Greek Pavilion, Greece at Venice Biennale of Art - Greece Pavilion, Giardini, Castello - City of Venice
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Exhibition in progress from April 23rd to November 27th 2022
The 59th Biennale Arte will open to the public on 23 April. But on the 20th, 21st and 22nd there will be the various openings and collateral events that always suddenly animate the Venetian artistic life. The awards ceremony will take place on the day of the opening to the public.
The title of the 59th edition of the Biennale d'Arte is Il Latte dei Sogni that means The Milk of Dreams.
The invited artists are 213 from 58 countries. There are 26 Italian artists, 180 the first participations in the International Exhibition, 1433 the works and objects on display, 80 new productions.
In all, 80 nations will participate in the Venice Biennale in the pavilions at the Giardini, the Arsenale and in the historic center of Venice.
Go to the page of the 59th Venice Art Biennale
Greek Pavilion, Greece at 59th Biennale Arte of Venice
The title of the exhibition at the Greek Pavilion is Oedipus In Search Of Colonus.
Artists: Loukia Alavanou.
Curators: Heinz Peter Schwerfel.
Commissioner: National Gallery - Alexandros Soutsos Museum (represented by the Director, Professor Marina Lambraki Plaka).
Seat: Greece Pavilion, Giardini - Venice
Press Release of Greek Pavilion
�La Biennale di Venezia is considered the most high-stakes international
exhibition in contemporary art. With my film I wish to defy all fashions and
trends and swim against the current.�
-Loukia Alavanou
In Sophocles� Greek drama Oedipus at Colonus, the aged and mortally ill
Oedipus is accompanied by his daughter and sister Antigone to Colonus, a sacred mountain near Athens. This is where he wishes to die. For the first time,
he goes against the will of the gods, who were responsible for his tragic fate
and life. So he chooses Colonus, a holy place consecrated by the gods, as
his final resting place. However, the people of Athens intend to deny him this
wish, considering him unworthy.
Today, the Roma who live in the western part of the city, not far from Colonus,
also struggle against their fate. These nomads, who usually do not possess
any citizenship, are prevented from being buried near their last place of residence by the Greek authorities. In Loukia Alavanou�s most recent VR film,
members of this Roma community, who occupy a shantytown on the outskirts
of Athens, play the roles of the drama, becoming its amateur actors.
The 42-year-old Greek artist Loukia Alavanou is known for her collage-like
videos. She studied art in London, Brussels and Ghent and was awarded the
prestigious Greek DESTE Prize for her films, which are infused with political,
feminist, and psychoanalytical elements. With her work Oedipus in Search of
Colonus she is representing Greece at the Biennale Arte 2022.
The work not
only offers her perspective on the Greek tragedy, but thanks to a highly innovative 360-degree technology it is also a unique demonstration of the possibilities of film as an artistic medium. With the help of VR headsets, viewers can
truly experience the film, thereby traveling in time from the era of the drama,
written some 2500 years ago, to the social problems of today. While explicitly
political, her work is deeply rooted in the cultural history of her homeland�a
mixture of docufiction, video clips, parody, and the latest VR technology.
Curator of the exhibition is Heinz Peter Scherfel, a German specialist in the art
of the moving image, who is based in Cologne and Paris. This marks the first
time that a German curator is responsible for the Greek Pavilion.
Her film for the Greek pavilion is the first Greek VR film that tells a cohesive story. In parallel with her narrative, Alavanou also raises fundamental
questions about this new technology: �How will we want or be able to view
VR films in public space in the future? In a state of simultaneous connectedness and isolation, in an experience of aloneness and sharing with
likeminded others?� Four hemispherical structures will be constructed inside
the neo-Byzantine building of the Greek pavilion. The structures are based on
designs by the architecture studio AREA (Architecture Research Athens) and
engineer Dimitris Korres and are furnished with posture chairs inspired by the
work of Greek utopian architect Takis Zenetos. The artist describes the environment planned for her contribution to the Biennale Arte 2022 as follows: �For
his entire life Zenetos dreamt of spaces that would surround the individual and
function as networked but isolated clusters, where we would seem to be everywhere and nowhere at the same moment.� In Venice, this environment allows
visitors to escape the prevailing hustle and bustle and open themselves up
to a poetic, introverted, yet radical work of art.
Useful information for the visit
Hours:
Gardens from 10.00 to 19.00. Arsenale from 10.00 to 19.00 (from 10.00 to 20.00 on Friday and Saturday until September 30th). Closed on Mondays (except May 13, September 2, November 18).
Tickets: please visit the official website.
Phone: +39.041.5218711; fax +39.041.5218704
E-mail: aav@labiennale.org
Web: Biennale
of Venice |
