What we saw on the fourth Week of AGORA

A full auditorium welcomed the presentation of the photography project ATHINA THEA of Ianna Andreadis, who participated in the 4th Athens Biennale through the Open Call. On the same day the AGORA audience had the opportunity to learn about the platform Event as a Process, Cities in an Ongoing State of Emergency and the Artist's Stance, the ongoing project by Eva Fotiadi and Nikos Doulos which was presented with the participation of their international guests and is hosted on the AGORA website. On Wednesday and Thursday Amund Sjollie Sveen impressed with his insightful, self-sarcastic and humorous lecture performances. A musician himself, combining sounds from the most unexpected sources with topics such as the understanding of economic theories and the Norwegian oil miracle, Sveen basically transformed his artistic practice into a concrete discussion of political and economic challenges in the globalized world. The lecture performance of Μatei Bejenaru on Friday was mor e "intimate", choosing the Machine room of AGORA to explore the concept of utopia and approaching poetry as an act of cultural resistance. On Saturday, after the end of the fourth meeting of the VALUE workshop in the Machine room, Sofokleous street welcomed Pil & Galia Kollektiv. At their spectacular performance titled A Guide to Office Clerical Time Standards, with a soundtrack of punk and new wave sounds accompanied by seven performers on uniforms, Pil & Galia Kollektiv described through repetitive movement and unexpected details the post–Fordist condition of labor. The week closed with the open AGORA Kyklos and with the participating teams (discussing about Collaboration and its model application in everyday life.

The program of the fifth week of AGORA:

For a detailed program of the second week of the 5th Athens Biennale AGORA, please visit our Calendar page.

Kyklos Ensemble

RAYMONDOS
Music Performance

Performances of four great pieces by Iannis Xenakis (Psappha–Kottos–Okho–Anaktoria), from the newly formed group Kyklos Ensemble, come to interact in the same space with ten wood–carvings by self–taught Greek sculptor Raymondos. The surprising match between Raymondos' sculpture and the Kyklos Ensemble performing the music of Iannis Xenakis in AGORA, serves many purposes: it re–introduces the work of a forgotten artist, promotes the idea of collaboration between the arts, and manifests the ability of a work of art to evolve through time.

Raymondos (Panagiotis Remoundos) was born in 1927 in Athens. He resolved to become an artist in the bleak years that followed the end of WWII. Like so many other Greek artists of his generation, he also had no choice but to emigrate. Following his childhood friends Takis (Vassilakis) and Minos Argyrakis –the latter would introduce him to the Greek public through an article in Eleftheria that sang his praises–, Raymondos took his first steps in art in Paris where he lived for two decades (1959–1979). Although his work is not avant–garde in the modernist sense, there is a particular quality to it that makes it appealing: throughout his life, the sculptor obsessively carved the form of female angels in wood. He often said that his works were intended for future generations. 'I have always given shape to an idea that is my own: I made angels and human bodies believing that man should try to soar, take to the sky. Before us was the dawn of a new age: the suffering had to end, the system had to change. The world was moving on. My mind's eye turned to Space.' Raymondos died in 1995 in Athens.

Iannis Xenakis was born in 1922 in Brăila, Romania to Greek parents. After the death of his mother, he moved permanently to Greece. During the difficult years of the Axis occupation of Greece during World War II Xenakis joined the National Liberation Front and later became part of armed resistance. Hunted down by the new government he fled to Paris in 1947, after an injury that cost him his left eye and an in absentia sentence to death by the right–wing administration. The avant–garde Iannis Xenakis –as he introduced himself to his audience–, critiqued fiercely the music trends of his time. He took his own lonely path, with mathematics, drawing, engineering as well as complex everyday phenomena as tools. His music is heavily based on digital sound, as well as the harmonious coexistence of multimedia. He dared to mix sound with light, movement with architecture, leading the audience to an alternative dimension of art. He died on 4 February 200 1 aged 78.

Founded in Athens in the spring of 2013, Kyklos Ensemble comprises Greek soloists with outstanding careers in Greece and abroad. Percussion soloist Dimitris Desyllas doubles as the group's general manager, composer Giorgos Koumentakis as art director, and sound engineer Agis Gyftopoulos as production manager. According to its founding members, the ensemble emerged out of their need to expand the scope of their research and explore the limits of their art. All of Kyklos' functions and activities are informed by a spirit of cooperation and reciprocation. The aim is to showcase the ensemble's artistic mark by encouraging a synthesis of its members' different musical personalities. Collaboration with the entire spectrum of the arts and sciences (theater, dance, cinema, visual art; history, archaeology, philosophy, psychoanalysis, mathematics, architecture) is one of the major objectives of Kyklos Ensemble.

