It's All Lies, by Natassa Poulantza, at Zoumboulakis Gallery, Kolonaki Square, Athens.
This is an interesting exhibition which I enjoyed. The exhibition comprises two sections plus the digital game-application-work 'Game of Fortune'.
In the first section (Out of Season Encounters) Poulantza appropriates works of well-known artists and paints them anew (acrylic on canvas) making copies. She then digitally prints portraits of famous figures (poets, writers, philosophers) over the painted surface. The overlaying of the paintings with the digital prints cancels them out and transforms them into something completely new.
The second section (Missing Piece) derives from the first section and consists of unique digital prints on paper.
I found the whole exercise really interesting even though I was disappointed that, with the exception of one woman, all the subjects portrayed were men, as were the artists that were appropriated.
Out of Season Encounters and Missing Piece:
Stalin - Lenin - Kalinin - Jackson Pollock (acrylic and digital print on canvas) (Out of Season Encounters)
Stalin - Lenin - Kalinin - Jackson Pollock (digital print on paper) (missing piece)
Nina Simone - Roy Lichtenstein
Nina Simone - Roy Lichtenstein
Marcel Proust - Barnett Newman
Marcel Proust - Barnett Newman
Oscar Wilde - Natassa Poulantza (after Willelm de Kooning)
Oscar Wilde - Natassa Poulantza (after Willelm de Kooning)
Friedrich Wittgenstein - Natassa Poulantza (after Gerhard Richter)
Friedrich Wittgenstein - Natassa Poulantza (after Gerhard Richter)
Andre Breton - Mark Rothko
Andre Breton - Mark Rothko
Arthur Rimbaud - Andy Warhol
Arthur Rimbaud - Andy Warhol
William Burroughs - Gerhard Richter
William Burroughs - Gerhard Richter
Dylan Thomas - Vincent van Gogh
Dylan Thomas - Vincent van Gogh
Friedrich Nietzsche - Gerhard Richter
Friedrich Nietzsche - Gerhard Richter
Walter Benjamin - Caspar David Friedrich
Albert Camus - Natassa Poulantza (after de Kooning)
Albert Camus - Natassa Poulantza (after de Kooning)
Vladimir Mayakovsky - William Turner
Vladimir Mayakovsky - William Turner
Game of Fortune:
The digital game-application-work 'Game of Fortune' is referring to the game of chance known as 'slot machine' or 'fruit machine', and invites the viewer's participation.
The application user presses the game's start button and the images begin to roll until they fix themselves into a random combination. A unique print signed by the artist is produced when the random combination of images on the computer screen reaches a satisfactory arrangement to the user.The resulting print is for sale.
Virginia Woolf
Sergei Eisenstein
William S. Burroughs
Hannah Arendt
Apologies for the quality of some of my photographs - reflection on glass is unavoidable.
