On 24 September the winner of this year's DESTE Foundation Prize will be announced at a ceremony in Nea Ionia in Greece, where throughout the summer you can see the work of the six shortlisted artists, one of whom will be awarded a grant of 10,000 euros.
The DESTE Foundation, the brain child of the prestigious collector Dakis Ioannou, was established in 1983, aspiring to promote and showcase contemporary art in Greece. Since 1999, the foundation has supported exceptional talent "made in Greece" by awarding every two years the DESTE Prize to a young Greek artist living in Greece or abroad. The Foundation's reputation within the art world guarantees the shortlisted artists international exposure which is further enhanced by the international calibre of the jury. This year - the fifth presentation of the Deste Prize - will be judged by Dakis Ioannou; co-director of Exhibitions & Programmes and Director of International Projects at the Serpentine Gallery in London, Hans Ulrich Obrist; co-publisher of Frieze magazine Amanda Sharp; artist Pawel Althamer, and curator Laura Hoptman. The original selection of the artists was conducted by an "indigenous" five-member committee comprised of prominent curators, art critics, journalists and artists who undertook the difficult task of narrowing down Greece's creative zeitgeist to just six names: Loukia Alavanou, Nikos Arvanitis, Giannis Gregoriades, Sokratis Fatouros, Eleni Kamma, and Savvas Christodoulides.
"The artists' works reflect the interesting versatility manifest in contemporary Greek art scene, the chances that this scene stands and its divergence in relation to the international world of art, the hybridism and the practices that are under shape within it. Moreover, the composition of this year's group of artists manifests the differentiations in the point of view of the theorists engaged with this scene, the fertile dialogue and the expectations that each one adduces to it," comments Nadja Argyropoulou, independent curator and a member of the selection committee.
Loukia Alavanou (b. 1979, Athens, lives in London) works with video collages. The work exhibited is "Chop Chop", a double video-installation that employs a pastiche of images from horror films, Disney cartoons and early 20th-century family photographs to comment on the horror channelled through the cinema and the media. Installed in a pitch-black room that enhances the eeriness of the animated imagery, the work "floats" somewhere outside and beyond the screen's frame, recalling a perversely appealing bad dream despite the ill-omened atmosphere it generates.
Loukia Alavanou
Nikos Arvanitis (b. 1979, Athens, lives in Germany) is a versatile artist who employs a variety of media (video, music, drawing, installations, performance) to meet his every artistic need. In the exhibition he presents "Gimmie, gimmie, gimmie", a humming installation consisting of various manifestations of electricity - the indispensable power for technological advancements- as a means of exploring its co-relation with our mental and psychological state of mind.
Nikos Arvanitis
Savvas Christodoulides (b. 1961, Pafos, Cyprus) exhibits 'A place in the garden', a wooden construction comprising two wooden beams that lift the frame of an armchair on whose arms are perched two birds. The work takes up considerable space yet it appears to posses no volume. Its lightness and expansiveness invite the viewer to contemplate space, time and the notion of continuity in the same way he/she would do in the space of a garden.
Savvas Christodoulides
Socrates Fatouros's (b. 1975, Kalamata) sculptural installation 'Royal Couple' consists of two curved forms developing vertically in space. Their confluence gives shape to a new abstract form whose potent 'whole' stands out as a resilient figure.
Socrates Fatouros
Yiannis Gregoriades (b. 1971, Athens) presents a compilation of videos and photographs shot in tormented cities of the former Yugoslavia. His series of works "Yugo Panoramic" is part of a larger project initiated in 2003 titled "Arabophobia". Grigoriades is a modern flaneur, casting an observant eye to the every-day reality of cities where few people set foot on, shedding thus valuable light on the uncatalogued history of the Balkans.
Yiannis Gregoriades
Eleni Kamma's (b. 1973, Athens) work takes its cue from dandelion (Taraxacum officinale), a plant with medicinal properties, considered a weed by gardeners. The duality of the plant and its parasitic action is imbued with new meaning in her video animation (76 Days, Root and Branch), drawings and models (Acceptance Knitting Machine Model). Kamma draws inspiration from the plant's discontinuity and intersection with other vegetation to create utopian spaces by coping and pasting fragments of seemingly recognizable realities.
Eleni Kamma
The DESTE Prize exhibition
Until 3 November 2007
Deste Foundation
11 Filellinon & Em. Pappa St
Nea Ionia 142 34
T: +30 210 27 58 490
Award Ceremony: Monday, 24 September 2007
Born and raised in Greece, Marilena Astrapellou now lives in Athens, having spent five years in London. She writes regularly for variosu magazines including Intersection, Saatchi Online's daily magazine and Next Level. She also writes for the Greek newspaper ToVima (The Tribune) and Soul magazine.
)
)
)