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Δελτίο Τύπου
«Είναι όλα ψέμα / Μουσείο αυτοεκτίμησης»
10 Μαΐου-21 Ιουνίου 2014
Κέντρο Σύγχρονης Τέχνης Θεσσαλονίκης (Αποθήκη β1, λιμάνι)
Εγκαίνια: Σάββατο 10 Μαΐου 2014, 20:00

Ζωγραφικές συνθέσεις, ψηφιακές εκτυπώσεις και ένα ηλεκτρονικό παιχνίδι «εικονοποίησης» της μνήμης και της απώλειάς της, σε συνδυασμό με εγκαταστάσεις, σχέδια, γλυπτά, φωτογραφίες, κολάζ σε μια φανταστική αίθουσα μουσείου ιστορίας πρωταρχικών εννοιών και συμπεριφορών του ανθρώπου, συγκροτούν τα βασικά στοιχεία της έκθεσης «Είναι όλα ψέμα / Μουσείο Αυτοεκτίμησης» με έργα δύο σύγχρονων εικαστικών δημιουργών, της Νατάσσας Πουλαντζά και του Γιώργου Τσεριώνη. Η έκθεση θα φιλοξενηθεί στο Κέντρο Σύγχρονης Τέχνης του ΚΜΣΤ (Αποθήκη Β1-λιμάνι της Θεσσαλονίκης, από τις 10 Μαΐου έως τις 21 Ιουνίου 2014, σε επιμέλεια του Γιάννη Μπόλη, ιστορικού της τέχνης στο ΚΜΣΤ. (εγκαίνια: Σάββατο 10 Μαΐου, 20:00 / ώρες και μέρες λειτουργίας: Τρίτη-Σάββατο 10:00-18:00. ξεναγήσεις κάθε Σάββατο, από 31.05, ανοιχτές στο κοινό, με το εισιτήριο εισόδου).

Η έκθεση – Οι ενότητες – Τα έργα – Οι καλλιτέχνες

Η πρόταση «Είναι όλα ψέμα» της Νατάσσας Πουλαντζά περιλαμβάνει δύο ενότητες έργων. Στην πρώτη («Ανεπίκαιρες συναντήσεις»), ζωγραφίζει εκ νέου, έργα γνωστών καλλιτεχνών επάνω στα οποία εκτυπώνει ψηφιακά πορτρέτα από σημαντικές προσωπικότητες, κυρίως του 19ου και 20ού αιώνα. Η νέα ζωγραφική επιφάνεια λειτουργεί ως ένας χώρος προσωπικών σημειώσεων, ενώ η συνύπαρξη είναι τυχαία, χωρίς να υπάρχει η πρόθεση δημιουργίας συγκεκριμένης αφήγησης ή εννοιολογικής σύνδεσης. Η δεύτερη ενότητα «... missing piece...» προέρχεται απ' ευθείας από την πρώτη και αποτελείται εξ' ολοκλήρου από μοναδικές ψηφιακές εκτυπώσεις σε χαρτί. Το τμήμα του ζωγραφικού έργου που επικαλύφθηκε-χάθηκε κάτω από την ψηφιακή εκτύπωση της πρώτης ενότητας, αναδύεται εδώ, σε ένα νέο αυτόνομο έργο.

Ταυτόχρονα, η καλλιτέχνης παρουσιάζει ένα πρωτότυπο έργο - ψηφιακή εφαρμογή, με τίτλο «Game of Fortune». 1500 επισκέπτες της έκθεσης θα έχουν την ευκαιρία να «παίξουν» με τη ψηφιακή εφαρμογή σε ένα All-in-One Desktop της Dell Greece και να αποκτήσουν δωρεάν ένα μοναδικό ψηφιακό έργο από την ενότητα «... missing piece...», υπογεγραμμένο από τη δημιουργό

Βιογραφικό
Η Νατάσσα Πουλαντζά γεννήθηκε στο Αννόβερο της Γερμανίας, ζει και εργάζεται στην Αθήνα και στο Βερολίνο. Αποφοίτησε από την Α.Σ.Κ.Τ. το 1992 και συνέχισε με μεταπτυχιακές σπουδές (1992–1996), στην Ακαδημία του Μονάχου στον τομέα της Ζωγραφικής από όπου αποφοίτησε με τον τίτλο «Meisterschuele».
Έχει παρουσιάσει τη δουλειά της σε ατομικές και ομαδικές εκθέσεις στην Ελλάδα και το εξωτερικό. Είναι μέλος της ομάδας Provo Principles.

Παράλληλα με την έκθεση, στο Project room του ΚΣΤΘ θα παρουσιάζεται ανά εβδομάδα μία σειρά βίντεο προβολών με τίτλο Time Lapse την οποία προτείνουν ως παράλληλη και συμπληρωματική δράση στην έκθεσή τους ο Γιώργος Τσεριώνης και η Νατάσσα Πουλαντζά. Οι καλλιτέχνες που συμμετέχουν είναι οι : Κυριάκος Χατζημιχαηλίδης, Αντρέας Βούσουρας, Εύα Μαραθάκη, James Lane, Μηνάς Ν Μηλιαράς, Νίκος Γιαβρόπουλος.

