Eminent domain

Participating artists: Marina Velisioti, Evi Kalogiropoulou, Byron Kalomamas, Eleni Kotsoni, Giorgos Nikas, Eric Stephany, Despina Haritonidi & Panos Profitis
 

Thursday 22 December, 19.00 - 22.00 /
Marina Velisioti, Eleni Kotsoni

Saturday 7 January, 19.00 - 22.00 /
Evi Kalogiropoulou, Byron Kalomamas, Giorgos Nikas

Saturday 11 February 19.00 - 22.00 /
Despina Haritonidi & Panos Profitis,  Eric Stephany

"Eminent domain" is an homage to artists of previous generations who lived, worked, inspired and left their mark on the city of Athens. Starting from Spyros Vassiliou's painting "A Visit to the Demolished House of Parthenis" - a work with which three emblematic figures of Greek art and architecture, K. Parthenis, D. Pikionis and Sp. Vasileiou are associated -, an invite is addressed to contemporary visual artists to open a creative dialogue with them and the city of Athens itself.

Coincidences, connections of people, entanglements of works, parallel histories, common places, recurring patterns, similar starting points, same endings. Through the direct or oblique confrontation, juxtaposition, interchange and intertwining of works of the past and new ones, through the rediscovery of older histories of the city and the invention of new ones, we may see how Athens has changed (or not) over time, how its landscape and inner life has been transformed (or not), how it continues to mutate through the ages. 

Through the story of Parthenis' house, from which he was forcibly evicted in 1967 to be demolished, the term of eminent domain, refined through cultural forms of the past, reappears. An institution intertwined with the right of private ownership of urban space and its transfer to public use and perhaps one of the most direct and characteristic manifestations of the engagement of the private with the public. Yet other concepts such as real-estate auctioning, gentrification, the homogenisation of the urban landscape, the involvement of the State in forming urban space and life, the interaction of public and private sector to promote the priorities of city life and territory.

The artists Eleni Kotsoni, Despina Haritonidi, Panos Profitis, Giorgos Nikas, Marina Velisioti, Byron Kalomamas, Eric Stephany, and Evi Kalogiropoulou invite the public to revisit places in the city that signify changes and transitions, reinterpreting the way they occur. To return to urban places in which notions of the private and the public become dense.

Works of the past as indicators of the evolution of the cultural spirit. Points of connection and cohesion, places of synergy and interaction, moments of understanding and exchange. Areas of proximity and union rather than of intersection, distance and separation.

The exhibition is divided in three parts: it begins on Thursday 22 December with Eleni Kotsoni and Marina Velisioti, continues on Saturday 7 January with Evi Kalogiropoulou, Byron Kalomamas and Giorgos Nikas, and concludes on Saturday 11 February with Despina Haritonidi & Panos Profitis and Eric Stephany. 

The exhibition is supported with financial support and under the auspices of the Greek Ministry of Culture and Sports.

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