ATHENS-BEIJING: The Official Representation of Greece at the 26th Bienal of Sao Paolo
25 September – 19 December 2004
Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion
Sao Paolo, Brazil
Artist: Harris Kondosphyris
Curator: Irini Savvani
Contacts:
Greece:
Department for the Promotion of Contemporary Art
Ministry of Culture
T: +30 210 82 01 723
F: +30 210 82 01 726
International:
Blue Medium
T: 1 212 675 1800
F: 1 212 675 1855
info@bluemedium.com
Artist Harris Kondosphyris will represent Greece at the 26th Bienal of Sao Paolo. The two-part interactive installation entitled Athens-Beijing, curated by Irini Savvani, will be shown at the Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion from September 25 – December 19, 2004. The theme for the Bienal of Sao Paolo 2004 is “Territorio Livre.”
Athens-Beijing investigates basic issues in human communication and self-knowledge by exploring the theme of migration. Kondosphyris collaborates with Hellenic-German musician Vassilis Kokkas, Hellenic-American poet Panos Bosnakis and Hellenic-Austrian biologist Orestes Davias. The works created are common meeting points for all of us strangers- different and similar- who remain foreigners and emigrants carrying the baggage of our cultural identities, superstitions and viewpoints.
Born in Lesvos, Greece in 1965, Harris Kondosphyris studied both film direction and painting at the School of Fine Arts of Athens. His background in film has served his immersive installations, which play with perspective, space and dimension. In his work, Kondosphyris investigates human memory, the collective unconscious, modern urban society, and the role the physical senses play in helping us to understand our world. For his installations, Kondosphyris uses hard construction materials such as reinforced concrete and metal to evoke the urban scenery of large cities. He also uses mirrors to involve the viewer in the installation and create a three-dimensional space. Kondosphyris has been included in many solo and group exhibitions in Greece, as well as in several European countries. His works are also part of the collections of the Fine Arts Center of Modern Creation in Rethimnon, Greece, and the Macedonian Museum of Modern Art in Thessaloniki, Greece. For more biographic information, please visit www.harriskondosphyris.com.
Vassilis Kokkas, the composer, integrates white noise and sine waves in his recent compostions through the use of mild digital processing of space recordings. Kokkas’ works follow different paths on a constant exploration of the aesthetic nature of sonic images and signals as the limits of collective, personal, and cosmic noise.
Panos Bosnakis follows the style of American Language poetry, while adding transcultural and hybrid definitions of language and place. At the same time, he writes poems in other styles, such as Neo-cosmopolitan, Minimalist, Performance, and Sound Poetry.
Irini Savvani, the curator of Athens-Beijing, is an art historian, critic, and exhibition curator. Savvani studied History of Art at the Universite de Paris I, Pantheon-Sorbonne in Paris, where she also conducted her post-graduate studies. She lives and works in Athens. Her contributions on contemporary art have been published in Greek and international catalogues, newspapers, and magazines. She has organized and curated thematic exhibitions and works as an independent exhibition curator. She is a member of Aica Hellas and an elected member of the Board of Aica Internationale.
Established in 1951, the Bienal of Sao Paolo is both one of the oldest and most important events of its kind in the world. This Bienal, curated by Alfons Hug, features 140 artists from 60 different countries. The theme of this year’s Bienal, “Territorio Livre,” translated as “Images Smugglers in a Free Territory”, is derived from the concept of the no-man’s land, not only geographically, politically and socially speaking, but mainly as an aesthetic field, where art defies the boundaries of reality. The exhibition will be held on the three floors of the Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion, home of the Fundacao Bienal in Sao Paolo, Brazil.
