Chrysanthi Koumianaki
When the Performance Ends, 2023
Installation, quadrilateral folding screen (205 × 324 cm), costumes of various dimensions, sound installation, 8’48” loop
ΕΜΣΤ new production
Courtesy of the artist
Chrysanthi Koumianaki orchestrates a multilateral work entitled When the Performance Ends (2023). The artist weaves her own modular fictional story, featuring garments that herself has designed for performative works she has presented in the past. Her practice investigates the idea of translation, creating symbolic systems, coding, alphabets, and scores that focus on non-verbal communication. The work is perceived as an act of writing – or an assembly of – conversions and transformations. It is treated as a remake of a previous installation with the same title, comprised of clothing samples from selected exhibitions and performances – RSVP, The Stage is Empty, and Enchanted Life – and framed by an audio piece from the exhibition they keep chewing walls. The work has been further developed; the installation features a new spatial element, i.e., a screen with patterns, shapes, and symbols designed by the artist, while also three performance pieces are presented simultaneously at the exhibition’s opening. Three performers wearing the garments that now constitute a part of the work move around ΕΜΣΤ and interact with the visitors and the space itself.
Biography
Chrysanthi Koumianaki is a visual artist, born in Heraklion, living and working in Athens. Her practice explores the idea of translation, creating symbolic systems, cyphers, alphabets, and scores that focus on non-verbal communication. Her works propose dialogues that arise between the different parts of an installation during their production and in interaction with the viewer. She has presented her work in solo and group exhibitions in foundations, museums, and galleries, such as Netwerk Aalst, Fondation Hippocrène, Museum of Cycladic Art, Kadist, Danske Grafikeres Hus, PHENOMENON, Benaki Museum, NEMA–Benaki Museum, State of Concept, Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art, Athens Biennale, and ΕΜΣΤ, as well as in exhibitions by organisations and museums such as NEON, Fondazione Prada, DESTE Foundation, and New Museum New York. Koumianaki has also staged exhibitions or events in public spaces, like the Hill and Theatre of Kolonos, the Venetian Walls of Heraklion, a basketball court in Kato Patissia, etc. She has participated in art programmes such as Studiotopia, Onassis AiR, and the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) Artist Fellowship by ARTWORKS. Since 2012, along with Kosmas Nikolaou and Paky Vlassopoulou, she has been a founding member of the artist-run space 3 137 in Athens.
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