Tuesday 29, Wednesday 30, Thursday 31/10 , 20:00 – 21:00, Sofokleous 8–10

Anja Kirschner & David Panos

Ultimate Substance
Screening / Performance

Drawing on references from archaeology, philosophy, mathematics and ritual, Ultimate Substance departs from the hypothesis that the introduction of coinage in the ancient Greek world effected a profound cognitive shift that was key to the emergence of western philosophic, scientific and dramatic traditions. 'Ultimate Substance' was filmed in and around the Nοmismatic Museum, Athens and Lavreotiki. Abandoned in Roman times, the mines were re–discovered in the 19th Century making Lavrio the first factory town of the modern Greek state. The film's fragmented structure explores how these different temporal strands have become compounded in time, and the impact of this subterranean history on our present understanding of the division between sensual and abstract forms of knowledge and experience.

Friday 1/11, 18:30-19:30, Sofokleous 8–10

Valentina Karga & Pieterjan Grandry

Valentina and Pieter invest in themselves
Performance

A performance by Valentina Karga & Pieterjan Grandry, who question the future of their own art practice. Inspired by Valentina's mother who converted her life savings into gold, the dialogue extends to the idea of self–investment and the act of transforming a golden coin into an art object, obeying in this way capitalism's frantic mania to subsume everything, also aesthetics. The two artists give in to the exploitation –which they then put on display– in a casual and humorous manner. The resulting coin is seen as an investment in the market value of the material as well as in its intrinsic value as a work of art.

Friday, 1/11, 20:00–21:00, Sofokleous 8–10

VALUE

workshop

CV Blues, performance of the ensemble Academia Calling (Dukas Kapantais, Dimitris Kargiotis, Apostolos Lambropoulos, Eleni Papagaroufali, Elpida Rikou, Elena Tzelepi, Eleana Yalouri).
Academia Calling reminds us that academia.edu is the Facebook of academics. Scientists and researchers publicly display works and days of their lives, their own publish or perish their lives in a globalized community. Their resumes are more visible there than anywhere else: many take a look at them, although they are really noticed rarely. Nevertheless they continue to send them, at the forefront of one application after another, for a better department, a bigger grant, a more just evaluation. But what happens when 6+1 scholars meet to make a rhapsody of their resumes? (Main hall, 17:00–17.45)

The Industry of Professional Resumes, talk by Eleni Papagaroufali (Professor of Social Anthropology at Panteion University, specialized in processes of social and cultural organization in Greece). Subject: the construction of the self as an active and flexible citizen. (Machine room 18:00–19:00)

Cherries Fall Where Texts Fail..., happening by Despina Maraki and Maria Sideri (social anthropologists).
It is an experiment about the subjective perceptions of the self. Visitors to the Biennale participate in a collage game and create their imaginary CV using clippings, colors and images. The game has but one rule... (Machine room 19:00-20:00)

"Lives and Works", visual arts project by Fani Bitou (visual artist – civil engineer): a standardized expression that is often found in CVs of visual artists, musicians, actors and writers. 'Lives and works': a work for people who work in service to support their presence in the art world. (Machine room 19:00–20:00)

Are the different aspects of value (economic, moral, aesthetic etc.) connected to each other and if so in what ways? Is the present situation experienced as a multilayered "crisis of values"? How does the "market" redefine today the value of life along with the value of things? The VALUE workshop proposes a two months' collaboration of visual artists, social scientists, and theorists from different fields, who will take the anthropological perspective on "exchange" as a point of reference, while attempting to comprehend and comment on the ways value is created and experienced in everyday life. Visitors to the 2013 Athens Biennale are invited to participate in the weekly meetings, in the discussions and production of artistic work by the workshop's curatorial team, as well as by invited artists and theorists. The workshop's program can be found online at http://valueab4.wordpress.com. Coordination: Elpida Rikou (social anthropology / visual arts).

Saturday 2/11, 17:00–20:00, 8–10 Sofokleous st. (Machine room)

Vital Space

Presentation

In the spirit of promoting interaction and debate, AGORA could not but welcome in Sofokleous street the Vital Space, a participatory platform which was founded in 2010 by artist Danae Stratou and economist Yanis Varoufakis. Vital Space brings in AGORA "Raising Awareness" and invites the art world to participate in a competition open to all artists. The call is for short video entries, lasting up to one minute, under the general theme/title EAST|WEST – NORTH|SOUTH: Imperiled Vital Spaces. For more information, please visit the Vital Space website.
The philosophy, the vision and the activities of Vital Space will be presented in AGORA. On the same day there will also be a presentation of the works of the winners in the Raising Awareness in 60" open competition.

