ART-PRESENTATION: The Same River Twice

Left: Eleni Christodoulou, CIM, 2014–15. Spray paint on canvas, papier-mâché, acrylic paint, and polyester filling, 145 x 110 x 45 cm. Courtesy The Breeder, Athens. Copyright Eleni Christodoulou. Photo: Maria Kontogiannatou. Right: Eleni Christodoulou, BBW, 2014–15. Spray paint on canvas, papier-mâché, acrylic paint, and polyester filling, 160 x 100 x 40 cm. Courtesy The Breeder, Athens. Copyright Eleni Christodoulou. Photo: Maria KontogiannatouThe group exhibition “The Same River Twice” focus on the city of Athens and its constantly evolving artistic landscape, which is host to many artist-run initiatives and exhibition spaces, cross-disciplinary happenings and collaborations, and a dauntless energy that has enticed many non-Greek artists to relocate and call Athens home.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: DESTE Foundation Archive

Featuring 31 artists of diverse ages and nationalities, working across all mediums, the exhibition “The Same River Twice” offers a portrait of a city with an artistic dynamism that continues to unfold as artists seek new models for creative output and exchange. The exhibition borrows its title from an aphorism attributed to the Greek philosopher Heraclitus, famous for his argument that change is constant; that everything in the world is always changing, “one cannot step in the same river twice”. Although we may look at this river and see that it looks, generally speaking, the same as it did the last time we stepped in it, it is, in fact, different. Setting aside any potential movement of the riverbed, rocks, branches or fish, and the like, the water itself is always going to be different between any one moment and any other moment. The similar can be said for many other things: individuals, communities, countries, planets, universes.  Even if change is slow it still exists, always. As a city, Athens is in perpetual transformation, and its artists have long found ways to document its shifting landscapes, whether through visual or material studies of the city’s attributes; meditations on its monuments, relics, and cast-offs; or inquiries into the character of its people and public spaces. Metamorphoses are central to many works in the exhibition: mediums defy stability and trace modulations in form, and artistic practices blur the lines between genres or disciplines. The exhibition has been organized by the New Museum and the DESTE Foundation, in collaboration with the Benaki Museum. Eleni Christodoulou constructed a new visual language to embrace inner turbulences and dualities and the way everything is transcribed on the body. Her look is uninhibited, candid and intense while the menacing beauty of her sculptures can be funny or profane, loaded with symbolic meaning or plain obscure. Navine G. Khan-Dossos’ interests include Orientalism in the digital realm, geometry as information and decoration, image calibration, and Aniconism in contemporary culture. She has developed a form of geometric abstraction that merges the traditional Aniconism of Islamic art with the algorithmic nature of the interconnected world we live in. Anastasia Douka works with modern-day Athenian sculptures that portray emblematic figures of modern and ancient Greece – important or lesser known. For a project at Werft 5 – Raum für Kunst, she has taken paper castings of original sculptures in the public space, thus engaging sculpture with a performative aspect that addresses both the original artwork as well as her own action as an artist. Eva Giannakopoulou’s research-based performances include interventions in intercultural frameworks, touristic destinations, and secluded communities. Giannakopoulou explores what happens when particular groups of affinity or persons with unusual interests, vocations, and hobbies are invited to participate or present their preoccupations in the framework of a cultural event. Delia Gonzalez is a multidisciplinary artist who recently moved to Athens, Greece, from New York. As a musician, she has released records via the independent label DFA, including “Horse Follows Darkness”, a collection of electronically inclined songs of ambient and rhythmic persuasions. She also works with drawings, film, dance, and performance. Dionisis Kavallieratos’ flexible artistic practice includes small and large-scale sculptures in wood, clay or mixed media and drawings in pencil and charcoal. his work reveals a personal universe of a post-pop mix of mythology, history, politics and religion- that addresses fundamental issues such as good and evil, life and death, sex, heroism and immortality through a surreal and ironic point of view. Panagiotis Loukas’ particularly interesting and highly audacious artistic search, moves between a reactive and effective mixture of mysticism and black humor. Since the beginning of her career, Rena Papaspyrou preferred working with various untraditional surfaces, instead of a canvas, such as planks, metal sheets, pieces of paper and also segments of wall and mosaic from old houses and industrial spaces. Attempting to attest the conceptual nature of art, she emphasizes the existing forms and shapes of the surfaces with interventions of various materials (papier-mâché, pencil, light bulbs, etc.), and therefore reexamines both surface and space, affirming their artistic material nature. Navine G. Khan-Dossos’ interests include Orientalism in the digital realm, geometry as information and decoration, image calibration, and Aniconism in contemporary culture. She has developed a form of geometric abstraction that merges the traditional Aniconism of Islamic art with the algorithmic nature of the interconnected world we live in. Socratis Socratous’s artistic practice defies easy categorization. It encompasses a variety of media. It also involves a wide range of approaches and tactics. Although in much of his projects, he figures as a maker of objects with a special, almost instinctive relationship to materials, there is also a substantial body of work based on field research and quasi-anthropological or archival methods. Alexandros Tzannis work positions itself in a field of neo-goth or post-heroic reference and sensitivity. His paintings are formed in a space deliverately ambiguous between smooth drawings and the process of painting and are also giving the impression of a reversed collage.

