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Stoa
Installation in progress
Paper, fabric, wool, wood,plastic, acrylic, variable dimensions
Eminent Domain, curated by Eleni Tsopotou, Stoa 42, Athens, 2022
Participating artists: Marina Velisioti, Evi Kalogiropoulou, Byron Kalomamas, Eleni Kotsoni, Giorgos Nikas, Eric Stephany, Despina Haritonidi & Panos Profitis
“Eminent domain” is an homage to artists of previous generations who left their mark on the city of Athens. An invite is addressed to contemporary visual artists to open a creative dialogue with these artists and the city of Athens itself.Through the story of Parthenis' house, from which he was forcibly evicted in 1967 to be demolished, the term of eminent domain, refined through cultural forms of the past, reappears.Yet other concepts such as real-estate auctioning, gentrification, the homogenisation of the urban landscape, the involvement of the State in forming urban space and life, the interaction of public and private sector to promote the priorities of city life and territory.Eleni Kotsoni creates the installation Stoa inspired by the area of Exarchia, where she lives and works, one of the most vibrant and politically charged areas of the city, field of conflict between citizens and the central state. Dismantled posters, burnt pieces of riots rubbish bins, wood, plastic and other materials, act as spolia, fragments full of stories, compose an installation with unclear boundaries, which like a living organism grows, climbs and occupies the surrounding space. As a being that feeds on the space itself, and lives between the inside and the outside, the private and the public, eating away at their separating boundaries and ultimately unifying it. A new gallery within the gallery, referring to the painting within the painting in the work of Spyros Vassiliou, on which the central idea of the exhibition is based. A tunnel which, with its walls, the rifts of its walls, the streams of its roof, forms an imaginary link between the Stoa42 and Parthenis' house through modern city galleries, underground tunnels and ancient galleries at the foot of the Acropolis.
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Stoa (details)
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Title. Double click me.
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Pyxis
Installation in progress
Acrylics, paper, paper tape, wool, variable dimensions
Installation shots of the group show Epistemologies of the Sun, curated by Marina Fokidis, Rebecca Camhi Gallery, 2022.
For the exhibition Epistemologies of the Sun, Eleni Kotsoni creates the wall installation Pyxis. The title refers to the marine's compass and, at the same time, to the pyxis, that means box in ancient Greek. Pyxis is commonly a female accessory that collects, accommodates, and embraces (all encompassing).
The installation is growing in continuum following the sunlight. It is a non-representational set of fragments of images that the artist combines with tapes and painted patterns inspired by the decoration of ancient vases (pyxides). Eleni Kotsoni assembles fragments of papers in the way that the conservator and the archaeologist assemble fragments of vases with the historical document in mind. The work climbs towards the sun like a living organism but also resembles a floor plan of an imaginary city that is expanding anarchically in space and time.
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Pyxis (details)
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The taboo teller
We'll meet again
Mixed media, variable dimensions
Kunsthalle Athena, Athens, 2015
The title of the performative installation The Taboo teller refers to an imaginary person that shares unspeakable stories. The artwork involves the procedure of frantically building and re-building a semi-suspended construction consisting of juxtaposed fragments. Paintings, drawings, papers, fabrics and threads are connected with the sculptured three-dimensional part of the space. It’s as if an urgent extrinsic requirement would spontaneously command this creation, ignoring causality, up and down boundaries, inner and outer space. A spontaneous process of weaving expresses how canvases are expanded into space, like a painting where viewers can get in.
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Hang 'em high #3
Mixed media, variable dimensions
Velvet room, Athens, 2015
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Border crossing bars
Mixed media, variable dimensions
Fotagogos, Athens, 2015
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Exception, adimolia
Ten Velvet Years
Mixed media, variable dimensions, curated by Nadia Argyropoulou
Romantso, Athens, 2015
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Paris est trop petit pour ceux comme nous qui s'aiment d'un aussi
grand amour
Mixed media, variable dimensions
Installation shots of the group show Trickster, curated by Costis Velonis and Alexandros Psihoulis
a.antonopoulou Gallery, Athens, 2014
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Sometimes to lie is the best way to tell the truth (solo show)
Wall installation, mixed media, 290x340cm
Fotagogos, Athens, 2014
The wall piece Sometimes to lie is the best way to tell the truth was created at the invitation of Yannis Karlopoulos and for the celebration of April Fools' Day. For the composition of this paper mosaic, fragments of Yannis' collection of photos were used exclusively, related to the concept of “spolium”. The aim was to create a diary or personal imaginary map with texts, photographs and drawings.
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Korumbo guardian spirit
Mixed media, variable dimensions
Installation shots of the group show Reflexions on psychedelia, CAN Gallery, Athens, 2014
Korumbo guardian spirit is a site specific sculptural totem. The artwork is inspired by the giant spirit Nggwal, personified as noises that can be heard coming from the ancestral place Haus Tambaran, in the Tambaran culture of Oceania. The artist transforms Nggwal, unguided and not at all friendly to women, into the guardian spirit of the exhibition space.
