Destroy Athens : 1st Athens Biennial 2007
10 September – 18 November 2007
“Technopolis” of the City of Athens
100, Peiraios Street
(click to greek version)
Destroy Athens tells a story.
The story emerged from a completely empirical observation. We, each one of us, the subject of every action and every conscience is built through the eyes of others. What is important here is that it is not being constructed by others – it is all an internal affair: the subject builds its own self, but its building material is the perception of others. And this fact is the precondition of any recognition, collectivity, connection, participation, sense of community.
Mark Manders
Figure with Fake Dictionaries (2006)
As the place where the story unfolds we chose Athens; at first perhaps for the obvious reason that we live here. However, we are in a way fortunate as Athens is in itself an appropriate emblem for what we termed a stereotype, throughout the long period that the story was being shaped, that is the sense of extra-determination which constitutes the extreme expression of the subject’s self-construction we mentioned before. Perhaps a different city could have been employed – and not just Rome or Istanbul, but also Louisville, Nairobi, Peshawar or Volos. Every place, every sense of historicity, every background, every nationalist or cultural construct, any political formation, either individual or collective, is equally vulnerable to the identity that is built through the eyes of others. But if we see Athens as the location where the story evolves, one is obliged to accept the inevitable – and merciful – degree of arbitrariness of any story: if the story took place in London, it would probably be raining, but then what happened after that would still be the important thing. And that’s what is great about a story: nothing is binding, yet everything is specific. One thing or another could happen elsewhere or differently, but it is happening here and it is happening like this.
Illustration by Pablo Picasso for the 1934 edition of Lysistrata in a version by Gilbert Seldes.
The story is divided in six chapters. Its dramaturgy follows a method of constant shifts, where a position is built for a time and is then either twisted towards something else or broken down. The narrative is linear but syncopated, so that from chapter to chapter the atmosphere changes radically. Destroy Athens is then structured as a story also in terms of space. It is a course in space, which allows for a specific continuity and therefore a reading.
It is a story. We do hope that as a story it has meaning between the moment it begins and the moment it ends.
(Excerpt from the curators’ text for the exhibition catalogue)
First Day
Julian Rosefeldt & Piero Steinle, Void Network, Marc Bijl, The Erasers, Adbusters, hobbypopMUSEUM, Banu Cennetoglu
Second Day
Omer Ali Kazma, Nikos Kessanlis, Jannis Savvidis, Florian Süssmayr, Ciprian Muresan, Chris Evans, The Otolith Group, Edward Lipski, Bernhard Willhelm, Yorgos Sapountzis, Eva Stefani, Stefanos Tsivopoulos, Olaf Nicolai, Folkert de Jong, John Kleckner, Jannis Varelas, Eva Vretzaki, Stelios Faitakis, Pablo Picasso
Third Day
Olaf Breuning, Gregor Schneider, Thanassis Totsikas, Bjarne Melgaard, Annelise Coste, Lotte Konow Lund, Jan Freuchen, Kajsa Dahlberg, Robert Gober, Georgia Sagri, Pierre Joseph, Sean Landers, Mark Manders
Fourth Day
AVAF, Torbjorn Rodland
Fifth Day
Aidas Bareikis, Kimberly Clark, Narve Hovdenakk, Martin Skauen, Vassilis Karouk, Erkan Ozgen, John Bock, Yiannis Adamakos, Terence Koh
Sixth Day: Elodie Pong, Temporary Services & Angelo, Peter Dreher, Christian Marclay, Derek Jarman, Eleni Mylonas
Charles Avery
U – 2002
Oil on canvas
Destroy Athens – Appendix
How to endure
The exhibition How to endure curated by Tom Morton borrows the idea of magic where rituals jave two – apparently unrelated – actions, that is to change the world and at the same time to keep it as it is. Featuring references from Alistair Crowley to Parmenides and Harry Smith, nine artists are invited to create new artworks – rituals that will change the world by preserving it, or to exhibit works that are related to this theme. The picture of Athens they are interested in “preserving” is not that of historical past but the one of contemporary Athens of present, at a time when the world’s eyes are elsewhere.
Artists: Charles Avery, Miguel Calderon, Allen Ginsberg, Loris Greaud, Roger Hiorns, Matthew Day Jackson, Germaine Kruip, Grant Morrison & Frank Quitely, Olivia Plender, Maaike Schoorel
