Group Exhibition
Entre Les mondes  
D&A by V&T, Lisbon, Portugal 
22 September – 8 October 2022

Art Festival
The Little Bird Must Be Caught
Survival Kit
curated by iLiana Fokianaki
Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art (LCCA), Riga, Latvia
3 September – 16 October 2022

The Little Bird Must Be Caught // The 13th edition of the international contemporary art festival Survival Kit curated by iLiana Fokianaki, explores freedom of speech and sound, as well as various forms of resistance placing the Singing Revolution and Latvian local history in the context of global processes and our shared present.

Participating artists: Forensic Architecture, Andrius Arutiunian, Sammy Baloji, Rufina Bazlova, Candice Breitz, Juris Boiko and Hardijs Lediņš, Vera Chotzoglou, Sanja Ivekovic, Kapwani Kiwanga, Chrysanthi Koumianaki, Rojava Film Commune, Ansis Epners, Kristaps Epners, Dora García, Almagul Menlibayeva, Marina Naprushkina, Ahmet Öğüt, Antonis Pittas, Susan Philipsz, Laure Prouvost, Tabita Rezaire, Mykola Ridnyi, Krišs Salmanis, Erica Scourti, Indrė Šerpytytė, Sabīne Šne, Maryam Tafakory, Wu Tsang, Raed Yassin, Valdis Villerušs, Anton Vidokle.

Solo Exhibition
jaune, geel, gelb, yellow
Acts of modernism with Antonis Pittas and Theo van Doesburg
curated by Daphne Vitali
EMST, National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens
16 June – 30 October 2022

Antonis Pittas has long been researching the visual language and legacy of modernism and its promise for a better, more egalitarian and democratic world for all. However, the urge for total renewal also contributed to total destruction. In 2019 Pittas was an artist in residence at the Van Doesburg House, the former home and studio of Theo van Doesburg, just outside of Paris. His residency coincided with the widespread yellow vest protests in France. Although the demonstrations seemed visually united by the yellow vests, the protestors’ motivations for change were extremely diverse. Pittas moved from the urgency of the protests outside on the streets to the historical context and the private sphere of the Van Doesburg House. It brought him to investigate the legacy of modernism through a political lens.

Pittas based his project on a selection of Van Doesburg works on paper from the extensive holdings of the Centraal Museum, in Utrecht, where Van Doesburg was born and raised. As the driving force behind De Stijl, he became an influential artist in modern European art history. Pittas selected drawings and gouaches by Van Doesburg, which he juxtaposes and brings into dialogue with his own large, scale aluminum cutouts of silhouettes. Pittas captured the demonstrations of the yellow vests by photographing the protesters, the police and their interactions on the streets. They return as silhouettes in this intervention, sometimes as distinct individuals, sometimes merging into a mass of bodies. Placed in front of Van Doesburg’s drawings, they seem to both block and protect his work, his legacy. The visitors of the exhibition are encouraged to photograph the work with the use of flash, activating the installation.

Both the exhibition and the publication which accompanies it are characterized by reflective yellow foil, which is a material generally used for traffic barriers and road signs. It evokes associations with danger, visibility, warning, protection, toxicity, safety, and control. The title jaune, geel, gelb, yellow is borrowed from Van Doesburg’s Dadaist magazine Mécano, which has been published 100 years ago. The exhibition and the publication examine the failure, collapse and historicisation of the modernist ideals espoused by Theo van Doesburg, set against the current political backdrop of mass protest.

Pittas’ installation is a direct intervention in the EMST collection, specifically in a chapter which refers to political turmoil and protest in the 1960s and 1970s, when the country was in the grips of a military dictatorship, prompting a consideration of different aspects of political discontent and its means of expression. This exhibition is part of a new programme in EMST invites contemporary artists to intervene in the museum’s collection. It is the first time the work of Theo van Doesburg is presented in Greece.

Group Exhibition
Statecraft (and beyond)
curated by Katerina Gregos
EMST, National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens
16 June – 30 October 2022

Statecraft is an international group exhibition that explores the underlying mechanisms at work in the engineering of the nation-state, as we know it today, and the challenges it faces in today’s globalised, networked world. Probing the history and the processes of nation-building in modern times, Statecraft examines the power structures and processes behind state bureaucracy, governance, and sovereignty, and their common issues of democracy, citizenship, rights, inclusion and exclusion. The exhibition explores the scope and limits of state authority while confronting a new political reality in Europe and beyond, during a time of rising nationalism and authoritarianism, and as some countries become progressively more inward-looking. Featuring 39 artists, Statecraft also looks beyond traditional forms of the nation-state towards alternative models of statehood and political organisation while addressing the current challenges of mass migration, the realities of post- and trans-national structures of organisation, globalisation and technologically enabled nomadism. As the exhibition was being prepared Russia invaded Ukraine, making us painfully aware of the fact that the post-Cold War order has begun unravelling, that democracy and national sovereignty are not to be taken for granted, and that unchecked state power leads to violent and dangerous excesses for humans as well as the environment.

The exhibition prompts us to reflect on the nation-state in the changed circumstances of today, more than 200 years after its conception as an idea. Can we imagine other models of social organisation and statehood that do not require identification with a particular flag or passport? What other forms of belonging and community outside the nation-state might come into fruition? How can we move beyond the toxicity of nationalism while retaining the benefits of the nation-state? Is the concept of ‘global citizenship’, which is gaining currency in light of the need to find shared solutions to shared problems, at all possible or even plausible? The artists in the exhibition critically dissect these issues and questions from a wide perspective. Their work unveils the hidden complexities underlying the contested issues of nation and statehood, compelling us to look at them from unexpected and imaginative angles.

Participating artists: Bani Abidi, Ewa Axelrad, Zanny Begg & Oliver Ressler, Loulou Cherinet, Liu Chuang, Köken Ergun, Katya Ev, Alexis Fidetzis, Marta Górnicka, Ivan Grubanov, Giorgos Gyzis, Lise Harlev, Femke Herregraven, Eleni Kamma, Navine G. Khan-Dossos, Thomas Kilpper, Szabolcs KissPál, Panos Kokkinias, Stéphanie Lagarde, Langlands & Bell, Ella Littwitz, Thomas Locher, Cristina Lucas, Tanja Muravskaja, Marina Naprushkina, Kristina Norman, Daniela Ortiz, Trevor Paglen, Antonis Pittas, Jaanus Samma, Larissa Sansour, Jonas Staal, Anastasis Stratakis, Sasha Streshna, Maria Varela, Vangelis Vlahos, Eirini Vourloumis