EMΣΤ | National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens, invites you to the finissage of Viron Erol Vert’s exhibition The Hermit with a live all-day music programme inspired by Vert’s exhibition and his research into Iannis Xenakis and his work.
The first part of the programme is curated by bend and features performances by Bill Anagnos, Andreas Ragnar Kassapis and Danae Stefanou. For the second part, Vert has invited sound artists Franziska Lantz and Saint Precious to perform live works which have been part of the exhibition’s soundscape for the past four months as well as new compositions.
The Hermit (2023) is Viron Erol Vert’s first solo exhibition in Greece. Raised between Germany, Turkey and Greece in an intercultural family and environment, Vert’s artistic interests oscillate between religious systems, cultural identity, and language. The artist’s multicultural background plays a key role in his research and work, as does his close connection to the various sub-cultural contexts of Berlin’s club scene.
Viron Erol Vert’s site-specific installation, The Hermit, is created especially for the museum and is inspired by the work of Iannis Xenakis, the subject of two major exhibitions at EΜΣΤ in 2023-24. It aims to explore several aspects of the avant-garde composer, architect and mathematician’s practice as well as highlight the influence he has had on contemporary musicians and sound artists.
Vert’s installation is an immersive, interactive gathering space with a nightclub-inspired aesthetic which is filled with sounds composed by contemporary experimental musicians (Agatha & Kristianna Tsimpi, Korhan Erel, Franziska Lantz, Alexander Stewart / Ge1, Saint Precious, André Vida). At the same time, the six windchimes at its centre, transform the space itself into a musical instrument. Visitors are invited to immerse themselves and enjoy the enveloping audio-visual environment the artist has created.
LINE UP
13.00-19.00
Live music performances by:
Danai Stefanou | Andreas Ragnar Kassapis | Bill Anagnos | Franziska Lantz | Saint Precious
13.00: Danae Stefanou
14.00: Andreas Ragnar Kassapis
16.00: Bill Anagnos
17.00: Franziska Lantz
18.00: Saint Precious
INFORMATION
The exhibitions will be open from 11.00 to 19.00.
The performances will take place between 13.00 and 19.00.
Free entrance to all exhibitions and music performances.
ARTISTS' BIOS
Viron Erol Vert was raised in an inter-cultural family environment, between the north of Germany, Istanbul and Athens, Viron Erol Vert currently lives and works between Berlin and the Mediterranean region. In his artistic practice, he deals with the questioning of identity and affinity to different aspects and perspectives of the own and the foreign. His multicultural imprint plays a key role in his research processes, as does his close connection to various club cultural contexts in Berlin. Vert’s works, which are fundamentally characterised by the state and atmosphere of being in-between, weave together different cultures, materials, languages, forms of expression, ways of seeing, and views of life into a hybrid, complementary identity. In his artistic work, Vert seeks to reveal and transcend abstract and theoretical boundaries in order to enrich life with acoustic, social, and physical imaginaries, such as pictorial and sculptural spaces. His solo exhibitions include Atoms, Souls, Senses, Villa Romana, Florence, Italy (2022); Born in the Purple, Kunstraum Kreuzberg / Bethanien, Berlin, Germany (2017), The Name of Shades of Paranoia, Galerie Wedding, Berlin, Germany (2017); The Chronicler, Künstlerhaus Stuttgart, Germany (2014). In addition, Vert has participated in international group exhibitions, including The Conundrum of Imagination, Leopold Museum, Vienna, Austria (2017), DE-HEIMATIZE IT!, 4.Berliner Herbstsalon, Maxim Gorki Theater, Berlin, Germany (2019), A Handful Of Dust, Ehrenhalle, Berlin, Germany (2020), and 4+3=1, SAVVY Contemporary, Germany (2022). In 2018 Vert presented his exhibition project Ambereum for the first time at the 1st International Riga Biennial of Contemporary Art (RIBOCA) and in 2019-2022 in collaboration with Roskilde Festival, Denmark. Vert is a recipient of the Villa Romana Prize (2018) and received the LETTE Foundation Ludwig Gies Prize for Small Sculpture in 2022. He was a fellow at the Tarabya Cultural Academy, Istanbul (2020 and 2021) and Urbane Künste Ruhr, Mülheim a.R. (2021-2022). In 2022, Vert was a fellowship holder of the Künstlerhaus Schloß Balmoral and in 2023 he received the Kunst am Bau Contest from the Orient Institut Istanbul and the Tarabya Cultural Academy. Currently, Vert is a scholarship holder of the Academy Schloss Solitude.
