RE-Culture 4

RE-culture 4
ART NON ART
October 21st to December 9th, 2016
Skagiopouleio Center, Agora Argyri and former Municipal Baths – Patras.

RE-culture 4 will take place in autumn 2016 and its general context will be titled Art Non Art. In an era where almost everything is allowed in the artistic process this title does not necessarily mean much. Since today whatever an artist exhibits in an art space, no matter how extreme or strange it is, it can only be understood as a work of art, then little can really stay off topic. RE-culture 4 chooses to explore areas of artistic activity that remains unspecified, restless, uncharted. Hence, this event will host exhibitions that are related to Anonymous art, art of the mentally ill, reviews of Helladic PopArt and Psychedelia, graffiti tributes and the most outpost parts of media art and bio-art.

One of the main intentions of RE-culture is to operate educationally and in interaction with the society. Consequently, the next event will host a series of parallel events, workshops, seminars, conferences and lectures, intended to introduce the public to these issues, to link universities with the city and the local community, give voice to the people of art, to stimulate debates, to present, if this is possible, every different view on the issues.

Αrtistic director: Thanasis Moutsopoulos

Thematic Exhibition: Anonymous Painting
exhibition curator: Chara Barnasa
 
This exhibition presents, for the first time in Greece, artists whose identity is unknown. These artworks have been recovered from flea markets and junk shops and are provided from private collections. Some of these “anonymous” artists might be important, “famous” artists that their identity is not known (or will never become known) and some of them are appended to the amateur painters or «Sunday painters». Sometimes artworks are valid painting examples of the last century and sometimes they are artworks that are «so bad that they are good». It is certain that art history will ignore all these artworks, simply because we do not know their identity.

Thematic Exhibition: Art Brut
exhibition curators: Panagis Koutsokostas & TatianaDimou
 
Although in recent years there is again great interest in the art of the mentally ill or people who create outside of institutions, such art has not been presented often in Greece.

Thematic Exhibition: Art and mass culture
exhibition curators: Alexandra Vasilopoulou & Maria Nikolakaki
 
This Exhibition presents the development of art with pop elements in Greece and abroad from the 60s until today.

Thematic Exhibition: Psychedelia – The Greek case
exhibition curator: Nektarios Papadimitriou
  
This Exhibition investigates the presence psychedelic patterns in Greece and foreign works from the 60s until today.

Thematic Exhibition: Media Art
exhibition curator: Amalia Foka

Advanced aspects of media art.

Thematic Exhibition: Sound Art
exhibition curators: Panos Panopoulos, Panagiotis Vorrias

Presents the work of visual artists working with sound.

Thematic Exhibition: SexoMania
exhibition curator: Megakles Rogakos

The art historian and exhibition curator Megakles Rogakos notes: “SexoMania is an unconventional exhibition that explores the current uncontrolled sexual desire as expressed in the unprecedented phenomenon of Internet Sex Addiction with the anonymous, and therefore exculpatory, access to the ‘cybersex,’ which is for an increasing amount of people an escape from the often gray and banal erotic reality. It is hopeful that today 21 young artists (under the age of 40) in today’s Greece of crisis, regardless of globalized trends, are interested not so much about the superficial representation of sex, as its expressions, mechanisms, and extensions. Their works that are presented indiscriminately and without censorship in SexoMania view and highlight the full spectrum of the object – the subjective uniqueness of love, the charming dimension of perversion, and the critical position of the evaluation of our culture. The absence of rules and boundaries in art gives artists the ability to communicate freely with virtue, honesty and boldness whatever they are unable to explain with words or to share with their actions. Their guilt thoughts find eloquent expression in the visual arts.”
SexoMania is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue that includes texts of the curators for all the individual exhibitions of RE-culture 4.

Thematic Exhibition: Art and Propaganda
exhibition curators: Tatiana Dimou & Maria Nikolakaki

This Exhibition presents a series of works made in Greece from 1945 to 1980 where art and propaganda coexist within a common political purpose. Also, during the exhibition, a rare collection by political paintings is presented from North Korea, the last hermetic realm of our time …

ARTISTIC TRIBUTES
RE-culture 4 presents a series of tributes to artistic personas often moving beyond the limits of acceptable artistic practice and experimental-artistic directors.

Leonidas Christakis
exhibition curator: Nektarios Papadimitriou
 

Pandelis Pandelopoulos
exhibition curator: Nektarios Papadimitriou
  

Andonis Bathis
exhibition curator: Niki Papaspirou
  
Andonis Vathis is a sculptor, painter, model, poet, actor, researcher, publisher, collector of books and gallery owner. His particular artistic output applies the power of mass media and the practices of industrialized culture. His artistic voice, with sometimes obvious allusions and sometimes hidden, with ideas and forms witch define post 1945 art is a transient voice. Vathis comments with his visual ”game” the words of Robert Rauschenberg “….the whole world can be considered a gigantic painting” . His work is a visual ecstasy of communication. His newspapers have, as there main characteristic his own artistic production. Their publication in various colors, show their identity as a multitude of works of art. The pinnacle of his published work and his efforts to unite life with art is the ”Daily Vathis”.  The idea of publishing the ”Daily Vathis” came from the writing of the Brazilian director Glauber Rocha “The aesthetic of hunger” and from the adage of Disney’s extremely wealthy character Uncle Scrooge “A penny is a penny but many pennies together make a million”. Vathis highlights, differentiating a little the words of Rocha for the creation of his newspaper “My originality is our hunger and our greatest misery is that even if other feel this hunger”, they do not comprehend it.  

Takis Germenis
exhibition curator: Maria Nikolakaki
 

Julio Kaimi
exhibition curator: Kleopatra Tsirli
 

Open Call
Everyone Will Be Famous for 15 Minutes
exhibition curators: Chara Papadiamandopoulou & Kali Spiliopoulou
 
Alongside, there will be open calls for artists for many of the above thematic.

Also, lectures, seminars and educational programs will be organized for all the thematics and the tributes.

Moreover, we would like to inform you that RE-culture 4 will be non profit and relies on voluntary efforts of active citizens.