MARCEL DUCHAMP Performance by NOVA MELANCHOLIA
WITH Mario Banushi, Despina Hatzipavlidou, Stavros Karambatsos, Christina Karagianni, Nikos Ntasis
Performance dates: 27th – 31st of March, 2022
State of Concept Athens, Tousa Botsari 19, Athens, 11741
State of Concept Athens is happy to welcome the collective Nova Melancholia, who will present a new performance for their 15th anniversary, titled “Marcel Duchamp.”
The performance uses, as a ready-made title, the name of the legendary 20th century avant-garde artist Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968), who influenced and continues to influence our perception of art, as only a handful of artists have achieved. An independent soul and lover of games and irony, Marcel Duchamp was a cubist painter, a member of Dada, a surrealist, a denialist of painting, an inventor of the ready-made, a professional chess player, an organizer of exhibitions, a forerunner of conceptual art, an important reference for pop art and postmodern aesthetics, an intelligent and successful man, and a very lucky guy…
Nova Melancholia is interested in the “Marcel Duchamp” method; its strategies, the ideas, the practice. Their anniversary performance claims a certain legacy: the pervasive spirit of challenge, the constant irony and self-irony, the search for subversion, for the new and the challenging, the playful approach to things, the inclusion of the random in the artistic process, and the significant gesture.
The title of the performance functions as a platform for additional signification and loose connections between different materials. “Marcel Duchamp” can only be the pretext, the wrapper of a content. And the content is Nova Melancholia itself that has been trying to define – over the years – a genealogy of people, artists, methods, ways of working; a specific sensitivity to things.
The show is a celebration of the 15 years of the group’s presence (2007-2022) in the changing landscape of theatrical and artistic performance. It will be hosted successively at four spaces of Athens’ contemporary art scene: State of Concept Athens, EIGHT, TAVROS and Enterprise Projects, for five days in each space, spread over a period of four months.