraction.
Michael De Kok: My work is about how people experience their (landscape) environment and manipulate it sometimes into an artificial landscape. The images are composed of memory images and perception. I don’t use photos directly because they are too realistic, and, therefore, block my freedom in painting. I present an impression of two small paintings.
Michalis Katzourakis presents his current practice: in progress photographs.WINDOWS / AGORA is a collection of works taken from photos of window-shops from the shut market (agora) in Palaio Psychiko. I always think of painting(s) when I photograph such themes. I am interested in urban landscape and all the traces left there by human presence and action.
“Take a good look at the WINDOWS. Next time you see your reflection on the window-shops of the closed-down stores in your city, you may be not the same anymore.” (Christoforos Marinos)
Morgane Tschiember presents a small series of two concrete shapes with neon. Each concrete shape has neon. It’s like a model of a new project.
Oana Farcas presents a painting representing the studio of an artist as an insufficient imaginary place.
Petra Feriancova presents Ad Vocem Ad Spectatores - 2 packs of A4 white pages. Empty pages waiting to be filled in.
Shannon Finley presents sheets of silkscreen in order to make wallpaper for the needs of the show.
Sifis Lykakis: The initial idea behind the helmet is to make it ceramic with a metallic base. There will be two more helmets of different shape. For the exhibition, I present paper models of that initial idea. The design is an older artwork connected to this construction, or, otherwise, the construction comes from that idea of the design. The title of the whole work is No Risk No Fun.
Stelios Karamanolis presents unfinished paintings.
Stephane Calais presents parts of paintings, unfinished drawings, etc.
Svätopluk Mikyta presents a selection of his work using old reproductions. These are over-drawings, which are manipulated manually by printing, primarily using rotary intaglio printing. This area of his work begins with collecting and selecting – in this case old books with pictorial material that has a specific visual character, mostly monochromatic and in a wide range of subtle shades. Heliography and rotary intaglio printing were used for reproducing photographs before the introduction of the offset technique used today. In comparison to offset printing, rotary printing was less mechanised, and therefore, there was more human expertise involved. Good quality books were items of value.
Thomas Chapman: Thinking a video compiling a bunch of clips from my studio while I work. Just linking the clips together; then they can be projected with sound.
Torben Giehler: LEFTOVER is an accumulation of the dried acrylic paint that I pull out of plastic jars used to mix and store my paint. The paint is mixed with different mediums (glossy / matte), or it is straight gesso. It will sit on top of the STO bucket.
Tula Plumi presents paper exercises; collages that were used for the study and the construction of metal sculptures.
Vassilis P. Karouk presents a drawing , a sketch for the preparation of his new video.
Vassilis Salpistis: Collage as drawing, as an unimplemented address or a shortcut from the table to the wall
Yorgos Stamkopoulos presents a work in progress; an unfinished painting.
Yudi Noor presents an unfinished collage.