On the occasion of our participation in the online platform by Art Basel 2020, we cordially invite you today and tomorrow July 9th, 7 to 9 pm, at a new specifically designed place, in 39 Polidefkous, where you will have the opportunity for two days to experience in person the five artworks among the posters that have been created by Adrien Vasquez*.

Artworks in the viewing room are by: Iman Issa, Ian Law, Sidsel Meineche Hansen, Christodoulos Panayiotou and James Richards. As the visitors walk through the space, they will be able to see the posters that announce each work, which will be accompanied by the corresponding sound file.

Iman Issa’s The Revolutionary is a work that was first introduced at the New Museum Triennial The Ungovernables in 2012 and since has been shown several times: at the artist’s solo show at Tensta Konsthall (2013), MACBA, Barcelona (2015), daadgalerie, Berlin (2019), Kunstmuseum St. Gallen (2019), amongst others. The work is a fictional narrative, composed by the artist, based around the term “revolutionary.” It is generated using text to speech software.

Ian Law made Parallel for his first solo show make sure with Rodeo in Istanbul when the gallery was in between spaces, taking place in the domestic setting of an apartment. It was played to visitors from an iPod speaker dock as they entered the living room. A diagrammatic reading of friendship, the work is a monologue performed by the artist on negotiated space, the space between bodies, objects and the relationships at stake. It is the first time that the work is presented since the exhibition in 2012.

Control Room #2 is an audio installation by Sidsel Meineche Hansen, which was produced for the exhibition Real Doll Theatre at KW, Berlin (2018). Made in collaboration with Anders Hjortdal Andersen, Asger Hartvig and Holger Hartvig, the lyrics are performed through glitchy, mesmerising chanting. The installation formed part of the series PRE-ORDER I-III (exhibited at Kunsthal Aarhus (2018), KW, Berlin (2018) and SMK, Copenhagen (2019)), which reflected on the transaction between the commissioning institution and the artist’s role as both producer and product.

When James Richards represented Wales at the Venice Biennale in 2017, the central piece of the exhibition Music for the Gift was Migratory Motor Complex, a six channel audio installation that filled the chapel of the Santa Maria Ausiliatrice, creating an environment with fragments of recorded live singing and collected digital sounds. Laced together in a collage of harmonies, the ethereal audio transforms into a highly corporeal and emotional experience. Since Venice, the work has been exhibited at a series of solo exhibitions at Chapter Art Centre, Cardiff (2018) and Collective Gallery, Edinburgh (2019).

Christodoulos Panayiotou’s To Be Willing To March Into Hell for a Heavenly Cause (Utopian songs performed by Kristian Finne Kristensen) is the documentation of a performance that took place on a boat ride from the port of Piraeus to the island of Aegina, as part of Disco Coppertone, an exhibition curated by Locus Athens (2007). The performance comprised seven songs from Cold War American musicals, the lyrics of which make use of weather metaphors to refer to utopian projections of a better future. Every time the recording of the performance is to be presented, a poster is designed to announce it, which hangs in the exhibition space.

*The posters, designed by Adrien Vasquez, exist autonomously as a portfolio of six (one for each artwork and one that announces the booth) and are available in an edition of 200 copies, for a minimum donation of 100€. All donations go directly into supporting the operations of the Melissa Network, an organisation for migrant and refugee women in Greece, promoting empowerment and integration. The funds will be given as an emergency support towards families and especially women survivors of gender-based violence.

To make a donation to the Melissa Network:

Payment reference: Five Sound Works Donation

Bank Account Holder : Melissa - Network of Migrant Women in Greece
Address: 18 Feron Street, Plateia Victoria, 10434 Athens

Account Number : 19400200200240
IBAN: GR2101 4019 4019 400 200 200 2400
BIC/SWIFT: CRBAGRAAXXX

Bank Name: ALPHA BANK SA
Bank Address: MERKOURI BRANCH (362), 72 SP. MERKOURI ST, 116 34 ATHENS, GREECE

Please send an email to: [email protected]
upon making a donation