Thessaloniki, 1 November 2016
Press Release
“WHISPERS”
4 November 2016- 7 January 2017
Thessaloniki Centre of Contemporary Art / Warehouse Β1 (Port)
Official opening: Friday, 4 November 2016, 21:30
The artistic …“Whispers” of 24 women artists and one man from Greece, Europe and the USA are hosted in an exhibition organised by the Thessaloniki Centre of Contemporary Art from November 4, 2016 to January 7, 2017 (Opening: Friday, 4 November 2016, 21:30). It is a production of the Museum of Contemporary Art of Crete, where it was first presented in October 2015, which will form part of the programme of this year’s 57th Film Festival of Thessaloniki, with an exchange of works on their premises.
The exhibition aims to explore the artists’ views on issues of gender, identity and fear and their conclusions about prohibitions and social codes. It also touches on the power of delving, in the interests of recognising traumas, into the process of life generated by thought as well as the whisper of the cell as it advances towards old age. “The title”, as stated by curator Maria Marangou, art director of the MCAC, “is inspired from the great Irishman Samuel Beckett and his apposite talk of words dropping to whispers, of whispers rising into cries, of the eternal mumbling and the memory behind it; it draws also on the whisper of bodies as bequeathed to humanity by Emily Dickinson, the poetess of ‘I died for beauty’.”
As for the choice of women artists, she goes on to comment that “the invitation to women of art from Greece, Europe and the USA does not reflect a wish to issue a feminist manifesto. It reflects the conviction that female whispering remains clearer and more brave in terms of processing fear and existence. The ultimate commentary, however, through the interviews with women of various nationalities, is deliberately a product and a deposition of the opposite sex”.
The exhibition forms part of the exchanges between the TCCA and the MCAC on the basis of their shared interest around gender, identities and the body.
Participating artists: Eozen Agopian, Evgenia Apostolou, Mary Christea, Angeliki Douveri, Joan Giordano, Mary Hrbacek, Dimitra Ioannou, Marigo Kassi, Popi Krouska, Kalliopi Lemos, Maria Loizides, Eleni Lyra, Renee Magnanti, Despina Meimaroglou, Adriana Molder, Vally Nomidou, Antonia Papatzanaki, Hara Piperidou, Chryssoula Skepetzi, Marianne Strapatsaki, Angeliki Svoronou, Popi Tsoukatos, Athanassia Vidali, Adonis Volanakis, Mary Zygouri.
Coordination: Katerina Kouyoumoutzi, CCA; Domna Gounari - Irene Papaconstantinou, Art Historians-Curators, SMCA
Opening days & times: Tue-Sat 10:00-18:00; The TCCA will also be open on the two Sundays of the Thessaloniki Film Festival, Nov. 6 & 13, 10:00-18:00.
Parallel Events
The “Whispers” exhibition is accompanied by parallel events which comprise the performance Office of Public Unburdening by Eugenia Tsanana, with an open invitation to the public (TCCA, 5-13.11.2016); Despina Meimaroglou’s “Emergency exit” (Olympion, 3-13.11.2016); and the film Hands: The Life and Loves of the Gentler Sex by Stella Simon & Miklos Bandy (TCCA, 4.11.2016-7.01.2017). Guided tours for students and the public will be held throughout the exhibition by the SMCA’s curators and museum educators.
Eugenia Tsanana
The Office of Public Unburdening
In times of personal or social crisis, people tend to withdraw, stunned by misery and frustration. However, pain diminishes if its shared with others. In The Office of Public Unburdening Eugenia Tsanana creates an interactive work with which she attempts to offer instant emotional relief to visitors by listening to their nightmares, registering them and then erasing the entries and keeping the eraser shavings. On the last day the artist throws these shavings in the sea. The process is repeated for nine days as the Office aims for a symbolic reduction of the burden of accumulated misery that stifles the city, In a joint effort with its visitors based on mutual trust.
The original project was commissioned and produced by NEON + MAI in the context of the AS ONE programme of the Benaki Museum (10.03-24.04.2016).
5-13 November 2016, 10:00-18:00 / closed on Monday, 7 November
Thessaloniki Centre of Contemporary Art / Warehouse Β1 (Port)
Despina Meimaroglou
Emergency exit, 2004. Video installation, no sound, 1:50’
Despina Meimaroglou’s Emergency exit is based on the 1522 painting The Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb by the German painter Hans Holbein the Younger. Her inspiration came from a police bulletin about the savage murder of a young woman by her lover in 2004.
3-13 November 2016
OLYMPION, 5th floor
Stella Simon & Miklos Bandy
Hands: The Life and Loves of the Gentler Sex, 1927-28 / 13’
Music composed & performed by: Marc Blitzstein
“The use of human hands as characters in a dance inspired narrative are used to explore female experience and representation. By drawing upon experimental traditions found in international art, film, and photography movements of the 1920s, Simon transforms a simple melodramatic love story into an avant-garde feminist short film.” - Jennifer Wild
4 November 2016- 7 January 2017
Thessaloniki Centre of Contemporary Art / Warehouse Β1 (Port)
INFO:
Ministry of Culture
STATE MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART
Kolokotroni 21, Stavroupolis, 56430 Thessaloniki
Τ: 2310 589141 & 3, F: 2310 600123
www.greekstatemuseum.com, info@greekstatemuseum.com
SMCA Public Relations & Communications Dept
Contact: Chryssa Zarkali
Τ: 2310 589152 / Κ 6945114343
press@greekstatemuseum.com, pr@greekstatemuseum.com, www.greekstatemuseum.com
