ART-PRESENTATION: Weaving the Future (Athens),Part I

Before the women’s movement in the 60’s and 70’s, most women’s art was denied the title “fine art” because the techniques they used and the work they created was marginalized and devalued by the male-dominated art world. A hierarchy of the arts developed and was maintained by a common opinion that these decorative forms are less intellectually involved and serve only domestic and aesthetic needs.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Artists Archive

Ever since the 1980s, textile arts have been developing new forms and language involving many creatives along the way. Influenced by postmodernist ideas, textile and fiber work has become more and more conceptual. Various creatives are now experimenting with techniques, materials and concepts, completely pushing the limits of the medium. These re-born practices such as embroidery art, weaving, quilting, crochet and many others, have placed a new focus on the work that confronted social and political issues such as gender feminism, domesticity, women’s work, identity politics ανδ proved a weapon of resistance to the painful constraints of femininity. Showcasing the work of 20 Greek Contemporary women artists who incorporate knitting, crochet and more into their practice, Artshot Gallery-Sophia Gaitani and the newly founded dreamideamachine art projects present the first part of the group exhibition “Weaving the Future”. In the exhibition examines the way that the use of traditional means and techniques has brought craft back into the public sphere by using traditional craft techniques to make social and political statements. These processes and practices that played a key role in the past in society, economy, and history, are reinforcing the position of women and their role in socio-political developments today more than ever. The exhibition is based in the  concept of the Art Critic & Independent Curator Efi Michalarou, as she says “When I met and lived every day for 3 months with Janine Antoni at The Factory-Nikos Kessanlis the renovated at that time exhibition space of the Athens School of Fine Arts, during the exhibition “Everything That’s Interesting Is New” (20/1-20/4/1996), she was waving “Slumber” (1994) the blanket of her dreams. Every night she was sleeping inside the exhibition space connected with an  electroencephalogram (EEG) system that recorded her dreams, and during the day she was waving on her own postmodern loom the blanket she was using at night. That time I promised to myself that I will organize an exhibition with women artists that are using in their practice traditional methods and means of expression (embroidery, weaving, knitting sewing, wool, canvas, yarns, fabrics) in a new way, mutating and  transforming them into contemporary sculptures, paintings and installations or come alive through performance, photography or video”. In the exhibition “Weaving the Future”, that is divided into two parts (the second part will be presented at the space of dreamideamachine art projecst on September 2019) the artists have pushed the boundaries of what can be considered a textile, as well as how a textile can be considered art. Artemis Alcalay in her work is using the home as a symbolic melting pot that embraces the human drama, redefines it conceptually so that in every shape human life is being promoted as an archetype. Vicky Vasileiou embroiders on canvas architectural elements from of personal journey-research in the abandoned villages near the city of Florina, Greece. Penny Geka weaves objects that their semiology is obvious, trapping them sometimes on the canvas or leaving them free in space. Konstantina Dounia  is observing the human being and the natural world and with the help of industrial materials, creates works that focus on the skin, balancing in between but with clear references to female identity and craft. Betty Zerva in her installations and photographs is using the traditional flowers of the Greek wedding Crowns, that “when dries becomes white”, winning forever purity through death, as if there was no death…Like the relationship of souls of human beings. Mary Zygouri presents an embroidered chessboard that turns into a field of poetic and existential narration. The Queen, the most powerful piece in chess, makes a series of moves, by imitating the way that     the Bishop or the Knight are moving. She is the Queen, she can move as she wishes, is not the rules that make the game but the opponent himself. Aikaterini Kanakaki, through her work attempts to visualize the first step both morphoplastically and philosophically. This is why the skeleton is chosen as the most appropriate form, an elemental form that is able to narrate in turn, the adventure of starting a structure, while flowers are deposited on the skeleton not to decorate it but as a preparation for its transformation into a different version of existence. In Evdokia Kyrkou’s  wall mounted works the thread has a crucial role because