χορηγός καταλόγου

Social Doo

υποστηρικτής του Game of Fortune

Dell Greece

ΚΕΝΤΡΟ ΣΥΓΧΡΟΝΗΣ ΤΕΧΝΗΣ ΘΕΣΣΑΛΟΝΙΚΗΣ
Αποθήκη Β1, Λιμάνι - Τ.Θ. 107 59, 54110 Θεσσαλονίκη
Τ: 2310 593270
www.cact.gr, info@cact.gr

'A.R.A.W'.' 2014 

10/05-21/06/2014
Exhibition: "It is all lies – Museum of self-esteem" Natassa Poulantza
The artwork in the age of digital reproduction

Does the notion of originality maintain any value or meaning in the digital age of free access to images, massive reproduction and easy appropriation? What is the criterion that distinguishes the original creation from copy? Natassa Poulantza articulates her work in two complementary units; In the first part Out of Season Encounters she chooses to put in dialogue certain emblematic and subversive personalities from the area of literature and philosophy during the last two centuries together with the works of great painters. Her final composition bears the traits of a chance meeting based on aesthetic values and make no allusion to internal associations. She thus puts forward the issue of the art work in the age of mechanical reproduction, posed by Walter Benjamin in 1936, but furthermore she makes her own statement around one of the basic modernist demands for an authentic, subjective interpretation of the human condition. Her initial source of images is the website. She constructed her personal portrait gallery using the topos of inexhaustible and impersonal information. Natassa Poulantza adopts a critical position towards the limits of internet utility, by selecting and appropriating certain digital portraits. She then inserts these images in the pictorial spaces she has already painted after famous painters paying tribute or trying to recall their contribution to the history of the genre. Next step is what she calls ...missing piece... There, she creates her new forms through the act of deduction. By taking away the surroundings she leaves her figures floating in and unspecified context, but in the same time the works convey the impression of melting people and landscape. The missing part reinforces the conceptual power of the work, since it offers the necessary space for arbitrary recollections and selective changes of meaning. The logic of random encounter allows an indefinite multiplication, so that millions of combinations between men and landscapes might take place, a procedure that goes beyond the limits of massive reproduction. This technique makes the final composition a personalized and authentic product. Depicted figures appear in the way the painter chooses to remember and re-introduce them to our visual panorama. If every life’s present is composed through the multiple layers of the pasts that we keep in our memory and the absence of those we choose to forget –something that we basically do throughout our lives with people in ideas that affect our worldview- Natassa Poulantza’ s latest work may be the most personal and original one till now.
Syrago Tsiara
Art Historian

State Museum of Contemporary Art, Greece http://www.greekstatemuseum.com/kmst/exhibitions/article/868.html THESSALONIKI CENTER OF CONTEMPORARY ART Pier A, Warehouse B1, Port of Thessaloniki www.cact.

GAME OF FORTUNE
10/05-21/06/2014  

Application Software / Design: Minas N Miliaras
Organization - Coordination: Anneta Papadatou
supported by Dell
Application Copyrights: Natassa Poulantza

Natassa Poulantzas, “It's all lies- Game of Fortune”:
A study on the work of art and its technical reproduction
“The work of art is a composition: A power station” Walter Benjamin, One Way Street (1928)
The works of Natassa Poulantzas It is all lies - Game of Fortune are essentially a study on a subject matter that lies at the core of late modern reflection regarding the work of art. It looks at the technological transformation of a work of art and the multiple ways in which it mediates, first, the relationship both with its creator and its recipient and, secondly, the ontological, cognitive and evaluative categories through which we are encouraged to understand it. The relationship between art and technique is undoubtedly a constant concern of modern philosophy and art theory. At the critical juncture represented by Interwar thinking the issue regarding the technical reproduction of a work of art gains a new importance, as the emergence of new forms of art, and especially cinematography, portrays current events in a unique style even for our time. What is, nevertheless unique for our time is that, for the first time, the relationship between art and technique is threatened with an actual reversal due to the conversion from a quantitative turn around to a qualitative one. In other words, because of the exaggerated use of technical means in artistic creation, technological change threatens to lead to the “technicization” of the artwork, or to the latter’s conversion into something other than the unique and exclusive product of artistic creation. For Walter Benjamin, this threat is summarized in an observation on the work of art’s loss of worth due to the decline of its “here and now” in addition to the loss of the “aura” for which there can be no exact technical replica. Hence, because of its technical reproduction the loss of the artwork’s “aura” leads to a “process of de-enchantment” when it’s being transformed into to a simple object or thing, as its unique and genuine existence is substituted with a mass perceived and potentially inauthentic existence. However, a number of Benjamin’s other observations give rise to a more welcoming approach, such as establishing a new stance that is inaccessible to the “authentic” artwork’s perceptual conditions or thanks to this artistic reproduction, new relationships between the art work and its recipients are established. This complex issue is summed up in Poulantzas’ visual works, whereas the relationship between art and technique is posed in new, less divisive, terms. While, for Benjamin, as for most modern art theorists, the technical reproduction of artwork leads to the abandonment of tradition and the introduction of a compulsory mass dissemination of art, for Poulantzas, successive layers of tradition shape a unique kind of work of art that integrate a modern consciousness of science, intellect and art. This unique kind of work of art is defined as a palimpsest of meanings and compositions that are evidenced in its equally volatile relationship with its creator and its recipient. To an extent the recipient of the artwork becomes a shareholder in its creation in the capacity of user of digital means. This duality leads us to reconsider both the existing understanding of artistic creation, defined in terms of artistic, genius and its exhibition value conceived in contrast to its use value. In reality, new digital technologies do not simply function here as a means to technically reproduce art work, as they intervene in the whole spectrum of relations, that is the work of art’s relationship with its author and its recipients. These relationships lean toward a new and unique kind, one that goes beyond the dualisms of original/copy, unique/replica, authentic/technically reproduced. At the same time, Poulantzas shows that new digital means with their unique functions lead to a radical transformation of a work of art’s property status which in turn inevitably questions its authenticity. In this sense, the visual works of Poulantzas constitute significant evidence for the need to reconcile artistic experience with contemporary technological life world, highlighting in a radically new sense the wide range of art’s horizon of meaningfulness.
Golfo Maggini
University of Ioannina-Department of Philosophy
(Ioannina, April 2014)
(Translated by Irene Maragos)


