Neoerotica Boudoir Street Stories
Amfilochia, 1st Elementary School, 19.07-17.08.2008
Thessaloniki, Action Field Kodra visual arts festival, 5-15.09.2008
Artists: Alkis Boutlis, Pandelis Chandris, Rania Emmanouilidou, Theodoros Giannakis, Marianna Ignataki, Petros Moris, Pavlos Nikolakopoulos and Simona Moundrouvali, Nikolas Evgenios, Vassileia Stylianidou and McLovla, Maria Zervou
Curator: Eleni Garoufalia
Coordination: Lydia Chatziiakovou, Rania Emmanouilidou
CATALOGUE
Texts: Nanos Valaoritis, Eleni Garoufalia, Sotirios Bahtsetzis, Areti Leopoulou
Art direction & design: Sakis Siritsidis / Front
Translations: Heather Kouris, Maria Skamagka, Eve Tsirigotaki
Editing: Charis Kanellopoulou
Translated texts editing: Heather Kouris
Printing: K. Pletsas - Z. Kardari
Binding: Eliopoulos & Rodopoulos
Curator: Eleni Garoufalia
Coordination: Lydia Chatziiakovou, Rania Emmanouilidou
CATALOGUE
Texts: Nanos Valaoritis, Eleni Garoufalia, Sotirios Bahtsetzis, Areti Leopoulou
Art direction & design: Sakis Siritsidis / Front
Translations: Heather Kouris, Maria Skamagka, Eve Tsirigotaki
Editing: Charis Kanellopoulou
Translated texts editing: Heather Kouris
Printing: K. Pletsas - Z. Kardari
Binding: Eliopoulos & Rodopoulos
The idea for the Neo-Erotica Boudoir Street Stories exhibition originated in the formation of a new concept of eroticism in contemporary reality. It deals with the concept of pleasure and aims at creating a simultaneous emotion of universality where each person can project the pleasure and the emotional priority of his/her own microcosm.
The narratives that were given to the artists constitute the curator’s personal exposition to the participants. The goal was to lead to a “harsher” and more sincere negotiation of the idea of pleasure while creating art and discourse without ‘surgical gloves’ that is free from guilt with regards to knowledge, while aiming at authentic creativity. This resulted in the creation of original works that correspond to the stories’ ambience with a disposition towards individual transgressions of established ways of thinking and expression.
The art of the Neoerotica exhibition believes that everything is possible and indeed there are moments during the day when personal needs are in synch with the outside world, displacing that which is trivial. Pleasure is a matter of disposition and personal responsibility and that is the most erotic part of the process.
The initial idea of having the exhibition in the Greek province was deliberate. The province is a heterotopia featuring its residents’ daily actions, a practical space consisting of a particular architecture of buildings as well as emotions. The influence the place exerts on our personal stories reflects the houses, neighborhoods and cities in which we reside, as well as our own internal landscapes. The exhibition approaches fiction with an autobiographical disposition, it overcomes a functional perception of things and moves easily amongst them. The exhibition consists of fragmented visual narratives that progress autonomously, but have no specific beginning, middle or end. It resembles Rhizome, which has roots and branches in both underground contemporary culture and the foundations of the history of art. Consequently, it is alive and in constant progress and prone to transmutations due to its organic nature. In other words, it presents a hybrid approach to appropriating pleasure. It is mainly an exhibition that is introspective and focuses on itself in order to create a sense of archetypal identification.
It is an exhibition on the subject of claiming pleasure that will contribute to the redefinition of art as well as the space it inhabits, thus creating an emotional game between viewers, heterotopias and contemporary visual art. It mainly attempts to address nature as well as the result of diverse works based on similar narratives which converse in a common space. What useful information can one draw from the dialogue between the work’s visual aspect and the discourse around it? How do we perceive the visual interpretation of the same subject by various artists? How do we comprehend the void and the (dis)agreement within the visual creation and the diaspora? The exhibition does not focus on narratives of representation, but rather on an experience that is alive and the work’s impact on our range of vision.
Eleni Garoufalia, curator
The narratives that were given to the artists constitute the curator’s personal exposition to the participants. The goal was to lead to a “harsher” and more sincere negotiation of the idea of pleasure while creating art and discourse without ‘surgical gloves’ that is free from guilt with regards to knowledge, while aiming at authentic creativity. This resulted in the creation of original works that correspond to the stories’ ambience with a disposition towards individual transgressions of established ways of thinking and expression.
The art of the Neoerotica exhibition believes that everything is possible and indeed there are moments during the day when personal needs are in synch with the outside world, displacing that which is trivial. Pleasure is a matter of disposition and personal responsibility and that is the most erotic part of the process.
The initial idea of having the exhibition in the Greek province was deliberate. The province is a heterotopia featuring its residents’ daily actions, a practical space consisting of a particular architecture of buildings as well as emotions. The influence the place exerts on our personal stories reflects the houses, neighborhoods and cities in which we reside, as well as our own internal landscapes. The exhibition approaches fiction with an autobiographical disposition, it overcomes a functional perception of things and moves easily amongst them. The exhibition consists of fragmented visual narratives that progress autonomously, but have no specific beginning, middle or end. It resembles Rhizome, which has roots and branches in both underground contemporary culture and the foundations of the history of art. Consequently, it is alive and in constant progress and prone to transmutations due to its organic nature. In other words, it presents a hybrid approach to appropriating pleasure. It is mainly an exhibition that is introspective and focuses on itself in order to create a sense of archetypal identification.
It is an exhibition on the subject of claiming pleasure that will contribute to the redefinition of art as well as the space it inhabits, thus creating an emotional game between viewers, heterotopias and contemporary visual art. It mainly attempts to address nature as well as the result of diverse works based on similar narratives which converse in a common space. What useful information can one draw from the dialogue between the work’s visual aspect and the discourse around it? How do we perceive the visual interpretation of the same subject by various artists? How do we comprehend the void and the (dis)agreement within the visual creation and the diaspora? The exhibition does not focus on narratives of representation, but rather on an experience that is alive and the work’s impact on our range of vision.
Eleni Garoufalia, curator