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1st Athens Biennial 2007

1st Athens Biennial 2007
DESTROY ATHENS

10th September - 18th November
Preview: 9th September

"Technopolis" of the City of Athens
100, Peiraios Street
Metro: Kerameikos
Entrance to the exhibition from Iakchou Street
Opening hours: Tuesday to Sunday 12.00 - 22.00

http://www.athensbiennial.org

DESTROY ATHENS

Curated by Xenia Kalpaktsoglou, Poka-Yio and Augustine Zenakos

Destroy Athens tells a story. A story about ruptures and dead-ends, which emerges from a completely empirical observation: we, each one of us, the subject of every action and every conscience is built through the eyes of others. What is important is that it is not being constructed by others — it is all an internal affair: the subject builds its own self, but its building material is the perception of others. And this fact is the precondition of any recognition, collectivity, connection, participation, sense of community. This precondition is a necessity, but at the same time that the subject feels it, lives it and depends on it, it will never accept it: we never want to be what we are; we claim the right not to be what we are. Rupture is constantly lurking in the possibility of claiming refusal: at every instant, we are entitled to deny the precondition of collectivity and abolish any connection or relationship. The story is divided in six chapters.

Artists: FIRST DAY: Julian Rosefeldt & Piero Steinle, Void Network, Marc Bijl, The Erasers, Adbusters, hobbypopMUSEUM, Banu Cennetoglu | SECOND DAY: Omer Ali Kazma, Nikos Kessanlis, Jannis Savvidis, Florian Süssmayr, Ciprian Muresan, Chris Evans, The Otolith Group, Edward Lipski, Bernhard Willhelm, Yorgos Sapountzis, Eva Stefani, Stefanos Tsivopoulos, Olaf Nicolai, Folkert de Jong, John Kleckner, Jannis Varelas, Eva Vretzaki, Stelios Faitakis, Pablo Picasso | THIRD DAY: Olaf Breuning, Gregor Schneider, Thanassis Totsikas, Bjarne Melgaard, Annelise Coste, Lotte Konow Lund, Jan Freuchen, Kajsa Dahlberg, Robert Gober, Georgia Sagri, Pierre Joseph, Sean Landers, Mark Manders | FOURTH DAY: Assume Vivid Astro Focus, Torbjorn Rodland | FIFTH DAY: Aidas Bareikis, Kimberly Clark, Narve Hovdenakk, Martin Skauen, Vassilis Patmios Karouk, Erkan Ozgen, John Bock, Yiannis Adamakos, Terence Koh | SIXTH DAY: Elodie Pong, Temporary Services & Angelo, Peter Dreher, Christian Marc
lay, Derek Jarman, Eleni Mylonas

DESTROY ATHENS — APPENDIX

How to endure

Curated by Tom Morton

How to endure borrows the idea of magic where rituals have two — apparently unrelated — actions, that is to change the world and at the same time to keep it as it is. Featuring references from Alistair Crowley to Parmenides and Harry Smith, nine artists are invited to create new artworks – rituals that will change the world by preserving it, or to exhibit works that are related to this theme. The picture of Athens they are interested in "preserving" is not that of historical past but the one of contemporary Athens of present, at a time when the world’s eyes are elsewhere.

Artists: Charles Avery, Miguel Calderon, Allen Ginsberg, Loris Greaud, Roger Hiorns, Matthew Day Jackson, Germaine Kruip, Grant Morrison & Frank Quitely, Olivia Plender, Maaike Schoorel

10th September - 18th November
Exhibition hosted by RemapKM
Venue: Former Hotel "Galini" | 38, Leonidou Street | Metro: Metaxourgeio

Young Athenians

Curated by Neil Mulholland

Young Athenians, presents a group of artists that live and work in Edinburgh. The title forms an ironic reference to the infamous cliché of Edinburgh as the Athens of the North. This — unrealistic — relation of the two cities is used by the artists as a vehicle of commenting on the urban
environment they live in.