Saturday, 2/11, 18:00–19:00, Sofokleous 8–10

Romvos

Urban Decks

Pursuing the research of urban soundmarks, several Athenian kiosks with built–on PA systems were recorded in different parts of the city. The sound activity of these urban decks is documented in a limited edition release of a cassette box set produced by Romvos. Romvos was formed in Athens in late 2012 as an effort to establish a collective platform for the promotion of contemporary creative production in experimental and exploratory music. For the 4th Athens Biennale, Romvos is organizing a series of actions that revolve around sound and its potential to act as a tool for the decoding of social, economic and cultural frameworks, conditions and relations. The aim, on the one hand, is to achieve a mapping of the city–as-loudspeaker by making an inventory of soundmarks of its commercial activity: sounds that are unique to every space and hence readily recognizable. On the other hand, through sound and its ability to create ruptures in space and time, to define localities and to underline the extent to which each space is erratic and dynamic, Romvos attempts to disclose a new labor market developing in parallel with official commercial activity, and its transformation through the activation of spaces, and through a reinventio n of their uses.

Saturday, 2/11, 20:30-21:30, Sofokleous 8–10

Fallen Fruit

Sweet Spoon
event

Fallen Fruit is a collaborative art project centered on fruit as positive symbol and primary material that can connect people and create a sense of community. Founded in 2004 by David Burns, Matias Viegener and Austin Young, Fallen Fruit is now a project of Burns and Young. As "fruit activists", their work as artists examines the role of fruit in people's livew in relation to urban space and community development. The artists understand that fruit offers unique properties as subject matter and material: familiar but culturally specific. And since fruit trees are often found throughout urban neighborhoods, they create readymade opportunities to consider issues of civic space and democratic exchange.
For Athens, they were inspired by the city's mythic association with the olive to create a new project titled Sweet Spoon.

Sunday, 3/11, 12:00-18:00, Sofokleous 8–10

Suvi Nurmi

Bankpoetry
workshop

In Bankpoetry, everyone is welcome to participate in a critical, yet playful poetry workshop, in which new texts are created by organising separate word notes and attaching them on a sheet of paper in preferred order.
As the material for poems are all the words taken from a speech that George A. Provopoulos, Governor of the Bank of Greece, held at the Conference "The Crisis in the Euro–Area" in May 23rd, 2013. The participants of the workshop are encouraged to use the cut–out words in order to generate completely new thoughts and ideas. In the workshop, the words take flight and rise into new meanings, starting to stand for a lot more than just the current economical situation of Greece. The ready poems are left on site for other participants to read, and later they will be scanned and published via Internet.
MFA Suvi Nurmi is a visual artist based in Helsinki, Finland. She has used her poetry workshop method among tens of communities around Finland and Europe with inspiring results.

Sunday, 3/11, 17:00-18:00, Sofokleous 8–10 (Machine room)

OPSIS

Manolis Baboussis
workshop

4th Athens Biennale 2013 AGORA activates the artworks of the exhibition with the participation of the public. A series of meetings among visitors, curators and artists will take place in front of certain works aiming to an interpretational approach. The relations between works as well as artistic practices will be analyzed through dialogue, while also the connections of the works to the thematics of this year's Biennale will be discussed. On Sunday Manolis Baboussis will talk about the work of Superstudio, in the content of radical architecture, and his artwork in the 4th Athens Biennale.

Sunday, 3/11, 16:00–17:00, Sofokleous 8–10

AGORA – KYKLOS

Ecology
Series of discussions

For the realization of the basic purpose of AGORA, the main exhibition space, the ground floor of the Former Athens Stock exchange, where the trading of stocks used to take place, will remain free of exhibits at large so as to change functions depending on the circumstances. Kyklos is a series of losely structured and pluralistic approaches on crucial issues that take place in AGORA Every Sunday afternoon. Invited to Kyklos, the teams and initiatives that actively touch these subjects will have 10–15 minutes in order to share their practical approaches as answers to the question Now what?

On Sunday November 3rd, at 6:00 pm, Ecology will be the center of the fourth thematic unit of Kyklos.

Sunday, 3/11, 18:00–20:00, Sofokleous 8–10

The program of the 4th week of AGORA is as follows:

TUESDAY 29/10

WEDNESDAY 30/10

THURSDAY 31/10

FRIDAY 1/11

SATURDAY 2/11

SUNDAY 3/11

4th ATHENS BIENNALE 2013 AGORA

OPENING HOURS

ADMISSION