Bend is a hyperactive, Athens-based studio with a soft spot for the design & production of excellent print & digital matter. Their practice addresses contemporary topics through a synthesis of graphic design, illustration, digital media, photography, music & art. Since 2005, they have mainly worked together with cultural entities, while pursuing close collaborations with individuals, initiatives, companies, institutes & organizations that share a common vision for high-end visual & graphic communication. As a team, they believe in collective creativity over personal taste, egos & trends. They are convinced that transformative work that shapes contemporary culture can only be achieved through mutual respect. Since 2015, the independent publishing group Untitled-1 exists in parallel and as an extension to the studio’s work, focusing on short run vinyl, tape, art book and print releases.
Bill Anagnos (aka Efthimis Theodossis) is a multi-instrumentalist, sound artist, camera operator, director of photography, and father based in Athens. He began his musical journey at the age of 22 as part of a free improvisation group called Half Hour. Later, he co-founded the experimental free improv duo Free Piece of Tape with Giorgos Axiotis. Years of experience in free improvisation gradually shaped his compositional style, leading to his individual project, Bill Anagnos. Drawing inspiration from car racing, local wrestling heroes, and childhood memories, Anagnos’s music is characterized by intense sound elements marked by fluidity, persistence, and memory. His compositions incorporate up-tempo melancholic melodies, enduring motifs, and locked grooves from records, showcasing influences from dub, krautrock, and synthwave. Experimentation remains a significant part of Anagnos’s artistic journey, evident in his work with the Free Piece of Tape project and performances under his own name. Whether utilizing traditional music samples or crafting self-built instruments like the simadrone, he has performed extensively in various venues, festivals, and site-specific locations, including the Videodance Festival, Athens Epidavrus Festival, Documenta ’14, Vovousa Festival, and many more.
Franziska Lantz is a Swiss artist/ musician based in London. She merges visual and audio work in ritualistic installations and raw music performances. Lantz jams with drum machines and synthesisers, alienates her sounds with distortion and overloads her organic sets with echoing feedback.
She runs Global Warming Records, an experimental electronic music label, and since 2008 has been producing DriftShift, a weekly radio show on Londons ResonanceFm, from where she regularly broadcasts her analogue techno experiments into space.
Saint Precious is a Swedish-Barbadian artist. Her work centers the living experience of being a black trans woman in the 21st century. With a focus on the voice way of moving through sounds and upcoming releases on Staycore her artistic aim is to expand the collective consciousness by making each individual listener understand her as a way to connect with their own innate divinity and ease within the complexity of being.
Andreas Ragnar Kassapis is a painter, drawing teacher, writer and soundscape artist. He lives and works in Athens. His work has been presented among others in Radio Athenes, Athens (2022); Kalfayan Galleries, Athens (2021); Tavros, Athens (2021); Documenta 14, Athens /Kassel (2017); School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (2014); Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2013); 2nd Athens Biennale, Athens (2009); DESTE Foundation for Contemporary Art, Athens (2006).
Danae Stefanou makes improvised sounds and texts. She is Associate Professor and founding director of the Experimental & Improvised Music Ensembles (σ.π.Α.Μ.*) at the School of Music Studies, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, where she also runs several other interdisciplinary and cross-level research initiatives (noise:muse, Critical Music Histories etc.). Her visceral, intensely tactile approach to sound and listening has been described as real-time composition “with no safety net”, and her acoustic explorations of the piano interior are often likened with the work of electronic composers. Active as a performer since the 1990s, she has co-developed and realised hundreds of independent intermedia actions & co-creation events in public spaces, DIY venues, arts institutions & educational establishments. In recent years her practice has encompassed text scores, sonic fiction writings, performance-workshops and installations as well as the development of original co-creation methodologies.
