MIRAGES XXVI
On the occasion of the Summer Nights that are full of art, I remember Paris and the French people on the cold Saturday nights to patiently wait their turn to enter the Centre George Pompidou to watch video-art or art cinema.
If in Athens the Summer Nights are associated with the Lycabettus Hill and the Odeon of Herodes Atticus (Herodeon) and concerts, theater and dance but not visual arts, like the Philip Glass performances, in both places, the Summer nights in town are smelling honeysuckle and jasmine in the Summer Cinemas, but all these are not free of charge, I can imagine the feelings of those who were gathered at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center in Faliron Delta to enjoy the above combination of arts, under the direction of the American avant-garde artist, composer, musician and film director Laurie Anderson, it was unprecedented. Completely free (!)
A feeling that flooded us every night at Parck de La Villete in Paris, when the sun was setting at 22:00 and the big screen was descending to begin another film projection and we did picnics at the Park, of course free. With free jazz & rock festivals each evening on the Seine at the Hotel de Ville, the City Hall of the City and Art Related Activities for children in the mornings in Paris-Plages at Seine River banks, starting every year on the middle of July and running one month. The banks of the River are transformed into true beach and the Museums create spaces to welcome and to occupy the children.
A similar night experience full of art, experienced the Londoners on 2 and 3 July at the 1st Edition of ICA Art Night, where artists like: Nina Beier that presents Anti-ageing, a cycle of performance sculptures that are inserted into a show model of a luxury flat, in order to draw attention to the relationship between life and the constructions of its image, the Turner Prize-winning artist Laure Prouvost transformed a number of historic rooms of Admiralty Arch, bringing together new and existing work to take viewers on a conceptual journey also Celia Hempton created a new site-specific installation in a section of the iconic brutalist building 180 Strand that overlooks the River Thames, the performances and the art events are spread all over the city.
Good Month (!)
Efi Michalarou
1/7/16
