A field trip and two exhibitions in Delphi and Athens

Participating artists:

Johanna Blank, Marlene Franz, Leon Galli, Yannick Harter, Evgenia Ionnidou, Taemen Jung, Karina Kuberska, Vasso Leounaki, Jakob Limmer, Lena Pfäffli, Snow, Malte Urban, Apostolos Tsorfolias, Despoina Vaxevanidi, Julie Warwel, Fiete Worreschk, Kay Yoon, Maria Zervoudaki, Magdalena Zotou, Yana Zschiedrich

Commissioned by Joachim Bank and Klara Meinhardt

A project based on a cooperation between the Class for installation and space, Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig and ASFA Athen – Nikos Arvanitis.

31. Mai 2019
11:00 Uhr
T.A.F. | the art foundation
5 Normanou str. 105 55 Mastiraki Athens, Greece
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Institut für Alles Mögliche – Sehenswürdigkeiten
Aristotelous 130, Athina 112 51, Greece
31.05.2019 – 02.06.2019

Fotos: Joachim Blank

Since around the end of 2017, questions about cultural appropriation have been at the center of a wider discourse in the international artworld. Referring to the concept of Documenta 14, to extend its territorial framework beyond Kassel to include Athens, questioned also ideas of hegemony, appropriation, transformation, cosmopolitanism, late capitalism and other effects.

By “other effects”, we also mean the footprints we create as CO2 consumers as a result of our movements through space, thereby contributing to climate change. Movement produces CO2 and more CO2 vapor spills climate change. And climate change will increase the need for habitat displacement and so on. We – “the first world” – will be able to afford it for a while, but the world’s poor will be forced more and more to migrate. We are interested in exploring the intersections of our economic system and the evolving values and their consequences on a local and global scale, always keeping in mind that “contemporary art” has increasingly become a player in these cycles – on all levels from local to global. The aspect of “transformation “and the associated fast changes in urban spaces characterize our reality not only in Greece and in Athens, but also in other EU states like Germany as well. After the fall of the Berlin Wall in the 1990s the city of Berlin became labeled as “Das Neue Berlin” because Techno, club culture and fine arts used free spaces and “helped” to develop Berlin as a hot spot in cultural tourism. In a similar manner the former so called “shrinking city” Leipzig transformed to the boomtown “Hypezig” – rekindled by a viral art scene, which uses the industrial envy of the city and is transforming it into something new: A strong subculture and a viral art scene in cities voluntarily and involuntarily initiate always  urban development processes: Empty, broken houses, failed open spaces, cheap rents always attract artists and creative people. Now -Athens becomes more and more an essential center of artistic and cultural activities in Post Europe.

Following different meetings in 2018 and 2019, dialogues between young artists from Leipzig and Athens will culminate now in a first “public moment” with the exhibition HUMAN PARTICLES OF THE LIVING SUN, which is presented at T.A.F. The Art Foundation and Institut für Alles Mögliche / Sehenswürdigkeiten in Athens.