INTERVIEW: Georg Georgakopoulos
Artist, Curator, Member of The Art Newspaper Greece, Writer and Founder of CHEAPART, [TAF] The Art Foundation, Back to Athens Festival and AthensIntersection. Restless, tireless, beloved to all for his ability to connect, tirelessly the art people and ready to solve in the best possible way all the issues that arise. That’s what is Georg Georgakopoulos, the man that we know all these years, one of the most beloved people in the art field. He has exhibited in Greece and abroad and has curated and coordinated over 300 exhibitions over 25 years. On the occasion of this year’s Back to Athens Festival entitled “Profiles Of The Future – An inquiry into the limits of the possible”, we are talking about the exhibition that includes 15 curators and over 100 artists, Art and its prospects in the new era that seems to be rising (!)
By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Back To Athens Festival Archive
The 8th edition of Back to Athens Festival is ready to launch, in another interesting space, as every year. Its theme is “Extension to the Future” and 15 Curatorial proposals will show the works of 100 artists. Ηow did the title come about?, ηow does it related to the new situation we have been experiencing for the last 12 months?
The experience of this unprecedented contradictory situation that evokes science fiction was catalytic both personally and artistically. It was the trigger for a new beginning and gave me the unique opportunity to leave behind the daily routine. Instead of die of boredom by raking up and regurgitate perpetually and forever exhibitions and faces in the same spaces we decided that by inventing another space each time we can bring back to life the artistic interest. As the prologue of a book by Sir Arthur Clarke says “The most notable achievements of the last decade pass almost unnoticed, because we focus more on the distant possibilities and less on what can happen in the near future”, I think that this sentence reflects a lot of how I feel now.
From Back to Athens 1 at Kotzia square to the Back to Athens 8 at Patission and Ioulianou street, unique different venues each year, have hosted this so successful institution. You have the unique ability to discover and highlight some of the most beautiful buildings of Athens, which right after the Back to Athens Festival change use. How do you accomplish it? How easy it is for them to concede them to you? Does both your personal success and the success of the institution act as a kind of passport?
As an Athenian, I always have the perspective of a resident of this city. I have never been a tourist in the city where I was born to see as tourist attraction through the eyes of a passer-by the neighborhoods where my friends and I grew up. This perspective that is directly related to my experiences in Athens, gives me the opportunity to see and recognize buildings and facilities that have gone from rise and prosperity to decline and are now is given to them a new opportunity to relive. I believe that this intervening time is the magic moment that the building tells its story in public, is redeemed and proceeds to the next use. I see it as a kind of confession. The exhibitions and the people around and behind them are the passport People who respect culture and the values that govern it.
People who see buildings as living organisms can immediately realize intentions that do not hide ulterior motives or economic expediency. Till the moment that the building change use or form what could be more beautiful and vibrant than being used for cultural purposes. However, I would also find justified any doubts for someone to assign his property, because our own eyes have also seen ugliness and cannibalism and in some cases unjustified rage.
All the Back to Athens Festivals take place on the axis of Patission Avenue and Aiolou street, what is its significance?
Patission Avenue was the high-profile shopping street, starting from America Square with all kinds of fashion, clothing and footwear stores, cinemas and expensive furniture shops In the Past they were the best in Athens. This axis continues to the National Archeological Museum and the Polytechnic School, through Chaftia continues to Aiolou street where the textile and the tailor shops were the economic machine of the area, finally, the axis ends at Monastiraki and the north side of the Acropolis. You can understand that having lived the best of this axis, I am bright eyed and bushy tailed for the area to see better days soon.
Because we known each other for so many years, from our beginning in the art field, and although I would like, I can’t avoid make you this question. In Greece we passed through a cosmogonic financial crisis, Balances, Persons and Institutions, were overbalanced, However, at the pick of crisis in 2012, the first Back to Athens Festival started and since them has evolved to one of most important exhibitions in Greece. For you, was the Crisis a springboard for artistic creation?
Without wanting to be a cliché as an artist or curator that deals beyond the theoretical, mainly with the practical part of art promotion, I dare say that crises create opportunities. You must be suspicious about and ready to catch them. The mourners and the miserable consume their energy telling others about their downfall. For example, today that the situation tends to normalize, on the one hand I see a multitude of artists who are brought together to create new organizations or groups and therefore live and pure energy, on the other hand, I see another unfortunate multitude that cries, usually in the world wide web, about the bad the social ills, that really don’t know well, wasting valuable time. Τhis is the reality, some will go ahead and others will stay behind trying to expose imaginary and unholy conspiracies. In the context of the opportunities, the distant 2012, Back to Athens Festival was a step forward, and as you can see it has never lost his pace until today.
Finishing our conversation, I would really like to congratulate you for the 2021 organizing, it is big and important for everyone (curators, artists, viewers etc.) since exhibitions are starting to happen on a realistic level and this is promising. However, watching the international art scene, we notice that more and more online auctions are being held with great success, exhibitions, Art Fairs, lectures, workshops, podcasts, and we feel that a lot has changed and is going to change in the field of art. Do you think that we are leading to the annihilation of art and the physical presence?
Times are changing, seasons are changing, art and art world are experimenting. Technology is impossible to be absent in culture. With the gradual return to a familiar but new reality, art will keep what really needs and will forget all the rest. This is what theory of evolution is teaching us, so let’s leave things roll and take their course.
Download Greek Version of Interview here
Info: Curatorial team: Georg Georgakopoulos, Fotini Kapiris, Christian Rupp, Back to Athens 8 International Arts Festival 2021, Isaiah Mansion , 65 Patission & Ioulianou, Athens, Greee, Duration: 1-4/7/2021, Days & Hours: Thu-Fri (1-2/7) 16:00-22:00, Sat-Sun (3-4/7) 12:00-22:00, www.cheapart.gr, http://apart-network.gr, http://athensintersection.blogspot.com
First Publication: www.dreamideamachine.com
© Interview-Efi Michalarou
