BIG CITY

PRESS RELEASE

BIG CITY

Group Show

Opening Thursday 9 February 2012, 8.00 pm
Zoumboulakis Galleries, 20 Kolonaki Square
Live Leon, 9 February 2012, 10 pm.

Big city, small city.
Real city, fictional city…
The exhibition “Big City” presents aspects of the urban space as imagined or seen by artists who create with different means. Inside a space, that of Athens or the Gallery, real or imaginary landscapes which follow us, puzzle us, motivate us are presented.
Despite the successive changes, the city is not yet “abandoned”. It keeps on surrounding us. The exhibition does not have the role of a tribute. It attempts to reinvent in a creative manner the urban landscape and renegotiate the relationship of the citizens with their surrounding space.

Participating artists:
Diamantis Aidinis, Iannis Ganas, KA-KO Project (Aris Katsilakis & Harris Kondosphyris), Nikos Lagos, Myrto Stampoulou, Kostas Christopoulos and Daniel Egneus.

Inspired by the “Big City”, John Nenes has written a “colorful” text, while León and his band will play music for the “Big City” at the opening night.


“BIG CITY, SMALL DETAILS OF COLOUR”
Six love stories with different colour in the streets of Athens.

RED
Red lights blinking on the lonely drivers’ faces. Red – dark – red – dark – waiting - and then changing to green, in the river-like highways, in the night, when they are going nowhere, just wondering without cause.
BLUE
Madonna’s stencils, sprayed on the walls of the nightmarish Asklipiou str., flow like brooks dripping the most real, blue, bluest tears this road has ever seen.

PRESS RELEASE


WHITE-BLACK
In the end of this crazy little ascent, Herssonos Street, as it climbs, at the half-broken steps just before you come out to the greeneries of Lycabetus hill, a couple of peasants on their donkey, photocopied in their natural size, in big black and white raster and plastered on the wall, they stare into your eyes as if they are ready to return to their natural environment.
PINK
The grey concrete surfaces in Gazi area, bathed in the orange municipal lights, seem always pink, that of the ostrich’s happiness, rundown by a thousand all-stars.
PUCE
Saturday ends up abruptly, with a large “goup”. Late in the afternoon, the Sunday’s newspaper piles bash on the sideways by the kiosks, declaring with a bang their freshly printed weight of the news they carry and the emptyness of their offers. They dash on the colored puce check tiles – dark, rotten pink, and then you know it’s time to return home.
BRASS
You will always cross Didotou Street and throw a disappointed glance at Elli Lambeti’s bust. Someone never showed up”.
John Nenes

We will be glad to see you at the opening night at 10 pm with León and his band and Chivas cocktails and drinks.

Exhibition duration: 9 February to 10 March 2012
Zoumboulakis Galleries, 20 Kolonaki Square
Opening hours: Tuesday-Friday 11.00-15.00 & 17.00–21.00
Saturday 11.00–14.00
Sunday & Monday closed

ART-ATHINA 2011

The Parallel Programme of ART-ATHINA 2011 includes among others:

Actions in progress IMPRIMATUR & ΒΑΝΚ_ART_NOTES
The action group In Flo, comprised of students at the Department of Visual and Applied Arts of Florina (University of Western Macedonia) and co-ordinated by three of their professors, artists Dimitra Siaterli, Theodoros Zirpiadis and Harris Kondosphyris, uses printmaking methods in order to make statements reflecting their concerns about contemporary art and the current social situation. First action: IMPRIMATUR. By rolling the floor with oversized inked printing cylinders they will print words, pictograms and symbols on paper spread throughout the corridors of the building. Visitors are invited to respond, react, undo, comment or delete the words by using big rubber stamps. By making layers of words, images, views and symbols, a visual dialogue takes place on the long path of printed paper. Second action: BANK_ART_NOTES. Each student-counterfeiter creates their own banknote print and distributes their own artistic money to the public. Every day, visitors will choose the banknote they like the most and it will be printed in two small press machines. Visitors will leave the exhibition taking with them an authentic printmaking banknote.

“Esoptro”

Ioanna Grapsa

A study for an artistically activated space extending from the museum shop to the exhibition hall is presented. The space cannot in general function on its own, but depends on and functions only if a viewer is present. Thus the viewers themselves “become part of the space and its composition, namely the colours, the light, the sound and the landscape”.

Vakalo Art and Design College
University of Derby
MA in interior Architectural Design
2009-2010 Ioanna Grapsa

Birds

photo: "Parrots" 2009 by Harris Kondosphyris, cement installation / Veranzerou 42 str, Athens

Dragon

photo: "Dragon" 2010 by Harris Kondosphyris / Veranzerou 42 str, Athens