Yesterday we had the most surreal, bizarre experience that has left us both totally drained. I could say it was a Kafkaesque experience, except that I don't think that even Kafka had a clue about how awful, debilitating, soul-destroying Greek bureaucracy can be. This furthermore, was not in the public sphere, but a private bank. The Greek State is a hundred times worse than private companies.
We undertook our yearly trip to the bank. It's so daunting that we only do this once a year, when we have to pay the property tax. For this purpose and in order to have enough to live on, we transferred a substantial amount from our bank in the UK. After a half hour wait outside the building, due to Covid-19, and please understand I am not complaining about this, it's right and welcome that we should wait outside, but it did add to the awfulness of the experience, we proceeded to the cashier. I explained that we wanted to withdraw some cash, pay our tax and to deposit a small sum into someone else's account. Why did we not do all this electronically, you may ask? Long and bitter experience has taught us that this is by far the less painful way to do all this - I will not bore you with the details as this would become an even longer post. She asked to see my ID card, then the bank book. She then proceeded to tell me that our account was not active anymore as we had not been to the bank for a year.
'But, how can it not be active?' I replied, 'a very substantial amount, as I am sure you can see, was deposited last week'.
'It's nevertheless not active, because nothing has been withdrawn for a while'.
'But, we have a direct debit with this bank to pay for our electricity and water bills', I replied.
'It's nevertheless inactive. In order to make it active again, I will need to see copies of some household bills for the last two months, electricity or water will do, and your tax form so that we can verify your address and know that you are still active'.
'But, we have a direct debit with your bank for payment of those bills. As for the tax, here is the form we have downloaded that will enable us to pay the tax bill'.
'These will not do. I still need two copies of bills and your tax bill. What is your employment status?'
'I am retired'.
'In that case I will also need proof of your pension'.
'I was employed in the UK and this is where I get my pension from, it has nothing to do with Greece, I cannot give you proof of that as it's related to another country'.
'I will still need proof of your status as retired'.
Have I mentioned that we've been with this bank for twenty years?
By then, my head was spinning, rage was building up inside me, and Ken next to me kept prompting me to tell her the things I had been saying to her, as he could not believe the unreality of the situation.
In the end she sent us to one of her colleagues, where the same conversation was repeated. The manager then got involved, called us over to her office, and we went through the whole conversation again, over and over, going round in circles.
By now we had been in the bank for an hour, and I have to say, I kept my cool throughout. We managed to come to an agreement where we would walk back home, get copies of utility bills and the tax form, but not proof of my retired status.
An hour later, we were back. We saw a different bank employee, who made the other three look like reasonable human beings. She was uncooperative, rude and kept barking orders at me. The manager came over, explained the situation to her, asked her to help us and also asked her to close three other accounts we have. These accounts have small sums in them and we were told two years ago that we could not withdraw those sums because we had not used them for a while and they were consequently inactive - at the time we decided to just leave them be as we could not go through this whole rigmarole that we were now going through. The manager asked her colleague to close these accounts while she was at it and transfer the amounts into the one account.
I gave her all the paperwork we had brought from home: six pages of the electricity bill for each of the two months requested, and seven pages of the tax notification for 2020. She looked at it all and said that she needed my British national insurance number. I said that I kept my affairs in the two countries separate, my insurance number was in the UK and I had no access to it. I furthermore added that two hours ago I had been asked to bring in some paperwork which I had done, and now they were shifting the goalposts and asking for more. Again, I kept my cool. We went round and round in circles again, and she kept saying 'there's nothing I can do, the computer won't let me get on without the national insurance number'. By then I had almost gone catatonic: I slumped in my chair, lost the will to live, and kept thinking that I would never exit this nightmare.
Eventually, we had no choice, but to cave in: Ken walked back home to get my national insurance number while I waited, slumped in my chair. 20 minutes later Ken emailed her the number and she started trying to activate my account.
Needless to say, we did not manage to get everything done. The account was activated, the tax was paid, and we managed to withdraw the cash we needed. She said she could not deposit money in the other account because we had not given her the sort code. How difficult is it for a bank to get another bank's sort code when the two page receipt of last year's payment is there in her hands? She also refused to close our three other accounts and to transfer the money into our fourth, She said it would take too long to activate those accounts.
'But', I said: 'you have done one of the accounts. Now that all the paperwork you requested is here, why not the other three?'
'It will take too long. Come back tomorrow at 8:00 in the morning'. We were dismissed.
This whole process, withdrawing some cash and making one payment, at a bank we have been customers for 20 years, took four hours. Should I also mention the fact that we paid substantial fees for depositing money into our bank account and for paying a bill?
We have decided not to do anything about the other three bank accounts until next year when we will have to go again. I just cannot bear to go there again today.
But, after I have posted this, we will go to deposit the money into the other person's bank account - a different bank this time. I am dreading it....
P.S. With Brexit looming, my British friends cannot understand why I have not got my Greek passport renewed so that I can remain a European. I would love to, but keep putting it off. Is it any wonder?
Tuesday, 29 September 2020
Sunday, 27 September 2020
Ancient Vibes in Contemporary Ceramics
Ancient Vibes in Contemporary Ceramics at Mon Coin Studio, Keramikos, Athens.
A new gallery space, a few steps away from the Keramikos Cemetery, home to Athens' famous pottery workshops, where all sorts of craftsmen exhibited and sold their work. That was 2,500 years ago. Ancient Vibes in Contemporary Ceramics is the gallery's debut event.