is used as a type of writing. The artist is concerned with the idea of Life (Yarn of Life) as well as Light and Shadow. The works act as carriers of stories that are transformed into memory fields according to the experiences of each viewer – psychological profiles. In her Installation that is on view, Evdokia Kyrkou expresses the need to re-write “stories” (white paper),  blended with the new developments in connection with cultural tradition (use of the thread). In her work the thread is used as a kind of writing that sometimes unfolds unobstructed and sometimes creates knots. Evi Kirmakidou presents a work from her series “knot- bindings” representing the balance, the solution,  the forms coexist, each retains its own autonomy, while closed shapes are designed in a kind of “buckle” or “knot” that refers to closure and limitation to itself. Vasiliki Lefkaditi using red yarn on unprimed cabot,  narrates the contradictions of the role of contemporary woman. She dentifies the yarns that link these contradictions, weaving the basic aspects of a perpetual reconstruction but indeterminate identity, that includes her position as a woman, wife, housewife, worker and artist. Her artwork “Epic of Gilgamesh”, is a recipe of baklava from a recipe book written in 1957 at Chios Island from an unknown woman, Athena Fournaraki, founded on the web. The works is an ode to every housewife. The performances of Evangelia Basdekis involve pain through the embroidery she in parts body that are of significant importance and refer to tortures like phalanx (Foot whipping or bastinado) using contradiction in her figures  such the image of Mickey Mouse or Mona Lisa, abundance and prosperity symbols in Western culture. Vicky Betsou through a πhotographic puzzle narrates  a new family story that reproduces not only the covering manual work but also the morals of a whole era. Georgia Paraschi is using throughout her course fabrics, by cutting, hanging, gluing and redefining them she creates a new world where the  human figure and the human relationships are key protagonists. Artemis Potamianou in her tapestry entitled “We will be victorious 2013” makes a caustic comment on how the stereotypes about ancient Greek history are translated into tourist souvenirs with the use of pop culture. Margarita Petrova encapsulates lace, dolls, plastic flowers, and sewing items in the old drawers of her grandmother, her works are sometimes look like intepented stories, sometimes like a dollhouse or a sewing machine drawer,  that contain all the materials that make up our world. Through a video and a video still, Fani Sofologi presents her 3-hour long performance ‘’The Painting, 2001’’, that was presented at the exhibition “One-night exhibition –37-58°Β/23-43°Α” organized by Filopappou Group at the old quarry of Filopappou Hill, Athens. As the artist says “I placed myself ‘behind’ a golden picture frame and I transformed to an ‘Embroidering Woman” I removed from the picture the scenery that existed around me, since it belongs to the sphere of the experience, that is to the spectator who voluntarily rejects it. The woman, isolated from the surrounding environment, look at a second frame, on a canvas-needlework, where she is embroidering her idol. Her act is projected in a tv screen that is next to the frame”. Maritassa Tsibmplaki creates an installation-mention to the  young girls of the past, that who were embroidering, an important asset for the future husband. /the woman-queen of the house, fermata of the house as our grandmothers said. An aesthetic and functional symbol, a symbol of honor and power. Margarita Tsouloucha in “…continuities” unites fragments of the past, the present and the future, today and tomorrow, she presents the continuity of life. Sometimes is replicated with discipline, sometimes is changed, but the key is always there. Her performace “The continuity…”, that is on show is a daily recording for a month and a half in a specific place where she sews and joins fabrics as a mechanical and repetitive movement. Dimitra Chanioti is proposing images that leave the viewer free in their interpretation and invite him to discover new ways of approaching reality in order to highlight his obscure sides. The core of her concerns is the current socio-political conjuncture and the dual interpretation of the messages in a chaotic information sea at the era of over-information. The use of embroidery as a technique is an element from the beginning of her work and symbolically mentions the importance of the cultural continuation of folk tradition and its preservation. Thalia Chioti draws represents and reproduces plans of already knows artworks, knitted with sweater wool, sometimes joined together and others join human figures, a clear explication  to human relations.

Info: Curator: Efi Michalarou, Artshot Gallery-Sophia Gaitani, 11 Lempesi street, Akropolis, Athens, Duration: 18/6-6/7/19, Days & Hours: Tue, Thu & Fri 16:00-21:00, Wed & Sat 12:00-16:00, www.sophiagaitani.gr