Zoumboulakis gallery is inaugurating its new programming for the season 2020-2021, with a group show of six Athens based artists that are employing different approaches, practices and styles to the depths within which we understand notions like trauma and healing. Turning the spotlight towards our intertwined connection with all that surrounds us, ‘The Loss and The Rest’ suggests a world of no chronicle or geographical borders, while opening a new perspective to our perception of materials and their effect upon us.
Participating artists:
Romain Cadilhon, Bryony Dunne, Dimitris Efeoglou, Charlotte Nieuwenhuys, Theodoulos Polyviou, Eric Stephany
Curated by: Georgia Liapi
Curatorial text:
“The Loss and The Rest” is shifting the gaze to something that is often unsung in contemporary life, either because it is deemed too obvious or too oblivious; our deep and intertwined connection with all that exists. Should we accept that we are all part of an integral whole, the disorder that we are currently experiencing on a global scale is perhaps a reflection of our obliviousness to the ‘connectedness of things’, which according to the British mathematician and philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, is ‘the essence of all things of all types’ (‘Modes of Thought’, 1938).
In his attempt to explain thought, consciousness, and reasoning, Whitehead suggests that understanding involves the notion of composition. If a thing can be composed, the understanding of it can be in reference to its factors. The notion of loss, often a depository of inspiration for artists, raises questions of possessiveness, certainness and placement. In a time of loss, we become disorientated, the world stops being familiar as we are pushed to experience things into a different realm. Channeling ’the connectedness of things’ we glean to the remainder (the rest), to remap our surroundings, restore and reshape the canon to make place for healing to reach.
Responding to a time where we are called to reconcile with loss and its ubiquitous presence around us, the participating artists are following the intertwined traces of different eras to weave together a story of a world of no chronicle or geographical borders. Exploring the past’s contemporary relevance to today, they are opening up a new perspective to our perception of materials and their effect upon us.
Borrowing its title from artist Eric Stephany’s poem, ‘Agapi’ (2018-2020), ‘The Loss and The Rest’ is tracing back to the notions of belonging, of losing and of the rebirth. Bending the seemingly rigid borders between established associations like the exceptional and the normal, the digital and the physical, the manufactured and the pre-existent, the ephemeral and the permanent, the old and the new. The gallery becomes a landscape, a site somewhere between what is known and what is to be found.
The specificity of the works’ source materials is central to the exhibition; vintage travel guides and household equipment, wildlife tracking devices and cruising traces of the city life are some of the tools that birth works spanning across a wide range of mediums and forms. Inviting the viewer to investigate the depths within which we approach notions like trauma and healing, through their repetitive artistic practice that is referencing the meditative process.
Each of the works are intimately tied to memory, desire and the sense of place, they evoke a reminisce of loss and the hope for rest.
In accordance to all the new measures regarding the safety of the visitors, please note that the mask is mandatory upon your entrance to the gallery space. The exhibition can be visited by a limited number of people at a time.
