Experimentum Crucis, curated by Rosa Anna Musumeci
participation at the exhibition Experimentum Crucis, στο ίδρυμα Arte Contemporanea Val di Noto
Italy, June 2023
Italy, June 2023
May 2023
May 2023
In the same room stands the “Golden Spear” by Venia Dimitrakopoulou, which is part of the museum’s permanent collection since 2019, since it remained there after the end of the exhibition “Primordial Future” organised in the museum by the Foundation for Hellenic Culture of Italy.
A retrospective of Venia Dimitrakopoulou’s work at the cultural broadcast “Logo Technis” of the Hellenic Parliament TV: A conversation with the artist on the contrasts that define her practice: the material and the immaterial, the private and the public, the conscious and the unconscious.
Follow the link to the full broadast:
18 – 21 November 2021
ROMA EUR LA NUVOLA – Viale Asia, 6 – Rome
DOMENICA REGAZZONI
VENIA DIMITRAKOPOUOLU
”We find beauty not in the thing itself but in the patterns of shadows, the light and the darkness, that one thing against another creates… Were it not for shadows, there would be no beauty.
At the heart of this philosophy is a fundamental cultural polarity. Unlike the Western conception of beauty — a stylized fantasy constructed by airbrushing reality into a narrow and illusory ideal of perfection — the zenith of Japanese aesthetics is deeply rooted in the glorious imperfection of the present moment and its relationship to the realities of the past.”
The quality that we call beauty … must always grow from the realities of life, and our ancestors, forced to live in dark rooms, presently came to discover beauty in shadows, ultimately to guide shadows toward beauty’s ends.
Since Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, we’ve seen shadows as a metaphor for the illusory and wicked aspects of life, for that which we must eradicate in order to illuminate the truth and inherent goodness of existence. And yet we forget that the darkness they cast evidences the light — palpable proof without which we might not appreciate or even notice the radiance itself.
Participating Artists:
Ashley Keeper (Studio: Brooklyn, New York – Tulum, Mexico)
Renate Aller (Studio: New York)
Steven Antonakos (Estate, Studio: New York)
Hope Atherton (Studio: Harlem, New York)
Agnes Barley (Studio: New York)
Venia Dimitrakopoulou (Studio: Athens & Aegina Island, Greece)
Shirine Gill (Studio: New York)
Everett Kennedy Brown (Sudio: Kyoto, Japan)
Michelle Yi Martin (Studio: San Francisco, California)
Edward Ruscha (Private, Collection, New York)
A.V Ryan (Studio: Red Hook, Brooklyn, New York)
Constanza Camila Kramer Grafias (Studio: Munich, Germany)
Alexandros Tzannis (Studio: Athens, Greece)
Panos Tsagaris (Studio: Brooklyn, New York)
Peter Wayne Lewis (OASIS Studio, Massachusetts University of Art & Design, Professor EMERITUS)
Karin Weisman (Studio: Long Island & Bridgehampton, New York)
https://www.venetiainitiatives.com/upcoming-modules/quieter-than-silence-upcoming
The artist Venia Dimitrakopoulou presents her work in the context of the five online lectures on “The Sacred in Art”organized by the Marie Blanche Library and the AINOS Cultural Association. Title of the presentation “Sculpting the intangible”.
Venia Dimitrakopoulou shares her personal experience and presents her own visual language by asking questions andsketching answers in a predominantly iconographic way. Are there any traces of the sacred in artistic creation today?
In an age of transition, like today, what can be the role of art and the artist? Presence-Absence. What is more powerful, the thing we see with our eyes or the thing that is captured and recorded within us? Finally, emotion or admiration? Two different ways to capture the work of art.
Participating artists: Markos Kampanis (16/09), Aimilia Papafilippou (23/09), Venia Dimitrakopoulou (30/09), Vana Xenou (7/10) and Christos Bokoros (14/10).
With the support of the Public Benefit Foundation for Social and Cultural Work (ΚΙΚPΕ) and the cooperation of the CulturalOrganization of the Municipality of Rafina (DOPAP).
Topic: MARIE BLANCHE LIBRARY LECTURES
Access the live lecture via zoom:
Zoom Meeting
Meeting ID: 870 6760 0582
Passcode: 945068
Organisation: Νίκη Τσιρώνη
Mob. 6932421060
Ainos Cultural Society
Mob. (0030) 6932421060
During the first lockdown I wanted to do something with everything that emerged unexpectedly, often violently and in unprecedented intensity. The need to resist this compulsory lockdown, along with the need of communication gave me the impulse. I worked with what I had in my hands. A piece of paper, a pencil, a mobile phone to record the things I wrote. I asked my friend and composer Panagiotis Kalantzopoulos to try something. I sent him a recorded text of mine and asked him to dress it with music. When I heard the result, I was surprised.
It seemed like at that time, despite the distance, two different worlds came together and shook hands. It was a warm handshake, at a time when touch was absent. Other texts followed, which led to the creation of Sudden War. An audio project consisting of 12 + 1 autonomous tracks that can be heard either all together or, like here in Back to Athens 8, in excerpts.
It is a work that talks about an unexpected meeting, about a stranger, about a strong connection and a war that suddenly turned everything upside down.
Everything is inside us. Light and darkness. Strength and weakness. Courage and fear. Hope and despair.
How long do they keep us captured?
V.D.
War and Peace Suddenly
Coming to the end of the age of handshake and touch, we invent ways of the same intensity and substance, in order to feel, to understand, to touch each other. One way that comes naturally to me is to try for the first time to accompany poetry and speech with music. In poetry the sequence of the words creates a vibration. When music is added, this vibration is intensified and multiplied.
It changes the nude poem into a new work.
They shake hands.
P.K.
https://achillea.gallery/
The scheduled presentation of the catalogue by Allemandi editions for the exhibition trilogy “Futuro Primordiale” and the pertinent exhibition in Milan have been postponed.
The presentation has for now been rescheduled for May 21st.
Primordial Future
An exhibition trilogy
Matter – Logos – Sound
ERMOUPOLIS, SYROS
Art Gallery of the Cyclades July 20th – September 1st 2019
Exhibition organizer: Municipality of Syros – Ermoupolis
Exhibition curator: Giorgos Altouvas
Exhibition design: Maria Maneta – Venia Dimitrakopoulou
Sponsor: Antonios E. Komninos Foundation