Artists: Tam A, Kim Coleman, Craig Coulthard, Keith Farquhar, Tommy Grace, Jenny Hogarth, Darius Jones, David MacLean, John Mullen, Ellen Munro, One O’Clock Gun, Lee O’Connor, Katie Orton, Kate Owens, Sophie Rogers, Robin Scott, Cathy Stafford

10th September - 18th November
Exhibition hosted by RemapKM
Venue: 43, Kerameikou Street | Metro: Metaxourgeio

DESTROY ATHENS – FILM

Open Air Screenings

A selection of films and videos by artists participating in the 1st Athens Biennial Destroy Athens.

9th - 10th September
Screenings hosted by RemapKM
Venue: 8, Iassonos Street | Metro: Metaxourgeio

On the Edge Screenings

Films by Nina Menkes, Benedek Fliegauf, Pavel Medvedev, Velasco Broca, Eva Stephani, selected by the Athens International Film Festival and the Athens Biennial.

20th - 30th September
Screenings hosted by the Athens International Film Festival
Venue: Apollon Cinema, 20, Stadiou Street | Metro: Panepistimio

DESTROY ATHENS — LIVE

Live at Public Opening

Curated by Chloe Vaitsou
Artists: Antifamily, Infinite Livez vs DJ Tendraw, 7000 Dirhams

10th September
Venue: "Technopolis" of the City of Athens

Destructive Sound Events

Curated by Ilios
Artists: Costes, Antimatter/ Z. Karkowski, Scott Arford, V/VM, Dave Philips, Michael Gendre

13th - 14th October
Live hosted by RemapKM
Venue: "417" Club, 53, Kerameikou Street | Metro: Metaxourgeio

Main Sponsor: Deutsche Bank
Under the Aegis of the Hellenic Ministry of Culture and the Municipality of Athens
With the collaboration of "Technopolis" of the City of Athens
Creative Advisor: Deste Foundation Centre for Contemporary Art
Partners: ReMapKM | Athens International Film Festival
Major Sponsors: J&P Avax | KM
Sponsors: Athenaeum Intercontinental Hotel | Papasotiriou | Athanasios Bergeles | Boutari | Gregory’s | Coffeeright | Netsmart S.A. | Michalakis Travel
Media Sponsors: Lambrakis Press S.A | Athens Voice | MEGA Channel | MAD | Velvet Magazine | Attiko METRO S.A.| Athens International Airport Eleftherios Venizelos | CLEAR CHANNEL Haidemenos | Athina 9.84FM | madradio 106.2 http://www.mad.tv | http://www.e-flux.com | http://www.go.culture.eu

With the support of: Mondriaan Foundation | Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the U.S. Department of State and Embassy of the United States, Athens | OCA | IFA | The J. F. Costopoulos Foundation | British Council | The Henry Moore Foundation | Pro Helvetia | N.I.A | Embassy of Mexico | IASPIS | Royal Netherlands Embassy of Athens | Cervantes Institute | Istituto Italiano di Cultura di Atene | Goethe Institut Athen | The Friends of the Athens Biennial

http://www.athensbiennial.org

For more information go to: http://www.athensbiennial.org

Grey Art Gallery, New York University

The Geometry of Hope: Latin American Abstract Art from the Patricia Phelps de
Cisneros Collection

Exhibition:
September 12 - December 8, 2007

Grey Art Gallery
100 Washington Square East
212-998-6780

Hours: Tuesday/Thursday/Friday:
11 am - 6 pm
OPEN LATE Wednesday:
11 am - 8 pm
Saturday: 11 am - 5 pm
Closed Sunday and Monday

http://www.nyu.edu/greyart

THE GEOMETRY OF HOPE: LATIN AMERICAN ABSTRACT ART
FROM THE PATRICIA PHELPS DE CISNEROS COLLECTION
OPENS AT GREY ART GALLERY SEPTEMBER 12

On September 12, 2007, Grey Art Gallery at New York University, New York, opens a major exhibition comprising more than 100 works of art from the acclaimed Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros (CPPC). Together, the exhibition, which remains on view through December 8, and its important catalogue provide a comprehensive scholarly overview of Latin American Geometric Abstraction from the 1930s to the 1970s. This will be greatly enriched and expanded upon by an exceptional agenda of interdisciplinary public programs taking place throughout NYU and co-sponsored by the Grey.

