Every toy has the right to break

Angelos Antonopoulos 

Solo exhibition 

ΕΝΙΑ Gallery presents on Friday, 7 February 2020 the solo exhibition “Every toy has the right to break” of Angelos Antonopoulos. 

The exhibition of Angelos Antonopoulos constitutes a visual narrative-comment on man’s relationship with authority. In three installations/acts, the artist wishes to provide viewers with an experiential course through the multiple facets of authority and its collapse. Older, ‘mutated’ works of the last decade and new creations are seen through an overall perspective enable a more meaningful reading of the artist’s work. 

The first act, which provides the preamble as well as the epilogue of the narrative, unfolds as soon as the viewer enters the space. The initial illusion of order and serenity generated by the objects whose color makes them hard to discern is soon dispersed as the gaze gradually attunes itself to space. The installation consists of fragments of doll limbs and bodies, artifacts, porcelain ornaments, parts from strange cages, tables and buildings that float in the air, supported but also pierced by hosts of metal plates. They seem to have undergone an almost violent process of deconstruction and reconstruction, consummating the metaphysical aspect of the disparate images and raising questions around such notions as the natural and the artificial, the strange and the familiar, experience and memory. The installation almost points to a cruel scientific experiment meant to explore the individual elements and produce new constructions. 

As viewers continue along their experiential route, they are called upon to choose a course through two rooms which build on the artist’s probe into man’s relationship with leadership and authority. 

Upon entering the left-hand room they come against a dark, almost black space where the architectural shell of the Greek Parliament coexists with the German Reichstag, the Kremlin, and the White House. 

The molten Greek Parliament is precariously balanced on a hemispherical structure while the image of decomposition of the overall sculpture is mockingly reflected in a mirror. The black shells of the Reichstag and the Kremlin converse and produce a “stage set” for some sinister play. The small-sized White House presents a strange image at odds with the power and impact of its decisions. The buildings in the installation, deeply associated with political and social systems, convey a picture of decay and distortion and make up a monument dedicated to citizens’ incessant struggle to survive against the adversities of the times.

The third act in the visual narrative is completed as the viewer enters the last room. The protagonists here are not the buildings where decisions are made but the figures behind them. The room is a hymn to a patriarchal society. Antonopoulos explores issues around the exercise of power within the confines of family relations. 

Overall, the exhibition constitutes a lyrical Cabinet of Curiosities, a micro-museum, a journey into the artist’s preoccupations, questions and works that deal with contemporary man’s views and attitude towards the socio-political milieu as he strives to emerge as the main protagonist. 

Admission to the exhibition is free. 

Artemis Potamianou: Visual Artist – Curator

Yesterday’s echo as tomorrow’s image

 Group exhibition curated by Nikos Arvanitis and Alexandros Psychoulis

The exhibition presents works by four young emerging Greek female artists; it focuses on the relation between human being and the natural environment, and its extensions in perceptual and emotional level. The artists explore memory and imagination mechanisms; employ techniques of metaphor and myth, attempting to create new value and symbolic systems.

Myrto Vratsanou presents a diving chronicle, linking the vocabulary and metaphors of free-diving to experiencing digital space, attempting to negotiate concepts such as memory, digital and physical accumulation as well as the relationship between body, water, air, pressure, weight and object.

Eleni Zervou re-negotiates the human-nature dipole through a hunter-victim relation, examining the ontological and mythological properties of the wild element through archetypal symbolisms and formulations.

In Athina Kubaruli’s work collections of organic findings interweave sculptures and designs with everyday objects attempting to undermine human imposition on nature.

Elpida Fragkeskidou captures an imaginary underwater archaeological excavation and creates a sculptural environment by redefining the identity of the findings.

Artists cvs

ELPIDA FRAGKESKIDOU (Nicosia, Cyprus – b. 1996) is a visual artist, who currently lives and works in Athens. She graduated from Athens School of Fine Arts. Her focus is concentrated on composing landscapes, while sculpting materiality, memory, temporalities and identity. She specializes in installations of experience, with characteristic property of nowness, with a relation to archaeology and excavation by its processing and the outcome. In 2017, she studied at London at Middlesex University as an Erasmus exchange student. She has participated in group exhibitions in Athens and London. She has exhibited at Athens School of Fine Arts, the Italian Embassy of Athens, the Numismatic Museum of Athens, ENDROSIA, Nicosia; ME THEN Showroom,Athens; We Are Bud, Athens; Islington Arts Factory, London; Archeological Museum, Delphi; and Italian Cultural Institute, Athens. She was an intern at the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Greece, in the Curatorial and Communication departments. She has participated in the Art Athina International Art Fair Educational Programs, various workshops, projects and as a production assistant at Athens Biennale 2018. Recently she has worked as an assistant at Hot Wheels Athens Gallery. As of September 2019, she works as part of the core team at Onassis AiR, an (inter)national artistic and curatorial research residency program and space.

ATHINA KUBARULI (b. 1983) graduated in 2008 from the Department of Conservation of Antiquities and Works of Art of the Technical University of Athens. In 2019 she took a master’s degree in Post- Industrial Design in the Architecture Department of the University of Thessaly.

She has worked as a conservator in outdoor projects, museums and archaeological sites. Since 2013 she has been co-working with other creators in a workshop in Athens where she makes design products and artistic objects.

In the recent years her practice includes small-scale design ventures with emphasis in material reuse and reevaluation of craftsmanship. She is interested in the interaction of the natural – artificial environment and often uses organic materials in her work.

MYRTO VRATSANOU (b. 1994) is based between Athens and Cologne. She studied at the Athens School of Fine Arts (BFA), the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and the Academy of Media Arts Cologne (MFA) on an Onassis Foundation scholarship.

She has presented her work in shows and screenings internationally, including in Weltkunszimmer Düsseldorf, Temporary Gallery Köln, Meinblau Projektraum Berlin, Neverneverland Amsterdam, the Benaki Museum and the Thessaloniki Centre of Contemporary Art. She was a member of the student-run space Circuits+Currents and of the Documenta14 Chorus.

She has been involved in various other collective and educational projects, such as Spaces Of Reflection in the context of the 10th Berlin Biennale. Her work is included in the collection of the National Bank of Greece.

ELENI ZERVOU (Athens – b. 1994) has studied at the Athens School of Fine Arts under George Lappas and Nikos Charalambides as well as at Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University, Istanbul. In 2019 she received the I. Latsis Postgraduate Scholarship in order to attend Goldsmiths’ MFA Fine Art in London where she currently resides.

Balancing between social and personal, between intimacy and otherness, she has employed a broad range of media and thematologies, undertaking both individual and collaborative projects with an emphasis on the study of space (physical, public, personal, socio-political).

She has been a member of the Contemporary Art Showcase Athens (C.A.S.A) as well as the performance group “Allopix” since 2015 and has participated in exhibitions and performances in Greece, Italy, Turkey, Germany and the UK in various venues including: Benaki Museum and B. & M. Theocharakis Foundation, both in Athens, Athens Conservatoire (Documenta14), Fabrica del Vapore in Milan (BCJEM17), Santral Istanbul, Studio-X Istanbul and Documenta Halle in Kassel (Documenta14).

General Info

Opening: Thursday March 5^th, 7:00 – 10:00 pm

Duration: March 6^th – April 11^th 2020

• The exhibition reopens on May 20th extending through June, Friday 6th 2020

Operating hours: Wednesday – Friday 2:00 – 8:00 pm. & Saturday 12:00 – 4:00 pm

a.antonopoulou.art

Address: Aristofanous 20, Athina 105 54, Greece

Tel: +30 21 0361 2050

Email: info@aaart.gr

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