HAPPY HOUR EVER AFTER 
Lara Nasser

Melanithros Project Space, Athens

Opening May 5, 18:00
On view May 5 - 27th, 2023

Presented by Arthur.io
For inquiries: [email protected]

Reincarnation loops. Airborne cats. A sci-fi gyro shrine. A strip club with no strippers.

At HAPPY HOUR EVER AFTER, these unlikely companions unite metaphysical and material expressions of the same thought: that existence is a circular, self-sustaining rhythm. Inspired by the principle of angular momentum (or spin), the exhibition considers the invisible connection of all things at the mercy of physics and time. The three room installation is Nasser’s first solo exhibition in Greece and a playful musing on cycles, continuity, and faith in the big wiggle of the cosmos.

In the first room a lone stripper pole stands awkwardly inactive, fake money scattered at the base. Accompanying the neglected pole is a psychedelic, seemingly educational video spiraling through life, death, and rebirth. Viewers are invited to watch, steal some fake money or, if they dare, climb onto the pole for a twirl.

Throughout the gallery nine cats cascade and tumble from the sky. At once amusing and tense, their suspended motion suggests that every entity is at some stage in a process. All ‘nine lives’ hang in a state of flux, surrendered to primal mechanisms beyond their control.

In the final room, a metallic triple-arched altar frames a marble gyro, performing slow and infinite rotations. Echoing the sisterhood between Nasser’s native Beirut and her newly chosen home of Athens, the gyroscope-gyro is a shrine to impermanence, inviting its spectators to recognize the divinity of cycles in even the most mundane of places — or snacks.

Lara Nasser is a Lebanese multidisciplinary artist living and working in Athens. After completing her MFA at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn in 2015, she worked in New York until making the move to Greece in 2023. Using sculpture, painting, and installation, Nasser celebrates the push and pull between humanity and the hapless rules meant to contain it. She participated in the Condo Art Fair at The Breeder in Athens, and had two solo shows at Meredith Rosen Gallery in New York. She has also shown internationally in Beirut, Paris, Berlin, Venice, Los Angeles and Mexico City, with playfully critical works that probe the laws of behavior and the joys of going rogue.