The positive response of the Domatio Team to the invitation for participation to the Athens ArtCore, an alliance between artist-run spaces, offered an opportunity to set up a show in a similar perspective as the whole festival. The choice of the artists, from our point of view, happened with aesthetic criteria. The scope is for the works to find the ideal balance, creating a visual rhythm for the visitor, that will experience the space as a full aesthetic experience, as they would perceive an installation. Each work should retain its dynamic and as a part of a musical composition it shall contribute to a sensation of completeness. Like a poem it has a title but not extended analysis for each part.

The title was the same as this year’s title of the festival and this is DEATH IN ATHENS, a reference to Death in Venice. As Thomas Mann and Lucino Visconti, this exhibition, this collection of works of art, deals with the human condition. Stagnation, lust, the perception of the self, the final death and the daily small ones, inner darkness, feeling different and rejection are thoughts that torment all of us from time to time. Yet, the artist uses trauma as raw material for expression and communication and through a not always verbal and aesthetic manipulation it is emitted to an audience, occasionally as a personal need or even as a bet with one’s self.

We felt, though, that after the latest collective experience, this title curried a weirdly ominous undertone, so it changed to “Surviving in Athens”, alluding thus to another great quality of Art, that of helping one survive.

Our art is as multilayered as our thoughts. Visual thinking creates an obscure sensory environment. This also describes how the works of art were chosen for this show. We aim to a sort of psychological movement from the side of the visitor that will derive from a state of perception that is not necessarily connected to speech.

We ask, is is possible to create Fine- and honest- works of Art that is not self-referential? Because the process of making is similar to depersonalization but it has a positive outcome. As spectators we see in some works of art our own limitations, our own darkness but the whole experience remains positive, it is connected with feelings of relief in not pleasure, as is described in Aristotle’s catharsis. It is also quite possible for an artist to make joyful art an outcome of a negative experience.

Grigoria Vryttia, art-practitioner/ curator

As artists, we invite you to get to know yourself better, through our work.

Participating artists: Agathou Anastasia, Botoulas Vasilis, Bouzika Ioanna, Chaidalis Constantinos, Charoniti Aristea, Darara Eva, Fornaro Elena, Giannaraki Natasha, Kontominas Giorgos, Ladianos Konstantinos, Panagou-Papadaki Stavroula, Parlamas Michail, Protopapas Dimitris, Roussioti Mary, Smak George, Stefanou Mary, Volkov Iakovos, Vryttia Grigoria, Yakoumakis Lefteris, Zinas Christos

The exhibition is on the 7th floor. To enter please ring the bell and take the lift on the left