The Geometry of Hope was organized by the Blanton Museum of Art at The University of Texas at Austin, where it was seen earlier this year and encompassed some 130 works. The exhibition and its catalogue were the culminating project of the Cisneros Graduate Research Seminar at The University of Texas at Austin, a multi-year scholarly collaboration between the New York- and Caracas-based CPPC and the Blanton, headed by Gabriel Pérez-Barreiro, curator of Latin American Art at the Blanton and organizer of the exhibition.

Exhibition
The Geometry of Hope focuses on key cities in the development of abstraction in the Americas: Montevideo (1930s), Buenos Aires (1940s), São Paulo (1950s), Rio de Janeiro (1950s-60s), Paris (1960s), and Caracas (1960s-70s). In tracing the development of ideas from one socio-geographic context to another, the exhibition challenges the view of Latin American art as a single phenomenon.

The exhibition includes work by approximately forty artists. Among them are Joaquín Torres-García, from Montevideo; Gyula Kosice and Tomás Maldonado, from Buenos Aires; Geraldo de Barros and Waldemar Cordeiro, from São Paulo; Hélio Oiticica and Lygia Clark, from Rio de Janeiro; and Jesús Rafael Soto and Carlos Cruz-Diez, from Paris and Caracas.

Publication
The Geometry of Hope is accompanied by a richly illustrated, 300-page, bilingual (English-Spanish) publication, published by the Blanton Museum of Art. This includes an introduction by Dr. Pérez-Barreiro, scholarly essays on each of the cities explored in the exhibition, and extended essays presenting new research on forty individual works of art.

Symposium and Public Programs
Grey Art Gallery and NYU Professor of Fine Arts and Dean for the Humanities Edward Sullivan have organized a series of interdisciplinary public programs: The Geometry of Hope: Abstraction as Cultural Expression–a Campus-wide Initiative. Centered around a daylong international symposium on October 5, 2007, this initiative also includes such programs as "Poetry Readings: A Celebration of Verbal and Visual Culture in Latin America," for which Latin American poets will read specially commissioned poems based on artworks featured in the exhibition; a two-part concert series, "New Sounds of Latin America"; a lecture on Latin American expatriates in Cold War Paris; and much more. For more information, visit http://www.nyu.edu/greyart

Sponsorship
Generous funding for the exhibition is provided by the Eugene McDermott Foundation. The presentation at the Grey Art Gallery has been made possible, in part, by the Abby Weed Grey Trust. The catalogue and public programs are made possible by the support of the Fundación Cisneros, with additional program funding provided by the Grey’s Inter/National Council, a Visual Arts Initiative Award from the New York University’s Coordinating Council for Visual Arts, the New York University Humanities Initiative, and Professor Herman Berkman.

Grey Art Gallery
Grey Art Gallery is New York University’s fine-arts museum, located on historic Washington Square Park in New York City’s Greenwich Village. Exhibitions and programs at the Gallery focus on art’s historical, cultural, and social contexts, with special emphasis on experimentation and interpretation. The Grey’s exhibitions have encompassed painting, sculpture, drawing and printmaking, photography, architecture and decorative arts, video, film, and performance. In addition to producing its own exhibitions, which often travel in the United States and abroad, the Gallery hosts traveling shows that might otherwise not be seen in New York.

Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros
The Caracas- and New York-based Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros focuses on modern and contemporary art from Latin America, and includes as well Latin American landscapes from the seventeenth century to the present day and Venezuelan colonial art. Works from the CPPC form the basis of diverse educational and public programming, ranging from programs for teachers and students to international symposia. The CPPC’s flagship educational program is Piensa en Arte, which uses art to build students’ observational, expressive-language, and critical-thinking skills. For additional information, visit http://www.coleccioncisneros.org

For further information please contact:

Jeanne Collins & Associates, LLC, New York City, 646-486-7050 or info@jcollinsassociates.com

For more information go to: http://www.nyu.edu/greyart

The Power Plant

The Power Plant, Toronto

8 September - 4 November, 2007

Francesco Vezzoli: A True Hollywood Story!
The centerpiece of Italian artist Francesco Vezzoli’s exhibition at The Power Plant is the North American premiere of the film installation Marlene Redux: A True Hollywood Story!, 2006. The mock documentary tracks Vezzoli’s life and art career, the plot hinging on coverage of a fictional project by Vezzoli, an implausible remake of Maximilian Schell’s 1984 documentary Marlene about Marlene Dietrich. All works in the exhibition relate to the film’s plot and survey Vezzoli’s career from 1995 to the present, while being framed within a kitsch television entertainment format.

