WANAFOTO: Thessaloniki

Showing posts with label Thessaloniki. Show all posts

13/07/13

Exhibition 1,2,3, b4: A precursor of the Thessaloniki Biennale 2013 program

Exhibition 1,2,3, b4
A precursor of the Thessaloniki Biennale 2013 program
Contemporary Art Center of Thessaloniki - SMCA, Greece
Through September 4, 2013

CHRYSE TSIOTA

Locus Suspectus, video installation and photographs, 2007

THEO PRODROMIDIS

The magnificent capital, video, 2007

On the occasion of the upcoming 4th Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art, the exhibition “1,2,3, b4” comes as a precursor of the 4th Thessaloniki Biennale program. The title of the exhibition refers to the Biennales that took place in the city of Thessaloniki in 2007, 2009 and 2011, while the pun b4 (= before) refers to the upcoming 4th Biennale of Contemporary Art, which will be hosted in the city by September 18th, 2013 at various venues with numerous exhibitions and events.

AZAT SARGSYAN

Public Constructivism, photographic series, 2008

YANG YONGLIANG

Untitled, photographic series, 2009

The artworks presented in the exhibition are productions of the previous Central and Parallel Programs (namely the three International Young Artists’ Workshops, as well as the last Performance Festival and the Public Screen Project) of the previous Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art in 2007, 2009, 2011. The works are donations from the artists to the collection of the State Museum of Contemporary Art and to the city of Thessaloniki. The artworks selected and included in the exhibition now get into a completely new context and they are connected in a different exhibition scenography. Artists from different countries and backgrounds coexist in a project preparing the ground for this year's fourth edition of the Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art.

All works/projects reflect the ideological content of the previous Biennials, apart from reflecting individual and sociopolitical, international and local ideas and concepts. Abandoned places - “heterotopias”, social and labor inequalities, images of modern Greece and the Mediterranean region, symbols of oppression, ecological disasters, gender and identity issues are few of the ideas that coexist and interact. The exhibition, apart from summing up all the previous events, is in addition the documentation of an important project that is closely linked to Thessaloniki, continuing to contribute to the city’s life and cultural wealth, as well as important international coverage.

ELINA IONNOU

Composition with fence and plastic bags, installation, 2011

NADIA AYARI

Without Walls: The new paintings of Thessaloniki, 2011

portable murals pasted on wood and photographs

The artists and projects included:
Dimitris Ameladiotis, Untitled, installation, 2011
Elina Ioannou, Composition with fence and plastic bags, installation, 2011
Helen Mouzakiti, Untitled, photographic series, 2005-7
Theo Prodromidis, The magnificent capital, video, 2007
Chryse Tsiota, Locus Suspectus, video installation and photographs, 2007
Vahram Aghasyan, Ghost Town, photographic series, 2005
Tursun Ali, Life in Aral, photograph, 2006
Victor An, Requiem, photograph, 1989
Nadia Ayari, Without Walls: The new paintings of Thessaloniki, portable murals pasted on wood and photographs, 2011
Andrei Filippov, Saw, photomontage, 2006
Omid Salehi, Cane Land, photographic series, 2003
Azat Sargsyan, Public Constructivism, photographic series, 2008
Guram Tsibakhasvili, Interiors, photographic series, 2000
Yang Yongliang, Untitled, photographic series, 2009
The project Public Screen, 2007
Selected documented performances form the Thessaloniki Performance Festival, 2011: Nezaket Ekici,
Luigi Presicce, Kira O’ Reilly

Curators: Areti Leopoulou, Thodoris Markoglou, Art Historians & Curators SMCA / CACT
Museographer: Gianna Stavroulaki, Architect

On view at the SMCA through January 31, 2014: The Costakis collection and the Russian avant-garde. 100 years since the collector’s birth

CONTEMPORARY ART CENTRE OF THESSALONIKI (CACT) - STATE MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART (SMCA)
Warehouse B1, Thessaloniki port area
CACT's website: www.cact.gr

07/07/13

Costakis collection & Russian avant-garde, SMCA, Thessaloniki

The Costakis collection and the Russian avant-garde. 100 years since the collector’s birth
State Museum of Contemporary Art, SMCA, Thessaloniki, Greece
Through January 31, 2014

2013 is an anniversary year for the State Museum of Contemporary Art -SMCA- in Thessaloniki, Greece, since it has been 100 years since the collector George Costakis was born in Moscow. On this occasion the SMCA holds a big exhibition, with over 250 artworks from the famous Russian avant-garde collection, dedicated to the collector himself, a large part of whose collection belongs to the Museum. The other part was donated by the collector himself in 1977 to the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow.

GEORGE COSTAKIS in his apartment in Moscow.

Photo Igor Palmin, 1974

The collector GEORGE COSTAKIS

The Costakis collection is the largest collection of Russian avant-garde art (1900-1930) and has a great mobility in exhibitions all over Europe and the USA. It is a big presentation of the Costakis collection and the archive which follows and shows the collector’s gaze and method, through monographic artists’ presentations, enriched by guided tours, educational programs, talks, book presentations and lessons on the Russian avant-garde period.

