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Anathena
Curated by Marina Fokidis and Marina Gioti
Anathena is a group exhibition presenting works by artists based in Athens, largely unknown to the city’s ‘mainstream’ art world as- for years now -they use their self-devised production and distribution mechanisms. This parallel creative universe does not represent a movement or a self-manifested “scene”, but rather local undercurrents of small groups and individuals, who do not necessarily work, always, together while in their vast majority, do not insist on calling what they do as “art”. Although they share an embedded coding, in taste and style (like for example music impacts most of them on a very basic level) these artists cannot fit neatly to charts and typologies. Naming or characterizing their activity will make it loose its vital quality. ‘Cursed’ to an eternal adolescence which allow imperfections, they dare to transform ideas into actions through a rather immediate manner; and what seems to make them special might be the understanding of their art practice as a reciprocal maintenance. More often than not, they produce work outside the ordinary art world, within an inter-local network based on friendships, personal contacts, common influences and preferences, while not relying -under any circumstances -to an ‘institutional structure for the promotion of their work. This voluntary self-exclusion from the local art establishment is in a way an “anathema”. Totally lacking the polemic and anger usually related to the term, this anathema is gentle, and suggests more an attitude of romantic indifference rather than one of dogmatic denouncement. Anathena as an exhibition is an incomplete collection of works of such artists and artist groups. It has the character of a snapshot, documenting the work in progress of a diverse local “scene” which bears no predetermined aesthetic and philosophical affinities and which has existed for a long time before this exhibition and will continue to exist outside its limited time and space trajectory.