In a loose metaphor of the exotic atmosphere of the haus tambaran, where psychedelia converses with anthropology and art, the work recycles everyday scraps, turning them into colour.
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Yield point (solo show)
Mixed media, variable dimensions
a.antonopoulou.art Gallery, Athens, 2014
In engineering, the yield point is defined as the material’s thin red line: the maximum amount of pressure that a material can handle. As soon as this yield point is reached, the pressure applied is considered irreversible and the material is transformed, and from an elastic state it acquires a permanent, plastic one.
The show focuses on the transition from elasticity to permanent form or deformation. The artist is inspired by the graphical representation of the yield point, which is expressed by geometrical coordinates and specifically by the triangle shape and its multiple symbolisms.
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The artist and the practice
Mixed media, variable dimensions
Vamiali's Gallery, Athens, 2013
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The space between us (solo show)
Mixed media, variable dimensions
Antrepo 5, Istanbul, 2010
The site-specific installation «The space between» took part at the annual organisation of the «European Capital of Culture» and was financed by the Piraeus Bank Group Cultural Foundation, participating in this cultural event, at Sanat Limani-Antrepo 5, in Istanbul. The title refers to the relation between the two neighbouring countries Greece and Turkey and the controversies over sovereignty in the region of the Aegean Sea and territorial waters. Eleni Kotsoni uses fabrics, woods and beads to create boundaries and thus paths one should follow inside the artwork space. Sometimes paths are obvious and some others are transparent and invisible, creating confusion.
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DOM (solo show)
Mixed media, variable dimensions
a.antonopoulou.art Gallery, Athens,2009
Dom is a site-specific reconstruction of the exhibition's space that includes drawings, paintings and sculptures combined with various suspended materials. The artist creates a continuous set that runs throughout the entirety of the space and manages to "take root". The artistic gesture ultimately becomes a meeting point that invites everyone.
The title DOM refers to the dome as a shelter or civil gathering place. The inspiration for the artwork brings together the ancient Athenian agora with archetypical sites from all over the world: structures such as the Haus Tambaran in Oceania or the House of Words in Mali, are meeting places intended for all kinds of communal acts, rituals, rest, initiation, assembly, celebration and war preparations. Eleni Kotsoni is inspired by this exotic atmosphere and the impressive fullness of these public spaces where psychedelia and ancestral spirits coexist with politics, art and science.
DOM focuses on the artwork as an experiential reality and as a form of cohabitation. Musical meetings, educational programs and the performance "What is the question" ( Katia Goulioni, Thalia Protonotariou) took place during the show.
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DOM (details)
Mixed media, variable dimensions
a.antonopoulou.art Gallery, Athens, 2009
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The gate
Mixed media, variable dimensions
Β' Προβολή, Parko Eleftherias, Athens, 2009
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Dripping totem
Mixed media, variable dimensions
Ex-machina, Tsalapata Museum, Volos, 2009
The site-specific installation "Dripping Totem" was created in November 2009, as a reference point to the project "Ex-machina" that took place in the Museum Tsalapata from November 2009 to June 2010. Artists have been invited to create in situ installations in relation to the space inspired by its factory identity and original function. Concepts such as mechanical movement, chain production, transition from one state to another, were the central axis on which participants moved.
Dripping Totem consists of suspended materials and objects, processed and assembled through chained transitions, and owns its name to a visitor, who successfully likened it to a three-dimensional Jackson Pollock. From that point of view, "Dripping Totem" can be defined as a set of solid paint drops.
Kipu II
Mixed media, variable dimensions
Common view, National Theater, Athens, 2008
Eleni Kotsoni creates two sculptures on the ceilings of the entrances of the National Theatre. The title refers to the Inkas' sculptural writing “Quipu” that contains ciphered threads and knots in various colours. Similarly, Kipu I & II contain hidden messages written on wood, paper and fabric. From this perspective, the sculptures are also object-texts and emphasise the writing’s body.
Kipou I
National Theatre, Athens, 2008
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Kipu II
Mixed media, variable dimensions
Common view, National Theater, Athens, 2008
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YOS, From text to hypertext
Mixed media, variable dimensions
Mediaterra 5, Byzantine Museum, Athens, 2005
In the context of the 6th Mediaterra festival, the proposal "YOS" is a letter to a child before his birth. It is an installation with painting (Eleni Kotsoni), video (Morgan Showalter) and sound (Sia Kyriakakou) nestled on the roof of the Museum. The video’s snapshots of reality projected on top of the abstract world of the painting are the two axes around which the content of the "letter" revolves conceptually.
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YOS, From text to hypertext
Mixed media, variable dimensions
Mediaterra 5, Byzantine Museum, Athens, 2005
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Oxymoron (solo show)
Papers, acrylics, fabrics, photos, paper tape
Variable dimensions
Oxymoron, Athens, 2003