The show Nightwatch focuses on the aesthetic and cultural aspects that night suggests, such as nightlife, beliefs on vampires, werewolves, exotic fairies, but as well as the obscure and hidden human activities where desires, dramas and fears emerge from the depths of the invisible.

Along the invisible and the obscure folds of reality where the dark side of the unconscious takes form, Nightwatch also explores the visible, the luminous, where artificial light forged modern consciousness and the aesthetics of spectacle.The participating artists propose a specific look into the subject spanning from the ordinary to the fantastic and focusing on the complex interrelationships that Nightwatch might suggest.

Participating artists:
Kostas Bassanos, Apostolos Karakatsanis, Dimitris Foutris, Maro Michalakakou, Despina Meimaroglou, Nina Papaconstantinou, Beatrice Plumet, Christian Rupp, Yiorgos Taxiarchopoulos, Raphaël Zarka.

Nightwatch

from Tue 12 01 2010 to Sun 14 02 2010
opening: 8:30pm, Tue 12 January 2010

TAF (The Art Foundation)
5 Normanou str. 105 55 Athens, Monastiraki
info@theartfoundation.gr
www.theartfoundation.gr

Download
Nightwatch Press release.pdf

4/10/08 – 1/11/08
Cosmos of Culture
20 Metaxa str, Athens, Greece

Having William Dafoe's Robinson Crusoe as a starting point, the exhibition evolves between the fiction and the reality, the utopian secluded paradise and the ethical dilemmas that man is confronted with. The Island is the place where dwelling equals self-knowledge, in a pre-capitalistic colonial model of life, which reproduces in its basics human civilization.

The artists attempt a contemporary reading of Dafoe’s work, opening up its possible approaches and interpretations, in order to bring forward certain peculiarities interwoven with man’s hegemonic and inquisitive nature. The Island is paradise on earth, both a refuge and a prison, a place which disrupts the convention of time, where Robinson puts his powers to the test, he imposes himself on the island, setting boundaries and declaring himself absolute sovereign.

an art project conceived and curated by the artists:

Kostas Bassanos, Martha Dimitropoulou, Takis Germenis, Vangelis Gokas, Giorgos Gyparakis, Apostolos Karakatsanis, Maro Michalakakou, Nina Papaconstantinou, Beatrice Plumet, Yiannis Theodoropoulos.

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4/9 – 27/9/2007
Cosmos of Culture
20 Metaxa str, Athens, Greece

The title of the show makes use of the first name of the plant Atropa Belladonna to combine it with Vanitas, the vanity of human nature. 

The plant Atropa Belladonna or Deadly Nightshade has been widely used over the centuries as deadly poison, medicine, cosmetic as well as hallucinogenic drug. The name Belladonna originates from its use in the past by Italian women who used the extract of the plant in order to dilate their pupils and make their eyes more attractive. Apart from its use as poison and medicine in both modern and alternative medicine, it was also believed that the plant could cure lycanthropy and that even medieval witches used it in combination with other hallucinogenic substances. And as the folklore goes, it is only the devil that has the right to cultivate the plant, and kills whoever eats it.

an art project conceived and curated by the artists:

Evangelia Basdeki, Kostas Bassanos, Katerina Christidi, Dimitris Christidis, Martha Dimitropoulou, Aikaterini Gegisian, Maro Michalakakou, Nina Papaconstantinou, Nikos Papadimitriou, Yiannis Theodoropoulos.

...more