Christina Mitrentse
European Union – Bookscape XIV, 2023
Vintage hardbacks, ribbons, vinyl letters, wood, 76 × 113 cm
Courtesy of the artist and CITRONNE Gallery
In the Bookscapes series, and especially in works such as Home is the Net – Bookscape VI (2018) and European Union – Bookscape XIV (2023), Christina Mitrentse transforms hard book covers into colourful flat canvases that explore the textual landscapes of the post-Internet era. The most popular abbreviations of the hashtags of Instagram and Facebook, i.e., the pop-up algorithms used to facilitate communication between users, are a daily global language. In this series, they serve as a new form of discourse, by way of archiving the language of the Internet to contemplate the nature of digital abundance. Mitrentse’s compositions of overlapping book covers are a comment on computational forms, memory, the network, code, variables, symbolic systems, language, and – most of all – contemporary communication.
Biography
Christina Mitrentse is an interdisciplinary artist, educator, and independent curator. She lived and worked in London for two decades. In recent years, she has been based in Athens. Her work combines different mediums, techniques – design, silk printing, biblio-sculpture, collage, installations – and processes, such as the in-progress collaborative projects Add To My Library (#ATML), which proposes a process of deinstitutionalising the book, and Bibliographic Data Flow (#BDF), which collects book titles to enrich a #Meta-Library. Her work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions in galleries, museums, and public spaces, such as the Tate Modern, The Royal Academy, ICA London, etc., and profiled in publications. Mitrentse’s artworks can be found in major private and public collections such as the WWW Foundation, MOCA London, Senate House, Book Arts UWE, LCC (UAL), Goldsmiths University Women’s Library, Book Art Centre NY, the National Library in Baghdad, the Jewish Museum of Greece, Fine Art Society London, Greenwich Council, Sill Library Bath, Mol’s Collection, Tate Archive, Collectors’ Society, Griechische Kulturstiftung, M. Altenman, Onassis Foundation, Alpha Bank, MOMus, Benaki Museum, National Bank of Greece Cultural Foundation – ΜΙΕΤ, El. Venizelos (Athens) Airport.
ALL WORKS
- Phantom Investigations (Giannis Delagrammatikas, Ino Varvariti). Each Relation Belongs to Other Relations
- Chryssa. From the Newspaper Book
- Chryssa. From the Newspaper Book
- Nausica Pastra. Analogiques
- Nausica Pastra. Synectron–Square–Circle
- Bia Davou. Pillars and Clouds, Hypothetical Intervention in the Pillars of Olympic Zeus
- Bia Davou. Serial Structures 2 – Odyssey
- Christina Mitrentse. European Union – Bookscape XIV
- Christina Mitrentse. Home is the Net – Bookscape VI
- Karolina Krasouli. Pattern (Νοs. 1–3, 5–9, 11–14)
- Karolina Krasouli. How to Remember (Plans)
- Chrysanthi Koumianaki. When the Performance Ends
- Maria Varela. Rugs of Life