35 artists and makers are participating in this exhibition, with works that tap into ancient ceramics and mythical narratives for inspiration, exploring how the 'echo' of ancient Greek art resonates in contemporary creations. The works reflect on classical antiquity, the Minoan civilisation, Cycladic art and the works of primitive communities.
As I write this, I realise that none of the above is reflected in the photographs I took, and consequently, I have not done justice to this exhibition: I concentrated on pieces I like and in the context of what is exhibited, it's a very narrow range. Oh well. Hindsight is a great thing.
Myrto Lykoppoulou:
Ilias Christopoulos:
Katerina Latouri:
Maru Melenou:
On the stairs:
Friday, 25 September 2020
Tuesday, 22 September 2020
The politics of art at EMST
The Politics of Art at EMST.
The second floor of the museum is dedicated to political art. We took the internal stairs from the third floor that lead down to the second, and from the top of the stairs, we could see
Jannis Kounellis, Untitled, 2004 (iron, coal, wooden boards, tripods and burlap sacks)
Untitled, 2004, is a monumental installation of iron girders, cross-shaped and at an angle to the floor. The table alludes to a sacrificial altar, and the overall space turns into an experimental, austere setting.
Associated with the Arte Povera movement in the 1960s, Kounellis created sculptures and installations out of everyday materials that trigger the memory and the feeling of history. Human alienation in contemporary society is the main theme of his work. He often juxtaposes materials of the mass urban and industrial civilisation with symbols and values of the pre-industrial world.
Dimitris Alithinos, A Happening, 1973, (plaster, wood, tape recorder, lamp)
Dimosthenis Kokkinidis, from the series ... And Regarding the Remembrance of Evils... 1967-1997
(acrylic on conservation cardboard stuck on sea-water resistant plywood)
An artist with a powerful social and political discourse, Kokkinidis started this series as soon as the military dictatorship was imposed in 1967. Starting from the photos of uniformed officers that filled the contemporary Press, he records the dramatic events of the time on some packaging cardboard he found in a corner of his studio. Most of the series had been completed by December 1967, but the works remained hidden in the studio; some of them were first shown to the public 30 years later, in 1997, at the Astra Gallery.
Emily Jacir, Memorial to 418 Palestinian Villages which were Destroyed, Depopulated and Occupied by Israel in 1948, 2001 (refugee tent, embroidery thread, record book)
Artist and activist Emily Jacir investigates unknown historical narratives and their role in shaping collective memory. For this work Jacir invited to her studio volunteers from different countries, including Palestinians and Israelis, in order to embroider on an UNRWA refugee tent the names of the Palestinian villages that were destroyed by Israeli expansionism. The creative procedure (sewing with a black thread collectively by a group of people) is a reference to the collective trauma, and the tent itself becomes something more than an art project; it becomes a site of inclusion and participation.
Hogen Ergun, The Flat (Bayraki), 2006 (two-channel synchronised video projection, colour with sound)
Through this narrow entrance to a small room beyond, with more installations
Kendell Geers, Akropolis Redux (The Director's Cut), 2004 (security fencing, steel shelves)
South African artist Kendell Geers has used dangerous materials to make a latter-day Parthenon with allusions to apartheid and all kinds of division.
Francis Alys, Camgun #84, 2008 (wood, metal, plastic, film reel, oil and pencil on transparent paper)
The Camguns series consists of drawings and replicas of machine guns made of wood and metal, with film reels in place of ammunition belts. The inspiration for these 'gun cameras' came from the makeshift weapons used by the Zapatistas in Mexico. When an act of violence is recorded by the lens, it acquires a different gravity, as it can be screened and become historical testimony.
Aspa Stassinopoulou, Untitled, 1980 (wood, metal, photographic emulsion)
Friday, 18 September 2020
Vlassis Caniaris at EMST
Vlassis Caniaris at EMST
In his artistic practice, which spanned 50 years, Caniaris adopted a critical position on political and social events, using mainly found objects. Two years into the junta in Greece he was forced to leave the country due to his work's apparent criticism of the authorities.
During that time there was also a growing global crisis concerning the numbers of migrant workers in Europe. Many of these workers from Southern Europe had been allowed to enter countries in the North to contribute in the Wirtschaftswunder (economic miracle) in an attempt to rebuild their economics after WW2. However, after the 1973 crisis, these same countries began to close their borders in an attempt to protect their own citizens. Caniaris brought these issues together in his artistic practice. In the early 1970s he began to focus on matters of national identity, social inequality and immigration and produced his most significant works.
Hopscotch, 1974, ( part of the Immigrant series). (6 human figures, 9 suitcases, 1 cage, tar-paper base, chalk drawing of hopscotch)
After WWII, and particularly in the 1960s and 1970s, hundreds of thousands of Greeks emigrated abroad.
Headless dummies standing around a hopscotch court where, instead of chalked numbers, words are inscribed alluding to stages and mechanisms of labour immigration policy. Caniaris focuses on diverse stories, voices, gestures, and ordinary objects relating to the working and living conditions of 'guest workers' - the migrant workers who travelled to Western Europe following transnational agreements since the late 1950s - reflecting the unstable reality of territorial displacement, social exclusion, national identity and contested citizenship.
Athens, as well as the whole of Greece, is full of political graffiti.
Aspects of Racism II, 1970 (plaster):
