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20/11/2002

Barbara Visser

Els Hanappe Underground, Athens

The World Belongs to Early Risers
Posters and Photographs

Opening Thursday 21 November 8-10 pm
Exhibition from 22 November 2002 - 11 January 2003
Wed-Fri 2-8 and Sat 2-6 pm

Athens - Amsterdam, Barbara and I meet each other for the first time at a café behind the Berlage stock market to discuss a possible collaboration. Athens - Brussels About two years later. May First. We get together for a second time to talk more specifically about her upcoming autumn exhibit at the gallery. Barbara mentions the public project she will be organizing that summer at the Villa Arson in Nice, which involves an advertising campaign with posters placed at bus stops. Curiously I enquire about the possible subject of such a precarious and visible undertaking, and ask the artist what she has in mind. She replies she hasn't. Brussels - Athens Some three months and a half later. I receive a newspaper edition in the mail with a number of deliciously looking photographs, set in the blazing blue light of the Mediterranean.

I admire Barbara's improvisational skills and her quick understanding to capture just that right atmosphere, the right setting, and to tackle a number of issues at once. Nice - Athens On sunny weekends, Athenians love to drive out to any of the city's nearby beaches, Glyfada, Vougliagmeni, Voula, dotted with their luxury hotels, fancy seaside restaurants, shopping malls, and ice cream parlours.

On Saturday afternoons, throngs of young men flock to the Sofokleous, Menandrou, and Evripidou Streets downtown, right around the corner from the gallery, to pass their free time wandering the street markets, bargaining, chatting, playing games while crouched on the sidewalk. Each keeps to his own trade, Arab butchers, Chinese textile workshops, Indian restaurants, Pakistani groceries. Amsterdam - Athens Good news. A week before the opening, Barbara will be participating in a group show in De Appel with an extract from the same project. A joint newspaper will be published. Athens - Nice Cities by the sea, forever defined by the easy access and escape routes its shores create.

Barbara Visser (born in Haarlem, 1966) lives and works in Amsterdam and Brussels.
with the kind support of the Mondriaan Foundation.

E l s H a n a p p e Underground
Gallery of Contemporary Art
Melanthiou 2, Psyrri - mail: P.O. Box 30161,10033 Athens, Greece
tel. 30 210 3250364

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