The 2nd Athens Biennale 2009 HEAVEN is conceived as a multifaceted contemporary art festival that extends along the coastline of Athens, in the central areas of Palaio Faliro and Kallithea. XYZ, the founders and artistic directors of the Athens Biennale have invited a select group of curators to contemplate Heaven, in a time that arguably is one of disappointment and conflict. The six exhibitions of the 2nd Athens Biennale 2009, designed by architect Andreas Angelidakis, take the form of autonomous approaches to this broad subject, that nevertheless communicate creatively and claim a degree of narrative cohesion. These six exhibitions are complemented by a series of performative events lasting all through the summer.
"Live"
curated by Dimitris Papaioannou & ?afos Xagoraris
Temporary installations form successive theatrical scenes, screens and floating stages, while the spectators and the spectacle interchange, as residents and users of the aquatic limit are invited to attend actively in the configuration of communal spaces. New uses of the spaces are triggered, under the surface of the sea, in the street or in the roofs of neighboring buildings, without impeding the ones already existing.
Artists: An Architektur, ?ikos Arvanitis, Barking Dogs, Broadcast Group, Eloisa Cartonera, Centre for Research Architecture - Goldsmiths College, Cesare Pietroiusti & Matteo Fraterno, Collective Actions, Coti K. , The Errands , Filopappou Group, Tadeusz Kantor, Reijo Kela, Antti Laitinen, Tea Mäkipää, Jennifer Nelson & Dimitris Kotsaras, NSK, Lucy & Jorge Orta, Anna Ostoya, Palaio Faliro artists group, Superflex, Water Girls, Water Boys [Jili Traganou & Eleni Tzirtzilaki], Krzysztof Wodiczko, Ykon.
"World Question Center"
curated by Chus Martinez
The departure point of Chus Martínez's exhibition is to expand the limits of know through the development of working hypothesis; it will be entirely dedicated to the radical importance of questions. Heaven could be understood as a space for mere speculation. It seems easy but is not. Nothing is more difficult nowadays than to escape the logic of the 'what for'. The logic of the show is simple: every one of the artists is requested to submit a work, a question, a thinking hypothesis in their own terms. Nonetheless, the show should be here conceived not from the artistic response to a topic, but as an assemblage of very different thinking logics. Logics that hopefully will help the viewer, but also the artists to develop further different interpretations of the near future.
Artists: Alexis Akrithakis, Michel Auder, Thomas Bayrle, Erick Beltran, The Callas, Jef Cornelis, Roberto Cuoghi, Marianna Castillo Deball, Luke Fowler, Dora García, Andrea Geyer, André Guedes, Dorothy Iannone, Ferdinand Kriwet, Maria Loboda, Babette Mangolte, Rosalind Nashashibi & Lucy Skaer, Maria Pask, Lisi Raskin, Natascha Sadr Haghighian, Lasse Schmidt Hansen, Sue Tompkins, Kostis Velonis.
"For the Straight Way is Lost"
curated by Diana Baldon
Diana Baldon's exhibition is arranged around a framing device represented by the eight circles of the anti-chamber of heaven: the purgatory. According to Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy, a mountain brings souls to heaven through a series of tests visualised in "gironi". Beyond being a geographically situated place, purgatory is a human condition, a process of purification or temporary punishment where souls of those who die depend on self-achievement, compassion and imagination to be prepared for redemption. However, her concept distances itself from Dante's epic poem simply using its structure as a tool to organise works inside what we could imagine is a horizontal representation Mount Purgatory, that is a vessel, or Nautilus shell that gets smaller and smaller as it grows to end up in a rabbit hole, which could stand for the Pearly Gate.
Artists: Mark Aerial Waller, Athanasios Argianas, Athanasios Argianas & Nick Laessing, Adam Chodzko, The Errorists, Anja Kirschner, Domenico Mangano, Tom McCarthy, Christoph Schlingensief, Carolee Schneemann, Michael Stevenson.
"Splendid Isolation, Athens"
curated by Cay Sophie Rabinowitz
As one of the curators invited to contemplate the subject of Heaven, Cay Sophie Rabinowitz oriented her approach to this immeasurably broad topic by naming her exhibition Splendid Isolation, Athens. Guided by an immersive approach rather than a topical or thematic one, her selection and presentation let the viewer ponder if and how creative activity, social practices, and aesthetic experience may be directed. Splendid Isolation, Athens includes a number of art works that employ some formal or structural principle, whether it be as rigid as scaffolding, as symbolic as a monetary exchange, as modular as blocks, or as flexible as narrative. For many artists in the show, some existent form—be it physical or immaterial, biographical or contrived, religious or scientific—offers a means by which to re-consider, re-form, re-imagine or even re-structure a momentary or lifelong place of inspiration.