Known for his enduring interest in celebrity, Vezzoli presented Trailer for a Remake of Gore Vidal’s Caligula, at the 2005 Venice Biennale and is representing Italy at this year’s Biennale with Democrazy, featuring Sharon Stone and Bernard-Henri Lévy. Caligula included a cameo role for Vezzoli in a form of Hollywood debut. He has frequently included himself, moving from a character on the edges of the action in his early films to playing the protagonist in The End of the Human Voice, 2001. With Marlene Redux Vezzoli becomes his own subject in a film that traces his rise and demise, emulating the E! True Hollywood format.

Part fact and part fiction the film surveys much of Vezzoli’s practice including his embroidered portraits of female cinematic icons and his films, making much of the impact of Caligula on his career. The film also dwells on Vezzoli’s supposed remake of Marlene and features "recovered footage" of actors playing Marlene Dietrich and Anni Albers, the celebrated German weaver and wife of abstract painter Josef Albers. Like the Caligula remake, which exists only as a trailer, the Marlene remake exists only as recovered footage. Much of the work featured in the exhibition relates to the Marlene remake, as if the film exists. Instead the exhibition includes embroidered interpretations of Josef Albers series Homage to the Square, begun by Vezzoli in 1995, as if leading to the remake of Marlene. The associations with Dietrich and Albers continue the web of associations that Vezzoli has built around his identity, as an artist who simultaneously plays, invents and deconstruct
s himself.

‘Francesco Vezzoli: A True Hollywood Story!’ is curated by Gregory Burke, Director of The Power Plant and is presented in association with the Toronto International Film Festival’s Future Projections.

The Power Plant gratefully acknowledges the support of The Italian Cultural Institute in Toronto and Supporting Sponsor, Z Zegna.

A catalogue will be launched in association with the exhibition featuring essays by Gregory Burke, Gianfranco Maraniello and David Rimanelli.

Paul P.: Dusks, Lamplights
The second solo show this fall is by Canadian painter Paul P., known for his portraits of beautiful young men. ‘Dusks, Lamplights’ brings together oil paintings, pastels, watercolours, drawings and prints, made over the past three years.

Basing many of his figures on models in soft porn magazines from the late 1960s to the early 1980s, Paul P. evokes a ‘golden age’ of sexuality, at the height of gay liberation and before the AIDS crisis. In ‘Dusks, Lamplights’ with Venice as a recurrent backdrop and the works of Whistler as influence, Paul P. depicts androgynous models swooning, waiting and peering expectantly from windows. Metaphors for the collapse of two epochs–Europe before WWI and North America before AIDS– Paul P. captures the brilliance of their final exhausted moments.

Paul P. was born in Hamilton, Ontario, and currently lives in Paris. His work has featured in recent solo exhibitions at Daniel Reich Gallery, New York, Marc Selwyn Fine Art, Los Angeles, and Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris, and in group shows at Mary Boone Gallery and David Zwirner and the recent exhibition ‘The Male Gaze’ at PowerHouse Arena in Brooklyn. In 2006, P. collaborated with designer Hedi Slimane on the spring Dior Homme campaign, which was inspired by his drawings.

‘Dusks, Lamplights’ is curated by Helena Reckitt, Senior Curator of Programs.

Thanks to Supporting Donors Robert Mitchell and the Families of Steven & Michael Latner.

The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery
231 Queens Quay West
Toronto ON Canada M5J 2G8
http://www.thepowerplant.org

For more information go to: http://www.thepowerplant.org