Participating Artists: Eleni Christodoulou, Anastasia Douka, Pavlos Fysakis, Eva Giannakopoulou, Delia Gonzalez, Lakis & Aris Ionas / The Callas, Dionisis Kavallieratos, Navine G. Khan-Dossos, Katerina Komianou, Panayiotis Loukas, Petros Moris, Rallou Panagiotou, Angelos Papadimitrou, Vasilis Papageorgiou, Rena Papaspyrou, Eftihis Patsourakis, Anastasia Pavlou, Yorgos Prinos, Kostas Sahpazis, Socratis Socratous, Eva Stefani, Valinia Svoronou, Iris Touliatou, Dimitris Tsouanatos, Alexandros Tzannis, Amalia Vekri, Nikolas Ventourakis, Vangelis Vlahos, Eirini Vourloumis and Neritan Zinxhiria.

Cover Photo: Left: Eleni Christodoulou, CIM, 2014–15. Spray paint on canvas, papier-mâché, acrylic paint, and polyester filling, 145 x 110 x 45 cm. Courtesy The Breeder, Athens. Copyright Eleni Christodoulou. Photo: Maria Kontogiannatou. Right: Eleni Christodoulou, BBW, 2014–15. Spray paint on canvas, papier-mâché, acrylic paint, and polyester filling, 160 x 100 x 40 cm. Courtesy The Breeder, Athens. Copyright Eleni Christodoulou. Photo: Maria Kontogiannatou

Info: Curators: Margot Norton, Curator, and Natalie Bell, Benaki Museum, 138 Pireos & Andronikou Street, Athens, Duration: 21/6-22/9/19, Days & Hours: Thu & Sun 10:00-18:00, Fri-Sat 10:00-22:00, www.benaki.org

Delia Gonzalez, The Osiris Gate I & II, 2017. Drywall, 145 x 320 x 57 cm. Courtesy the artist. Photo: Amedeo Benestante
Delia Gonzalez, The Osiris Gate I & II, 2017. Drywall, 145 x 320 x 57 cm. Courtesy the artist. Photo: Amedeo Benestante

 

 

Vasilis Papageorgiou, Solo Bar (Blue), 2018. Steel, ceramic, white marble, pink marble, bronze, leather, foam, and wood, 74 x 78.5 x 131 cm. Courtesy the artist. Photo: Stathis Mamalakis
Vasilis Papageorgiou, Solo Bar (Blue), 2018. Steel, ceramic, white marble, pink marble, bronze, leather, foam, and wood, 74 x 78.5 x 131 cm. Courtesy the artist. Photo: Stathis Mamalakis

 

 

Delia Gonzalez, The N° 5, 2017. Graphite, acrylic paint, gold leaf on paper, 75 x 75 cm. Courtesy the artist. Photo: Amedeo Benestante
Delia Gonzalez, The N° 5, 2017. Graphite, acrylic paint, gold leaf on paper, 75 x 75 cm. Courtesy the artist. Photo: Amedeo Benestante

 

 

Socratis Socratous, Stolen Goods, 2009–15. Gold, copper, bronze, and silver, dimensions variable. Courtesy the artist and The Breeder, Athens
Socratis Socratous, Stolen Goods, 2009–15. Gold, copper, bronze, and silver, dimensions variable. Courtesy the artist and The Breeder, Athens

 

 

Alexandros Tzannis, Blue black layers over the white cities, 2018. Ballpoint pen on paper, iron, and magnets, dimensions variable. Courtesy the artist. Photo: Thomas Hamen
Alexandros Tzannis, Blue black layers over the white cities, 2018. Ballpoint pen on paper, iron, and magnets, dimensions variable. Courtesy the artist. Photo: Thomas Hamen

 

 

Eirini Vourloumis, Statue of Alexandros Panagoulis, resistance fighter against the fascist regime, from the In Waiting series, 2012–18. Color photograph, 78.5 x 90 cm. Courtesy the artist
Eirini Vourloumis, Statue of Alexandros Panagoulis, resistance fighter against the fascist regime, from the In Waiting series, 2012–18. Color photograph, 78.5 x 90 cm. Courtesy the artist

 

 

Eva Stefani, Manuscript, 2017 (still). Single-channel video, sound, color; 12 min. Courtesy the artist
Eva Stefani, Manuscript, 2017 (still). Single-channel video, sound, color; 12 min. Courtesy the artist

 

 

Vangelis Vlahos, Intercontinental (Athens, 1999), 2017. Six boards with photographs, dimensions variable. Courtesy the artist. Photo: Chronis Giannopoulos
Vangelis Vlahos, Intercontinental (Athens, 1999), 2017. Six boards with photographs, dimensions variable. Courtesy the artist. Photo: Chronis Giannopoulos

 

 

Valinia Svoronou, Therapist office, 2018. High Tide Planetary Pull Excerpt, comic book sketch, dimensions variable. Courtesy the artist. Photo: Felix Potzch
Valinia Svoronou, Therapist office, 2018. High Tide Planetary Pull Excerpt, comic book sketch, dimensions variable. Courtesy the artist. Photo: Felix Potzch