Artists: Lara Almarcegui, Anastasia Douka, Michael Gibson, Benita-Immanuel Grosser, Hsuan Hsuan Wu, Em Kei, Kalup Linzy, Miltos Manetas, Ryan McNamara, Malcolm McLaren, Martin Oppel, Christodoulos Panayiotou, Mai-Thu Perret, Angelo Plessas, Ry Rocklen, Willem de Rooij, Ettore Sottsass, Adrian Williams.
"Hotel Paradies"
curated by Nadja Argyropoulou
Between the only common certainty that is death and the endless possibility that is after-life, there is a kind of terrible tension, the very spark of everything that is: Desire. In this light, Paradise can be understood as "Desire unleashed". Not as an idyllic place (island, garden, Arcadia) of bliss and innocence regained. As a monument constantly rising towards its ruination, as something equally rooted in and free of the land, as a paradox that punctures time, the Hotel Paradies is such a lair of Desire. The name derives from a rather common language corruption; one which serves as a starting and end point for the conceptual references of this exhibition. Paradies: This which lies next to and beyond death. It is therefore a name that invokes an era when no names existed.
Artists: Kenneth Anger, Apophenia, Daniel Arsham, Zoe Beloff, Manfredi Beninati, Paul Chan, Savvas Christodoulides, EVP, Zoi Gaitanidou, Yiannoulis Halepas, Infinite Library (Harris Epaminonda & Daniel Gustav Cramer), International Necronautical Society (INS), Vassilis Karouk, Dionisis Kavallieratos, Joachim Koester, Sandra Kranich, Robert Kusmirowski, Cristina Lei Rodriguez, Paul Noble, Saskia Olde Wolbers, Nikos Gavriil Pentzikis, Saprophytes, Markus Selg, Robert Smithson, Christiana Soulou, Jan Švankmajer, Alexandros Tzannis, Unknown Artist, Marie Wilson Valaoritis & Nanos Valaoritis
Jakub Julian Ziolkowski.
"How many Angels can Dance on the Head of a Pin?
curated by Christopher Marinos
How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? is one of the six curatorial projects of the 2nd Athens Biennial. The exhibition traces the spiritual meaning of paradise more as a 'possibility' or 'promise' within the daily spectre of life and less as a redemptive phenomenon located in an afterlife. Divided into three sections, the exhibition features works which together explore the idea of a domesticated heaven: The first section is equivalent to reality enforcement and the way one remembers Paradise through a glass darkly; in stark contrast, the second section corresponds to psychedelic journeys, decadent dreams, theatrical gestures and utopian constellations; while the last one is symbolized by an overwhelming feeling of loneliness, a sense of foreboding melancholy as well as an irrepressible impulse of repetition.
Artists: Bruce Baillie, Mieke Bal, Lydia Dampassina, Dora Economou, Angus Fairhurst, Harun Farocki, Leon Frantzis, Lothar Hempel, Andreas Kassapis, Panayiotis Loukas, Ursula Mayer, Kris Martin, Marc Nagtzaam, OMIO, Adrian Paci, Nina Papaconstantinou, Angelos Papadimitriou, Société Réaliste, Kostas Roussakis, Yannis Skourletis, Christian Tomaszewski, Mark Wallinger.
2nd Athens Biennale 2009
HEAVEN
15 June - 4 October 2009
Major Sponsor: Cosmote
With the Support of: The Hellenic Ministry of Culture, Olympic Properties S.A., Municipality of P. Faliro, Municipality of Kallithea, Municipality of Athens, Municipality of Pireas, The Stavros Niarchos Foundation, The Alexander S. Onassis Foundation, Embassy of the United States, Athens, ifa, SeaCex, Frame, dgArtes, Calouste Goulbenkian Foundation, Greek Film Archive, Hellenic Youth Institute, Culture 2007 Programme of the E.U., and the Friends of the Athens Biennale.
Sponsors: Netsmart S.A., Rigips
Media Sponsors: Lambrakis Press S.A., Mega Channel, Athens Voice, MTV, Highlights, Velvet, Kanali 1, A Conceptual Magazine, Don't Panic.
Creative Partners: Village Cinemas, Deste Foundation, Remap 2, Goethe Institut, Athen, Correct, Athens Pride.
