SAVE THE DATE! 1st Athens Biennial 2007 | DESTROY ATHENS
10th September – 18th November
Preview: 9th September
Technopolis, Athens
www.athensbiennial.org
DESTROY ATHENS
Destroy Athens, curated by Xenia Kalpaktsoglou, Poka-Yio and Augustine Zenakos, is an attempt to challenge the ways in which identities and behaviours are determined through stereotypical descriptions. The notion of Athens – as the archetypal city that has become emblematic in terms of stereotypes – is used as a metaphor for this feeling of extra-determination or entrapment that the stereotype inflicts upon the personal sense of identity and social behaviour. Destroy Athens aims to function as a progression through various themes – elements will contradict, collide or cancel-out each other constantly. Successive realizations and disillusionments will make up a fragmented acknowledgement of a dead-end, a kind of world, a dystopic environment of conceptual Waste Lands.
Architectural interventions by Gruppo A12 will challenge and modify the intricate spaces of Technopolis, the main venue, to create new possibilities of perception and determine the viewers progression through the various themes of the exhibition.
Artists (as in 30th May 2007): Adbusters, Assume Vivid Astro Focus, Aidas Bareikis, Marc Bijl, John Bock, Olaf Breuning, Kimberly Clark, Annelise Coste, Kajsa Dahlberg, Peter Dreher, The Erasers, Chris Evans, Stelios Faitakis, Jan Freuchen, HobbypopMUSEUM, Narve Hovdenakk, Derek Jarman, Folkert de Jong, Vassilis Karouk, Omer Ali Kazma, John Kleckner, Terence Koh, Edward Lipski, Lotte Konow Lund, Mark Manders, Bjarne Melgaard, Ciprian Muresan, Eleni Mylonas, Olaf Nicolai, The Otolith Group, Erkan Ozgen, Torbjorn Rodland, Julian Rosefeldt, Georgia Sagri, Yorgos Sapountzis, Yiannis Savvidis, Santiago Sierra, Martin Skauen, Eva Stephani, Temporary Services, Thanassis Totsikas, Stephanos Tsivopoulos, Jannis Varelas, Void Network, Eva Vretzaki, Bernhard Willhelm
DESTROY ATHENS — APPENDIX
The 1st Athens Biennial includes parallel exhibitions and events, closely related to the theme of the main exhibition Destroy Athens. These will run throughout the duration of the main exhibition and will be presented in the surrounding area of Metaxourgeio.
How to endure
The exhibition How to endure, curated by Tom Morton, borrows from the idea of magic where rituals have two actions, that is to change the world and at the same time to keep it as it is. The exhibition aims to move away from the binary notion that preservation is conservative and change is progressive and explore what that move might change in the way we perceive the city and ourselves.
Artists: Charles Avery, Miguel Calderon, Allen Ginsberg, Loris Greaud, Roger Hiorns, Matthew Day Jackson, Germaine Kruip, Grant Morrison & Frank Quitely, Olivia Plender, Maaike Schoorel
Young Athenians
The exhibition Young Athenians, curated by Neil Mulholland & Deborah Jackson, presents a group of artists that live and work in Edinburgh. The title forms an ironic reference to the infamous cliché of Edinburgh as the Athens of the North. This — unrealistic — relation of the two cities is used by the artists as a vehicle of commenting on the urban environment they live in.
Artists: Tam A, Kim Coleman, Craig Coulthard, Keith Farquhar, Tommy Grace, Jenny Hogarth, Darius Jones, David MacLean, John Mullen, Ellen Munro, One O’Clock Gun, Lee O’Connor, Katie Orton, Kate Owens, Sophie Rogers, Robin Scott, Cathy Stafford, Lucy Mackenzie, Alastair Fairweather.
DESTROY ATHENS — FILM
The Screening Program, curated by Florian Wuest, will present short films and video art, and will include fiction, documentaries and experimental cinematic exercise. Film screenings will also be presented as part of the International Athens Film Festival.
DESTROY ATHENS – LIVE
Music Events will take place indoors and outdoors in Technopolis and the area of Metaxourgeio, and will include concerts, DJ sets, experimental performances with custom-made software as well as audiovisual events.
Main Sponsor: Deutsche Bank
Under the Aegis of the Hellenic Ministry of Culture and the Municipality of Athens
With the collaboration of Technopolis
Sponsors: Athenaeum Intercontinental Hotel | Netsmart S.A.
Media Sponsors: To Vima | Athens Voice | Velvet Magazine | Athina 9.84FM | e-flux | go.culture.eu
With the support of: OCA | IFA | The J. F. Costopoulos Foundation | Istituto Italiano di Cultura di Atene | NIA | Spanish Embassy in Athens | Cervantes Institute | British Council | The Friends of the Athens Biennial
