Thanos Kyriakides
(http://www.blindadam.com/index.php#artist)
THE NEW DISORDER
curated by Michael Bevilacqua & Katerina Nikou
8/12/2011 - 28/01/2012
The Ileana Tounta Contemporary Art Center presents the group show «The New Disorder» curated by Michael Bevilacqua and Katerina Nikou. The show will open on Thursday, 8 December 2011, at 19:30, and will run until 28 January 2011.
“This world is the movie of what everything is, it is one movie, made from the same stuff throughout, belonging to nobody, which is what everything is.” Jack Kerouac, The Scripture of the Golden Eternity.
At an age of appropriation, relational art and aesthetics, the question of art practice remains as complex and current as before. Since the 1960s the medium and the material condition of the artwork has increasingly become relative to the means, location and context of artistic utterance. Information and technology are now so dominant, that it becomes restrictive to name artists as painters, sculptors, photographers etc.
The artists exhibiting at The New Disorder come from varying backgrounds; music, textile, visual arts, performance. Their vision can help us understand deeper the complex relationship to the outside world. Their wide artistic practice attempts to perceive the relationship of art to society and the different places and ways in which art is realigned with life; out in the streets, in film sets, design studios, fashion shoots and workshops. The artists invite the audience to constantly question its ways of seeing and experiencing art and to change perspectives. They explore feelings of alienation and displacement through time and space.
Dimitrios Antonitsis’ (GR) uses his latest sculptural work as a sharp metaphor of western principles such as leisure, fun and luxurious consumption. Bonus, a giant canine treat out of aluminum and Bunny Labyrinth, a kids game silk-screened on woven rug comment on the complicated and troublesome relation to overachievement, social power and reward. Antonitsis is an artist who feels responsible for bringing truth to his audience. Despite faulse or misunderstood, the artist should struggle to reflect on a condition that speaks the truth, regardless if we are able to comprehend it or not.
Michael Bevilacqua’s (USA) work is a lexicon of contemporary icons and logos, embracing - among other things - music, fashion and art. His social consciousness pushes his personal dialogue thus moving his work into the street. The Stranger is a metaphor for the artist who wants to remain anonymous and to be an anti-celebrity in this new world. The backdrop for this painting is from the Cure album Boys Don't Cry, in which the band was heavily influenced by Albert Camus. The second painting is reminiscent of the Punk Band The Germs and that an idea begins as a Germ and then gestates into an idea.
Panos Famelis’ (GR) artistic practice incorporates painting, sculpture and performance. Through his black and white drawings he presents the wilderness of a personal landscape, a space oddity with no solid structure. Influenced by real social reactions (Athens, December 2009) this unconventional imagery, where the viewer has no sense of the actual architectural space, comments on the fragility of social structures,that are easily being deconstructed by massiveness external and undefined forces.
Leo GABIN (BEL) have been working as a collective since the early 2000s through a variety of media; video, painting, drawing and sculpture. They are inspired by the proliferation of the internet; the images and wealth of information which uncomfortably trespass the private and public realm, the harvest content from this never ending morass. Their work and methodology explore the transience which underpins youth culture.
Lakis & Aris Ionas / THE CALLAS (GR) are combining different means and aesthetics through their embroideries, installations, videos, music and performances; their narrative spams from paganism to constructivism, Greek folk art to DIY “messthetics”, to the Orthodox Church and contemporary sex practices expressing their lo–fi geometry dogma; “I got a fly on my dick / is it death? / or is that sweet?” (Objekt LP – 2011).
Thanos Kyriakidis’s (GR) “social” sculpture is a suicide frame. His work comments on the capitalist system which is the main cause of the general disorder that society experiences. His basic idea is that this system suggests this suicide machine as a commodity. A product necessary for every consumer and potential suicide.
Bjaarne Melgaard (AUS), early in his career, created controversial installations which referred to subcultures such as S&M and heavy metal music. His current practice has an emphasis towards expressionistic paintings and drawings, often including text.
Eva Mitala (GR) creates her paintings using silkscreen techniques and translating the defaults and irregularities of the process into a punk aesthetic. Comprising of calligraphy, painting and collage on silkscreens the artist comments on the social and cultural illusions of contemporary art history.
Mason Saltarrelli (USA) uses a combination of found images - literally taken in the street or imaginary - and develops a cast of characters. Some recognisable and some not, these images invite the viewer to map new relationships and interactions. Saltarrelli is inspired by the manners and functions of the fable and folk-tales. His intention is to invite anyone looking at his images to open up a stream of consciousness which runs parallel to his own.
Dean Sameshima's (USA) main body of work are his recordings of private experiences via a photo history. His work seems confessional or as pieces which the artist leaves open to interpretation. Working with pre-existing imagery, Sameshima has amassed over the years an immense archival patchwork of vintage clippings and photographs from old magazines, from eBay and estates which he can sift so as to have his ideas visually expressed.
Casey Spooner (USA) is a video artist and an experimental theatre performer. He is the co-founder of the electroclash duo and performance troupe Fisherspooner, formed in 1998 in New York. Casey Spooner’s work focuses on identity issues through the his own exposure into different disguises.
Michael Stipe (USA) Michael Stipe (USA) is a singer and lyricist and the leading vocalist of R.E.M.. Stipe has been noted and occasionally parodied for a "mumbling" style early in his career, as well as for his social and political activism. He was in charge of the band's visual image, selecting artwork for the albums and directing several of the band's music videos. In his video Self Portrait uses pictures of himself before go to bed and then he creates a self-portrait. His works Jan Jenet are influenced by the author Jan Jenet as this year is the 100th anniversary from his birth.
Participating artists:
Dimitrios Antonitsis, Michael Bevilacqua, Panos Famelis, Leo Gabin, Aris & Lakis Ionas / The Callas, Thanos Kyriakides, Bjaarne Melgaard, Eva Mitala, Mason Saltarrelli, Dean Sameshima, Casey Spooner, Michael Stipe