Among many others, on view are artworks by artists Kazimir Malevich (1879-1935), Solomon Nikritin (1898-1965), Ilya Chashnik (1902-1929), Lioubov Popova (1889-1924), Alexei Morgunof (1884-1935)

KAZIMIR MALEVICH

Portraiture, 1910

Gouache on paper

SOLOMON NIKRITIN

Man and Cloud, circa 1930

Oil on paper mounted on plywood

ILYA CHASHNIK

Σουπρεματιστικός Σταυρός [Souprematistikos (?) Cross], 1920-1921

Oil on canvas

LIOUBOV POPOVA

Κυβοφουτουριστικό Πορτρέτο [Cubist Futurism Portrait], 1914-1915

Oil on cardboard

LIOUBOV POPOVA

Architectural painting, 1918

Oil on canvas

ALEXEI MORGUNOF

Aviator, 1912-1913

Oil on canvas

This exhibition is part of the 4th Thessaloniki biennale of Contemporary Art 2013 (September 18, 2013- January 31, 2014)

Curators: Maria Tsantsanoglou, SMCA Director, Angeliki Charistou, SMCA Art Historian

STATE MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART
Moni Lazariston building (Northeast wing)
21 kolokotroni Str., Stavroupoli, Thessaloniki, Greece
Museum's website: www.greekstatemuseum.com

06/07/13

Sculptor Costas Coulentianos Retrospective Exhibition, MMCA, Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art, Thessaloniki, Greece

COULENTIANOS THE LAST OF THE MODERN ACROBATS
Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art, Thessaloniki, Greece
Through July 26, 2013

The Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art, Thessaloniki, Greece, presents the great retrospective exhibition dedicated to COSTAS COULENTIANOS, which aims to present the entire work by the significant Greek sculptor. The exhibition is organized by the Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art and the Benaki Museum, in collaboration with the son of the artist, Ben Coulentianos and Theodoros Papapadopoulos. The exhibition was first presented in Athens at the Benaki Museum (28 September 2012 -5 January 2013) and had been a great success.

Sculptor Costas Coulentianos was born in Athens in 1918. He studied at the Athens School of Fine Arts and, later, in Paris at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière where he studied under Ossip Zadkine. Costas Coulentianos met Henri Laurens, which had a definitive influence on a great many of his works. His first solo exhibition was held in Paris, in 1962, at a same time, he had started to discuss with architects, how sculpture could be included in architecture, both in public and in private spaces.

The exhibition showcases 80 pieces by the artist, which represent the entire gamut of his creative periods. These range from his first student pieces in the 1940s, when Costas Coulentianos still worked with clay, to the monumental pieces in iron from the last decades of his life. The exhibition seeks to renegotiate the artist's body of work as well as its historical role in the context of artistic production in Greece and internationally, his presence in Paris being catalyzing for contemporary sculpture.

Issues including the variety of materials he utilised and the sculptural ease with which he handled them; his engagement with the human form; how he combined levels in both small and larger pieces; how cohesive his progress was to an ever more complete simplicity, all constitute fundamental issues both of the exhibition and the accompanying publication.

Discussing his own oeuvre COSTAS COULENTIANOS stated:

The main material I utilise is iron, ever harder, heavier, more difficult to work with. At the same time I try to remove some of its crude weight and give it motion. My basic problem is space, light and volume. How can each piece be positioned in space and accept the light, so that it can gain significance? I attempt to open space through my forms, creating holes that will allow the light through, so that the space can enter the artefact, which shall, in its turn take its place within the space.

The art historian and curator of the exhibition DENYS ZACHAROPOULOS, artistic director of MMCA, analyzing the artist's work underlines:

From bronze to iron, welding to brazed iron, cement to aluminium, synthetic materials to wood, from wool and weaving to concrete reinforcing bars, stainless steel to bolted metal constructions, Coulentianos experimented, always reaching a stage where the development of "the other" is neither a mechanical repetition nor a mannerism of variation. The artist's work of all the different periods may be said to anticipate the future, not so that it may be original, but, on the contrary, in order to avoid the perennial need for a new patent in the development of sculpture. Every time that he engaged with a new medium he did so, not to rehabilitate an ailing sculpture, but, rather, in order to revive the desire and give life to a sculpture that keeps asking for more, that tries to stand on its own feet, to evolve, to grow, to embrace space, the other, man, the horizon, the world. A man facing a man, a man approaching a man, a man that knows how to stop before oppressing or violating the other, the human in Coulentianos's sculpture is inscribed in a profoundly political dialectic. Even as the artist's sculpture incomparably captures the sensuality that inspires the erotic nature of all human relationships, it also hails from a deep poetic awareness of a man who has experienced fascism and war, the most atrocious state of man when he abuses authority and tries to subject the other. In this respect, Coulentianos's work clearly demonstrates, alongside the sensual surrender to love, the power of resistance, which serves as a constant reminder of the precarious presence of the other, of alterity. Coulentianos is therefore not only the last of the modern acrobats, but, moreover, a fervent advocate of humanism, in the full platonic sense of the word, which fuses love for the other and rejection of war into a single unique awareness and a political stance, not of representation, but of presence, and into a discourse, not of "either-or", but of "you 'll find me in your way"; yet, that is not a threat, but almost a confession of love, a bold statement and demonstration of presence in life, of an active participation in the flux of life and the cosmos. This is the Coulentianos who installs sculptures in cooperation with architects in regional France, who deploys forms in the landscape that embrace the horizon and converse with the trees, who escapes upwards, towards the sky, envious of the flight of birds, who affectionately leans towards all human forms, with a bold, meaningful gesture of a man who offers his body and soul to the person before him.

Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art
Egnatia 154 (on the grounds of Thessaloniki International Fair)
546 36 THESSALONIKI, GREECE
Museum's website: www.mmca.org