Exhibitions cycle: WHAT IF WOMEN RULED THE WORLD? Part 1
EΜΣΤ is pleased to host the first solo exhibition in Greece of the Belgo-Greek artist Danai Anesiadou. Born in Germany to parents of Greek origin and based in Brussels since her early years, Anesiadou has developed a range of metaphysical and personal concerns into a seductive and mercurial body of work over the last 15 years, which references cinema, occult sciences, Greek antiquity, surrealism, and contemporary affairs. Described as a “21st-century European poster girl for crisis”, her work is highly attuned to both the political and the invisible fabric of reality. Armed with a keen interest in historiography and politics, she questions what we consider to be true, pointing to the double standards and false dichotomies of the dominant discourse.
Danai Anesiadou’s exhibition at EΜΣΤ entitled D POSSESSIONS invites visitors into an allegorical scenography consisting of sculptures, collages, and her own furniture, among others, referencing the rise of political, social and spiritual crises. In an attempt to permanently get rid of all her personal belongings, she cast them into epoxy. She added metal shavings and quartz crystals to the mix and turned them into orgonites – energy transmutation devices that some consider to attract Orgone, which extracts negative energy and transmutes it into positive energy. The orgonite-sculptures carry multiple forms and shapes created from moulds of props from film sets. Like a modern-day exorcist, Anesiadou attempts to purge and transform not only her material possessions but also the energies they carry.
Seeking to understand and critically reflect on the present, Anesiadou looks to trace connections between things that on the surface seem utterly unrelated – from conspiracy theories, Hollywood and the Pentagon’s Entertainment Industrial Complex, reality TV and the fashion industry and references to ancient Greek sculpture, surrealism and B-movies. What impact may these have on the state of our world and our minds today? Trying to resist binary thinking, she questions what is truth and what is fiction claiming a right to interrogate everything.
The different elements that make up this kaleidoscopic exhibition create an immersive and alluring environment which, at the same time, suggests a sense of the uncanny, the surreal and the uneasy. Playing with rumour, fantasy and the mystical, Anesiadou’s work acts as an acute socio-political commentary on the multiple and multi-layered crises we face, the invisible, repressed or darker sides of reality, and the extreme polarisation we witness on a daily basis today.
The exhibition is a co-production with WIELS, Brussels.
Curator: Ioli Tzanetaki
BIOGRAPHY
Danai Anesiadou is a Belgian artist of Greek origin based in Brussels, Belgium. Working across performance, installation, collage and sculpture, Anesiadou crafts theatrical settings where ‘high’ and ‘low’ culture dip into cinema, deep politics, and metaphysics. Monumental prop-ornaments are pulled back into function as transformative sculpture. Her body of work, developed over the past fifteen years, is an expansive allegory in action. Rumours, mystery, evocations, and the intimacy of secrets are the centrifugal forces from which Anesiadou’s entire oeuvre develops. Anesiadou studied at KASK in Ghent, Belgium, and DasArts in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Her work and performances have been presented at Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, France (2020), Casa Luis Barragan, Mexico City, Mexico (2019), documenta 14, Athens/Kassel, Greece/Germany (2017), Swiss Institute Contemporary Art, New York, US (2016), Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France (2016), Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna, Austria (2013), RCA, London, UK (2012), LUX/ICA Biennial of Moving Image, London, UK (2012), Kunsthalle Basel, Switzerland (2011), WIELS, Brussels, Belgium (2011), Kunstinstituut Melly, Rotterdam, Netherlands (2011), DRAF, London, UK (2011), KIOSK, Ghent, Belgium (2009), 5th Berlin Biennale, Berlin, Germany (2008) and MuHKA, Antwerp, Belgium (2008). She has been in residence at Fogo Island Arts, Fogo, Canada (2012) and ISCP, New York, US (2011).
