ART CITIES:Oslo-Andreas Angelidakis

Andreas Aggelidakis belongs to the category of the very talented people and this has been proven over the years through his work, which is huge and original, is one of the first architects worldwide and one of the few, perhaps the only one in Greece, who proposed a new kind of architectural expression, the virtual architecture, with excellent videos, and then he added installations, and maquettes-artworks-installations.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Fotogalleriet Archive

Andreas Angelidakis’ first major solo show in Norway entitled “Softwalks” aims to emphasize the interdisciplinary relationship of the artist with art, architecture and photography. The artist is curiously an architect who never worked as such, but without a doubt his training is constantly reflected in his artistic production. Architecture takes its own agency in the work of Angelidakis, which explores the various movements that the discipline can take, its soft and fluid aspect. This treatment of architecture stars in the exhibition, since it is a site-specific installation made on the city of Oslo. The artist has created a series of videos of the city, which he has mixed with sculptures and photographs to show the fluidity of the institution itself, which from a static center begins to register the malleability of urban space. Over the course of last year, our formerly separated notion of the self—our presumed and unquestioned access to physical spaces—has ultimately merged into a frame of mind where social life and travel moved into a “new somewhere”: an endless repetition of illusions. “Softwalks”  traverses and materializes the domesticated ruins; ruins that can live in the interior space, and with which you can play. They never break because they are soft. Sometimes soft stays for queer; therefore these ruins queer the space. Angelidakis invites us to invert our traditional roles and perspectives of seating and spectating through experimentation with multiple non-linear sequences; these in-between spaces lure us into the psychedelic, the realm in which to trip and explore these different domains of knowledge and cultures. A Greek-Norwegian citizen, Andreas Angelidakis studied architecture and lived in Los Angeles for a long time. Angelidakis switches roles between artist, curator, architect and teacher. His multidisciplinary practice often focuses around the internet, and the perceptive and behavioral changes it has brought about. As he says “I finished my undergrad studies at Sci-ARC* in California after dropping out from the Greek polytechnic school when I realized that they were teaching us how to design buildings but not why”.

*Southern California Institute of Architecture

Photo: Andreas Angelidakis, dvertisements 4 KION (space odyssey), 202, Digital collage, Courtesy of the artist

Info: Fotogalleriet, Møllergata 34, Oslo, Duration: 20/1-21/2/2021, Days & Hours: Wed & Fri-Sun 12:00-17:00, Thu 12:00-18:00, www.fotogalleriet.no