The National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens participates in the artistic events organized by the Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Tourism in Athens in collaboration with the Municipality of Athens, by presenting important works from its collections, ephemeral actions and new productions in public spaces in Athens, such as parks and streets, from September 8th until November 15th, 2011. From Dionysiou Areopagitou to Kotzia Square and Omonoia Square, and from Pagrati Grove to Exarcheia Square and the Archaeological Park of Plato’s Academy, installations, audiovisual and sound works by contemporary artists from Greece and abroad will consecutively be presented.
We participate in the events with works from the Museum’s collection and new productions that open, in a period of crisis, windows to the imagination and challenge with their social and political character. In the framework of its policy for an opening up in the city and its offsite policy, the Museum addresses the citizens, the promenaders, with works that stimulate with their poetic and critical character, the imagination and the thinking, and at the same time motivate participation in collective, community based actions in public space.
On the 8th of September, two inaugural events are organized with nighttime projections on Dionysiou Areopagitou and Pagrati Grove. Opposite the New Acropolis Museum and next to Dionysos Theater in the open air space at the beginning of Dionysiou Areopagitou, every night at 21:00 the video Public Dialogue by Joseph Beuys will be projected. In this work, the conceptual artist Joseph Beuys, one of the most important figures of postwar art, stimulates with his idea on social sculpture and the relationship between art and politics. On the same night, the Open-air Cinema begins in Pagrati Grove with 6 video artworks from EMST’s collection by international and Greek artists from the fields of sculpture, photography but also of theatre and cinematographic direction, such as Rebecca Horn, Robert Wilson, Sophie Calle and Gregory Shephard, George Drivas and Kostas Aristopoulos. On the 12th of September in the most popular square of Athens, Omonoia Square, the historic work In Praise by Vlassis Caniaris, a work of sharp social commentary will be presented.
On September 15th the Sound Walk in the Archaeological Park of Plato’s Academy is inaugurated, with 7 audio works on 7 trees of the park, under the shadows of which the promenaders can sit and listen to sounds and music by leading representatives of conceptual and post-conceptual sound art, such as Steven Feld, Steve Roden, Lukas Foss, Bob Gluck, Bill Fontana, Trevor Wishart and Nils Vigeland. The selection includes recordings of soundscapes from nature and the city, such as sounds from natural phenomena, the environment, bells, birds singing, rituals, electronic music as well as sound projects that reveal transartistic quests and connections to literature, sculpture, architecture, and also to different types of classical music, especially opera. The same day the work Art of Sleep by Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries will be projected in Exarcheia Square. The frenetic written narrative of the text in the form of flash animation accompanied by jazz music unfolds as ironic reflection on what is art, the limits and possibilities towards a world in crisis. The work Exercise Machines by Alexandros Psychoulis will be presented from September 15th at the junction of Aeolou and Kolokotroni streets, hanging up high between two buildings. The artist with this poetic project urges us to look up and takes us to another place, inaccessible, remote, that we can only see with our glance.
On the 22nd of September the participatory installation Red Eyed Sky Walkers by Jenny Marketou will be installed in the central Kotzia square, in front of the Municipality of Athens. The visitor will see 99 red meteorological balloons, on 9 of which are placed small wireless video cameras. The cameras record the movement of passers-by and activities of people who frequent the area. The resulting visual material will be displayed in real-time along with readily found audiovisual material from YouTube and other Internet sources. Marketou creates a work that deals with topical issues in a humorous way, creative and critical, seeking to reverse the practice of surveillance and espionage, and encourage the viewers to participate in the game between surveillance and performance.
The presentations of works in September will be completed on the 24th of the month in the Archaeological Park of Plato’s Academy with the interactive installation of a “theater-treadle” titled In Vino Veritas by Phoebe Giannisi and Zissis Kotionis and an event of pressing the grapes with the participation of the residents will be organized. The event will include the preparation of the must and the distribution of moustalevria (grape must pudding) to the neighbors. During the preparation of the must an action of speech by the poetry group Poetry Now on wine and inebriety will be realized.
Curated by Anna Kafetsi, Daphne Vitali, Tina Pandi and Stamatis Schizakis
SPONSOR
With the kind support of OPAP S.A.
