The materiality of the painterly event

City of Athens Arts Centre

Curator: Denys Zacharopoulos
11/6/2018-30/9/2018

Participants artists:

Nikos Alexiou (1960-2011, Greece),
Kai Althof (1966, Germany),
Herbert Brandl (1959, Austria),
Pedro Cabrita Reis (1956, Portugal),
Dimitris Efeoglou (1986, Greece),
Dora Εkonomou (1974, Greece),
Günter Förg (1952-2013, Switzerland),
Ivan Grubanov (1976, Serbia),
Athina Ioannou (1968, Greece),
Giorgos Kontis (1981, Greece),
Michel Majerus (1967-2002, Luxemburg),
Xavier Noiret-Thomé (1971, France),
Eftychis Patsourakis (1967, Greece),
Lila Polenaki (1964, Greece),
Nana Sachini (1975, Greece),
Adrian Schiess (1959, Switzerland),
Nikos Sepetzoglou (1979, Greece),
Mariella Simoni (1948, Italy),
Alexandros Tzannis (1979, Greece),
Heimo Zobernig (1958, Austria).

The title of the show is inspired by a crucial sentence of Michel Foucault at the end of his Speech at the College de France, 1971, The Discourse in Language)
" Of course, an event is neither substance, nor accident, nor quality not process; events are not corporeal. And yet, an event is certainly not immaterial; it takes effect, becomes effect, on the level of materiality. Events consist in relation to, coexistence with, dispersion of, the cross-checking accumulation and the selection of material elements; it is not at all the energy nor the property of a corporeal body; it occurs as an effect of, and, in, material dispersion. We may say, that the philosophy of the event should move at first, towards the paradoxical direction of a materialism of the incorporeal."
Michel Foucault, " The Discourse on Language", 1971.

In the exhibition are presented 20 significant artists of our time, all Europeans, covering the period of the last 4 decades and following each one a personal and original confrontation with the painterly praxis, questioning the limits of abstraction the relation of the painterly event to the space, to the gesture, to the matter, to the materiality.
From the 10 non-Greek artists, most have being physically present and worked and exhibited in the country since the 80ies, as also from the 10 Greeks most have lived and worked long in various European cities.

The Materiality of the painterly event*

City of Athens Arts Centre
Curator: Denys Zacharopoulos
11/6/2018-30/9/2018