The Art Application that is entitled Game of Fortune and was presented during the exhibition, makes reference to a game of chance that is known as “Slot Machine”. The Art Application images 'run' in columns and feature edited artworks by well-known artists in the first column and portraits of well-known thinkers of the 19th and 20th century in the second one. The player-user of the Art Application, pushes the start button and the images begin to 'roll' until they stop randomly, revealing a combination merged and presented in the third column of the screenplay. Whenever and if the player-user is satisfied by the outcome of the random combination, proceeds in printing a unique work of art, on an archival A4 size paper, signed by the artist. The Game of Fortune provides 5880 unique image combinations from which 1500 signed works of Art were given gratis during the exhibition.

Invitation Cact - "It is all lies - Museum of self-esteem"
10/05-21/06/2014 

It is all lies Natassa Poulantza presents a series of works that she started working in 2010, a series that extends till today and is constantly widening, evolving, is enriched and is placed in present tense. With a systematic way, a personal incorporation, a key concern and a conscious attitude, the artist explores crucial issues that are related with knowledge, communication, the function of memory, reality and its digital version, the endoscopic procedure of artistic production, the different versions of things and situations beyond their apparent facet and the certainties-their refutation and their excess, suggesting a tour in a world of images where the limits between reality and lies are relevantly fluid and always redefined. She achieves that not in a narrative and descriptive way but internally and structurally with her visual “writing” and her turning towards the deeper essence of her quests. These are works in which the dominant idea coexists with the hi quality of their technical making and completion and at the same time they compose a complete proposal and deposit, an interactive and bidirectional visual environment – imaginative and original- rich in substance, with multiple readings and approaches, forming a welcoming frame of visual observation, motivating the participation – complicity relations between the images and the viewer, exacerbating the constant vigilance of the eye and its perceptual background and the possibilities of its sensory and mental employment. The general title It is all lies (partly enlightening, in any case ambivalent) isn’t an affirmation or an axiomatic finding, denying after all a one dimensional interpretation. The series consists of two sections. In the first one (Out of season encounters) Natassa Poulantza starting from well known artists’ works, she paints them anew (acrylics on canvas) making copies. Then she prints digitally directly onto the surface portraits of famous important personalities –poets, writers, philosophers– mostly of the 19th and 20th century. The compositions of William Turner, Gerhard Richter, Barnett Newman, Willem de Kooning, Vincent Van Gogh and Roy Lictenstein meet the faces of William S. Burroughs, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Albert Camus, Friedrich Nietzsche, Marcel Proust, Oscar Wilde, among others. The superposition of the works with the prints, cancels them, turning them into something completely new, defining for Natassa Poulantza a kind of notes, a space upon where she collects information. The meetings, as is emphatically stated, are “untimely and random” without any intention of a certain narrative or conceptual connection and are based first of all in personal and aesthetical associations of the artist. The second section with the complementary title …missing piece… comes from the first one and consists of unique digital prints on paper. The part of the composition of the first section of works that was lost is now emerged as an autonomous work, cut from the previous painted environment and from whichever possible narratives and connections that the previous image has created. This is the missing piece-element, the distance that has to be covered, and the absence that has to be negated and filled in order for us to find the point of contact with the substance of the work. It is the implementation of the memory of the lost image, the desire for visualizing the memory, the exploration of a sense of loss that follows it, the way in which memory confutes or rewrites reality. Her work is completed with the digital game Game of Fortune, which requires the viewer’s participation; if he stays content with the random combination of images that results in the computer screen, he can go on and print an original work signed by the artist.
Yannis Bolis
Art historian - SMCA Curator