Kostis Velonis
29 Mar - 04 May 2013
KOSTIS VELONIS
Gra(m)mary of Puppetry
29 March - 4 May 2013
Five years on from his last show at Monitor, we are now pleased to announce the opening of Gra(m)mary of Puppetry, new solo show by the Greek artist Kostis Velonis in our space. The artistic research conducted by Velonis takes its cue from a complex and illustrious artistic heritage spanning Constructivism to Bauhaus, besides drawing on the radical artistic currents of the late-Sixties and and different subspecies of the genus of Democracy.
With Gra(m)mary of Puppetry Velonis has charted a philosophical outlook on the world of theatre. Influences from the Classical world, where theatre was one of the major forms of expression and communication, have been worked into an exquisitely contemporary artistic lexicon to develop a kind of psychological ‘atlas’ that Velonis has constructed directly in the gallery, and which sheds light on the nature of object theatre.
Through drawings, photographic prints and sculptures Velonis offers a new interpretation of theatrical performance in which the marionette – in its role of object and storyteller – takes on a wider significance of a strongly political and social nature.
The structure of the artist’s vision – intended almost as a writing process – is used to trace the various stages of the representation together with the almost magical rules that guide it. The delicately executed drawings emphasise the genesis of the marionette -or object moved with the aid of strings (from the greek neurospaston). The collages instead stand as a kind of visual reference road map (Puppet Cosmogony) conceived as an assemblage of documents that deal with certain paradoxes and extremes in object theatre. Within the large spaces of the gallery, the humble, recycled materials of which they are made underscore the apparent abstract nature of the small-scale sculptures. As it turns out, the scale of the objects is a necessary requisite for an unadorned and minimal stage in which the actor – or marionette – is able to move and freely express him/itself.
Chus Martinez considers the sculptures of Kostis Velonis “to have some of the qualities of a manifesto [...]. Velonis weaves great narratives and vast ideological constructions into sub-narratives of personal struggles, passions and solitude. His work entails an infinite translation process. The final form of an object is determined by a collision between many interpretations, involving a coexistence between past heritage and the language of here and now.” Private Dictionary, Creamier (London: Phaidon, 2010).
Kostis Velonis (1968, lives and works in Athens)
Select shows: 2013 Hells as pavilion, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France; At Table and in Bed, Andreas Melas & Helena Papadopoulos Gallery, Athens, Greece; Direct Democracy, MUMA, Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne; 2012 Newtopia: The State of Human Rights, Kazerne Dossin Museum and Documentation Centre of the Holocaust and of Human Rights, Mechelen, Belgium; “Material and Culture” – MAK Center for Art and Architecture-Schindler House, Los Angeles, USA, MAK Schindler Scholarship, Architect in Residence. 2011 The promise of Happiness [SOLO], Signal Center for Contemporary Art, IASPIS Artist in Residence, Malmo, Sweden (2011); Building the Stage, Omikron Gallery, Nicosia, Cyprus; Melanchotopia, Witte de With Contemporary Art Center, Rotterdam, Netherlands; 2011 “An Elusive Object of Art”, Dana Charkasi Gallery, Vienna, Austria , “Utopia” , Lanitis Centre, Limassol, Cyprus, A Rock and a Hard Place, 3rd Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art, State Museum of Contemporary Art, Thessaloniki, Greece; 2010 Pastoral Dreams in the Days of Bankruptcy, Dana Charkasi Gallery, (solo) Vienna, Austria; Loneliness on Common Ground: How Can Society Do What Each Person Dreams, National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens, Greece; The Marathon Marathon Project, Acropolis Museum, Athens, Greece; Politics of Art, National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens, Greece. 2009 “How one Can Think Freely in the Shadow of a Temple” (solo) Kunstverein in Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany. 2nd Biennial Athens, “The World Question Center”, Athens, Greece.
Gra(m)mary of Puppetry
29 March - 4 May 2013
Five years on from his last show at Monitor, we are now pleased to announce the opening of Gra(m)mary of Puppetry, new solo show by the Greek artist Kostis Velonis in our space. The artistic research conducted by Velonis takes its cue from a complex and illustrious artistic heritage spanning Constructivism to Bauhaus, besides drawing on the radical artistic currents of the late-Sixties and and different subspecies of the genus of Democracy.
With Gra(m)mary of Puppetry Velonis has charted a philosophical outlook on the world of theatre. Influences from the Classical world, where theatre was one of the major forms of expression and communication, have been worked into an exquisitely contemporary artistic lexicon to develop a kind of psychological ‘atlas’ that Velonis has constructed directly in the gallery, and which sheds light on the nature of object theatre.
Through drawings, photographic prints and sculptures Velonis offers a new interpretation of theatrical performance in which the marionette – in its role of object and storyteller – takes on a wider significance of a strongly political and social nature.
The structure of the artist’s vision – intended almost as a writing process – is used to trace the various stages of the representation together with the almost magical rules that guide it. The delicately executed drawings emphasise the genesis of the marionette -or object moved with the aid of strings (from the greek neurospaston). The collages instead stand as a kind of visual reference road map (Puppet Cosmogony) conceived as an assemblage of documents that deal with certain paradoxes and extremes in object theatre. Within the large spaces of the gallery, the humble, recycled materials of which they are made underscore the apparent abstract nature of the small-scale sculptures. As it turns out, the scale of the objects is a necessary requisite for an unadorned and minimal stage in which the actor – or marionette – is able to move and freely express him/itself.
Chus Martinez considers the sculptures of Kostis Velonis “to have some of the qualities of a manifesto [...]. Velonis weaves great narratives and vast ideological constructions into sub-narratives of personal struggles, passions and solitude. His work entails an infinite translation process. The final form of an object is determined by a collision between many interpretations, involving a coexistence between past heritage and the language of here and now.” Private Dictionary, Creamier (London: Phaidon, 2010).
Kostis Velonis (1968, lives and works in Athens)
Select shows: 2013 Hells as pavilion, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France; At Table and in Bed, Andreas Melas & Helena Papadopoulos Gallery, Athens, Greece; Direct Democracy, MUMA, Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne; 2012 Newtopia: The State of Human Rights, Kazerne Dossin Museum and Documentation Centre of the Holocaust and of Human Rights, Mechelen, Belgium; “Material and Culture” – MAK Center for Art and Architecture-Schindler House, Los Angeles, USA, MAK Schindler Scholarship, Architect in Residence. 2011 The promise of Happiness [SOLO], Signal Center for Contemporary Art, IASPIS Artist in Residence, Malmo, Sweden (2011); Building the Stage, Omikron Gallery, Nicosia, Cyprus; Melanchotopia, Witte de With Contemporary Art Center, Rotterdam, Netherlands; 2011 “An Elusive Object of Art”, Dana Charkasi Gallery, Vienna, Austria , “Utopia” , Lanitis Centre, Limassol, Cyprus, A Rock and a Hard Place, 3rd Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art, State Museum of Contemporary Art, Thessaloniki, Greece; 2010 Pastoral Dreams in the Days of Bankruptcy, Dana Charkasi Gallery, (solo) Vienna, Austria; Loneliness on Common Ground: How Can Society Do What Each Person Dreams, National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens, Greece; The Marathon Marathon Project, Acropolis Museum, Athens, Greece; Politics of Art, National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens, Greece. 2009 “How one Can Think Freely in the Shadow of a Temple” (solo) Kunstverein in Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany. 2nd Biennial Athens, “The World Question Center”, Athens, Greece.