18th September - 18th December, Thessaloniki

 

MAIN PROGRAMME: A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE

PARALLEL PROGRAMME

GUEST EVENTS

Exhibition

A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE SMCA

The State Museum of Contemporary Art (SMCA) was founded in 1997 and is housed in the northeast wing of the Moni Lazariston building complex in Stavroupoli, Thessaloniki. The core of the museum’s collections and exhibitions is the George Costakis Collection, which consists of 1277 artworks (paintings, sketches, constructions, china, etc.) of the most significant artists of the Russian Avant-Garde period. The Museum also owns an interesting collection of works by contemporary artists.

In its years of operation, the SMCA has developed extensive exhibition activities through the holding of large exhibitions, collaborations/co-production of exhibitions with modern and contemporary art museums in the country and abroad, through the publication of special catalogues, the organisation of international scientific conferences, the design and running of special websites, the implementation of educational activities.

In addition, the Museum is the organising institution of the Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art, which is being organised since 2007 in Thessaloniki under the auspices of the Hellenic Ministry of Culture, with the collaboration of many cultural institutions.

The State Museum of Contemporary Art is a pluralist, radical and innovative vehicle of culture, which apart from managing the Costakis Collection, establishes events of international prestige, and promotes and enhances the contemporary artistic production of the country by presenting its exhibition initiatives to an audience, exceeding social and other boundaries.

“No artist of any art, has his complete meaning alone” as has been argued many times by historians and makers themselves in various words. “His significance, his appreciation, is the appreciation of his relation to the dead poets and artists. I mean this as a principle of aesthetic, not merely historical criticism” states Arthur Danto: “The existing monuments form an ideal order among themselves, which is modified by the introduction of the new (the really new) work among them”.

After the End of Art, p.165

The overarching structure of the Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art, decided on by us -the three curators- takes into account the buildings which host the exhibitions and also their history. It seemed natural, therefore, to particularly engage with the George Costakis collection, part of the permanent collection of the State Museum of Contemporary Art. The collection is the most important collection of Russian Avant-garde art in the world. It represents all the various tendencies and movements within the avant-garde, one of the most radical and fascinating periods in the history of art, which flourished in Russia during the first three decades of the 20th century.

For the first time in the short history of the Biennale we took the initiative to select artists and works that relate indirectly to the collection, both aesthetically and conceptually. We wanted to assemble an exhibition shaped around a -not necessarily literal- dialog between the contemporary artworks and selected pieces from the collection. This would allow visitors to the Biennale to have the chance to see works of art from the collection -once again or for the first time- within a context that might trigger new ideas and thoughts. Our quest was neither to involve artists that have been influenced per se by the Russian Avant-garde movements or aesthetics, nor to commission works that derived directly from the thematic or the formalistic scope of the collection. This could easily have turned into a nostalgic exercise. Instead, we aimed to find subtle, notional affinities that are crucial to works from different periods that are displayed together.

The ideas of hope and failure, humor and sovereignty, among others, seem to set the tone of the exhibition. History, after all, evolves in loops, and artistic expression always reacts to fundamental philosophical and scientific changes or alterations in the political and social structures, by offering an apparatus of departure from the reality toward the “imaginary”. This fact is not exclusively an abstract or magical formula, but also a pictorial and literal blueprint that is drawn directly from life. Maybe this elliptical motion endorses what Kazimir Malevich called the “non-objective reality”: the artists’ ability to uncover invisible aspects of people’s lives, to chart new paths that will explore new worlds and bring about new conditions for everyday life, even though they might be criticized as “utopian”.

Marina Fokidis 

Maria Tsantsanoglou

Artists:

• Alexander Kluge
  Born (1932) in Halberstadt , Saxony-Anhalt , Germany . He studied Read more >
• Ali Kazma
  Born (1971) in Istanbul, Turkey, where he lives and works. He studied (MA degree) in The New School, New York City, USA. His work documents human activity, labor and explore the meaning of production and social organization through the detailed and meticulously created videos, mainly focusing on routines and cycles in different professions....
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• Hrair Sarkissian
  Hrair Sarkissian (Damascus, 1973) studied photography at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie (Amsterdam). In Sarkissian’s work, landscape and the urban environment become stages for the expression of historical realities. Employing traditional documentary techniques, his photographs are expressions of a hidden paradox that exists between the beauty...
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• Irini Miga
  Born (1981) in Larissa. She lives and works in the USA. She studied at the Athens School of Fine Arts (2000-05) and at the Central Saint Martins College, London (2003). In 2010 she started an MFA in visual arts at the Columbia University, New York. Solo exhibitions: Echoes’ Prelude , Side 2 Gallery (Tokyo, 2007); Wittingly,...
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• Kostis Velonis
  Born (1968) in Athens where he lives and works. He undertook cultural studies (MRes) at the London Consortium (Birkbeck College, ICA, AA, Tate Gallery, 1999-2000) and visual arts at the Paris VIII University (Maitrise, DEA, 1994-97). He won a scholarship from the “Alexandros S. Onassis Foundation” (1996-97). He acquired his PhD (2010) from...
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• Michail Pirgelis
  Born (1976) in Essen, Germany, and raised in Xanthi, Greece. He lives and works in Cologne, Germany. He studied at the Kunstakademie of Düsseldorf (2004-2009). Pirgelis’ artistic practice explores the sculptural possibilities of decommissioned airplane parts. Through his work, what he seeks to explore is the notion of “fragility” as he calls...
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• Olaf Nicolai
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  Born (1962) in Haale/Saale, Germany. He lives and works in Berlin. He studied German Literature and Philology in Leipzig (Germany), Budapest (Hungary) and Vienna (Austria). In 1992 he completed his PhD on "The Vienna Group" (‘Die Wiener Gruppe"). Olaf Nicolai’s work is conceptual in nature and often characterized by (socio) political...
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• Spartacus Chetwynd
  Born (1973) in United Kingdom. She studied (1992-1995) Social Anthropology and History at the University College London before studying fine art at the Slade School of Art, London (1996-2000) and painting at the Royal College of Art, London (2002-2004). Recent solo exhibitions (selection): Odd Man Out , Sadie Coles (London, 2011); ...
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• Steven C. Harvey
  Born (1967) in Stafford, England, and now lives and works in Athens, Greece. He studied Fine Art at Wimbledon School of Art (1986-1989). A constant interest of the artist has been the search for new ways to express the vertiginous absurdities of our condition. The most recent manifestation of this strategy is the Vehicles Series , the...
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• Yasmine Eid-Sabbagh
  Yasmine Eid-Sabbagh studied history, photography and visual anthropology in Paris. In 2006, she moved to Burj al-Shamali, a refugee camp established in 1956 and located just south of the port city of Tyre, Lebanon, where she lived until 2011. In Burj al-Shamali she carried out a photographic project with a group of young Palestinians, as well...
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