Dimitrios Antonitsis
03 Feb - 12 Mar 2011
DIMITRIOS ANTONITSIS
Keep Calm and Carry On
03.02.2011 – 12.03.2011
Dimitrios Antonitsis’ solo exhibition “KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON” opens at the Ileana Tounta Contemporary Art Center on Thursday, February 3, 2011, at 19:30.
«There cannot be a crisis next week.
My schedule is already full».
Henry Kissinger
KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON, the maxim Great Britain would have employed in WWII to avert panic and mass hysteria in the event of a German invasion is now being brought into play by artist Dimitrios Antonitsis in an attempt to lift the nation’s morale in this “hour of distress”.
A series of sculptures is being presented for the first time, alongside video works and digital prints.
Antonitsis’ mordant style is adroitly epitomized in Carnival Royal (2010-2011), a cast aluminum reproduction of a frayed oversized Patras Carnival mask from the 70s that the artist salvaged from the trash. Antonitsis’ experience of political reality seems to be filtered into this kind of strictly personal totem, which conflates the boundaries between the genuine and the counterfeit.
In the same spirit, P.I.G.S. (2010-2011) offers a comment on the financial devastation of Southern Europe approaching it from the blurry emotional perspective of tradition. The work comprises a collection of bedspreads and rugs woven on a loom by a Hydriote grandma, which sport silver prints of the heraldic signs of crowned pigs. Could it be that the handmade products of the South appear “inferior” in comparison with the “high-end” products of Northern standardization?
In his three most recent video works, To Die as a Country #1, #2, #3 (2010-2011), the artist seems to be rethinking Modern Greek identity. He appropriates the title of D. Dimitriades’ famous book (1978) to focus this time on a TV series, “Queen Amalia” (1975-1976, EIRT/National Radio and Television Foundation), written by historian George Roussos and featuring Greece’s “national star”, Aliki Vougiouklaki, in the leading role. Antonitsis isolates three scenes from three different episodes and re-directs them using his own cast (Queen Amalia: Maria Bakodimou, Fotini Kolokotroni: Kate Lambropoulou, Senior Lady-in-Waiting: Elisabeth Lyra). Scenes have been filmed in the Tudor Hall Restaurant of the King George Palace Hotel before the huge diamond – a work by the artist himself – that adorns the space.
Greece in the 1840s provides an allegory for contemporary developments (in fact, the word “memorandum” seems to be the common “verbal” denominator of both eras). Amalia, torn by inner conflicts against a backdrop of events that culminated in the uprising of 1843, becomes the ideal canvas for Antonitsis’ ironic paintbrush and topical commentary. Eleven digital prints, imitating the style of photo romance novels (“Queen Amalia” was also produced on stage and adapted accordingly for readers of the Marie-Lena magazine) complement the videos, further stressing the sharp contrast between the poetic and the political. In the face of current dramatic events the artist manages to voice his concerns by weaving an aesthete’s narrative and eventually to offer viewers a way out of both the political impasses of today and the memory of a nightmarish historical past.
Keep Calm and Carry On
03.02.2011 – 12.03.2011
Dimitrios Antonitsis’ solo exhibition “KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON” opens at the Ileana Tounta Contemporary Art Center on Thursday, February 3, 2011, at 19:30.
«There cannot be a crisis next week.
My schedule is already full».
Henry Kissinger
KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON, the maxim Great Britain would have employed in WWII to avert panic and mass hysteria in the event of a German invasion is now being brought into play by artist Dimitrios Antonitsis in an attempt to lift the nation’s morale in this “hour of distress”.
A series of sculptures is being presented for the first time, alongside video works and digital prints.
Antonitsis’ mordant style is adroitly epitomized in Carnival Royal (2010-2011), a cast aluminum reproduction of a frayed oversized Patras Carnival mask from the 70s that the artist salvaged from the trash. Antonitsis’ experience of political reality seems to be filtered into this kind of strictly personal totem, which conflates the boundaries between the genuine and the counterfeit.
In the same spirit, P.I.G.S. (2010-2011) offers a comment on the financial devastation of Southern Europe approaching it from the blurry emotional perspective of tradition. The work comprises a collection of bedspreads and rugs woven on a loom by a Hydriote grandma, which sport silver prints of the heraldic signs of crowned pigs. Could it be that the handmade products of the South appear “inferior” in comparison with the “high-end” products of Northern standardization?
In his three most recent video works, To Die as a Country #1, #2, #3 (2010-2011), the artist seems to be rethinking Modern Greek identity. He appropriates the title of D. Dimitriades’ famous book (1978) to focus this time on a TV series, “Queen Amalia” (1975-1976, EIRT/National Radio and Television Foundation), written by historian George Roussos and featuring Greece’s “national star”, Aliki Vougiouklaki, in the leading role. Antonitsis isolates three scenes from three different episodes and re-directs them using his own cast (Queen Amalia: Maria Bakodimou, Fotini Kolokotroni: Kate Lambropoulou, Senior Lady-in-Waiting: Elisabeth Lyra). Scenes have been filmed in the Tudor Hall Restaurant of the King George Palace Hotel before the huge diamond – a work by the artist himself – that adorns the space.
Greece in the 1840s provides an allegory for contemporary developments (in fact, the word “memorandum” seems to be the common “verbal” denominator of both eras). Amalia, torn by inner conflicts against a backdrop of events that culminated in the uprising of 1843, becomes the ideal canvas for Antonitsis’ ironic paintbrush and topical commentary. Eleven digital prints, imitating the style of photo romance novels (“Queen Amalia” was also produced on stage and adapted accordingly for readers of the Marie-Lena magazine) complement the videos, further stressing the sharp contrast between the poetic and the political. In the face of current dramatic events the artist manages to voice his concerns by weaving an aesthete’s narrative and eventually to offer viewers a way out of both the political impasses of today and the memory of a nightmarish historical past.