26.09. – 15.11.2017
curated by Giorgos Kontis
Daily Lazy Projects
Sina 6 & Vissarionos 9 (entrance)
Athens 10680
Giorgos Kontis, Untitled, 2017Images courtesy the artists
The aesthetic regime of the arts is first of all a new regime for
relating to the past. It actually sets up as the very principle of
artisticity the expressive relationship inherent in a time and a state
of civilization. **
of repetition; instead of a Tabula Rasa there is a confrontation and an
endeavour in dealing and being in a dialogue with the past and the
spectres that come along with it. The past as both heritage and burden, and
a repetition that is inevitable yet impossible as well; the work of art
rooted in tradition, yet an ever changing one with a sense of an aura
being constantly redefined. Formalism after semiotics, medium
specificity and a sense of materiality that becomes questioned and
explored; expanded forms of painting and sculpture in an endeavour to
trace their relationship and its continuity with the past, as well as
with the exhibition space that hosts and witnesses that and becomes
flexible -intangible and conceptual itself.
The making of art
as well as the exhibition space as a figure are in an ever present
challenge and demand to be in sync with their time. What emerges is a
duality in the space the artwork inhabits; a space in language, in its
medium and cultural context, and the exhibition space in which it is
physically present.
A coexistence of the work with the past and
within the cultural context, as well as within and with the exhibition
space. And, a question about how seemingly traditional forms of art,
such as sculpture and painting, function in relation to their present;
being, simultaneously, in an open dialogue with the past and history of
their medium and the heritage that follows it. The matter here is not a
case of medium specificity, it is rather a state of flux of the
aesthetic function of the work and how this is intertwined with the
conditions that surround its making; a relationship between the work and
its ground, whatever this may be.
Walt Van Beek is
invited to create a site specific installation aspiring to function as a
basis for the whole exhibition. A structure -conceptual or even
intangible- aiming to relate to the space and to the function of
exhibiting and displaying, and, through that, to form a place or ground
for the other works.
*Boris Groys, On the New, Verso 2014, p.6
** Jacques Ranciere, The politics of Aesthetics, Bloomsbury Academic 2013, p.20