On Faces
On Faces
Artistic Director: Stavros Moresopoulos
Organised by the Hellenic Centre for Photography
in collaboration with Benaki Museum
and the support of the Ministry of Culture
Official Opening Ceremony
BENAKI MUSEUM, Piraeus Building
Monday, October 2, 2006
The 13th International Month of Photography in Athens is celebrating its 20th
birthday, bringing to the galleries, museums, foundations, cultural centres and
foreign institutes of Athens forty-seven solo and group exhibitions. The
photographers are Greek and foreign, of different generations and backgrounds, and
present to the city photographs wildly diverging in their approaches.
Every year the International Month of Photography in Athens creates a programme that
runs around various drifts: a thematic approach that is usually divided into
sub-themes within which the main core of the year's exhibitions fit; a retrospective
of an established Greek photographer if not more; a series of carte-blanche
exhibitions; group exhibitions of young photographers just out of school, one of
which is the "Young Greek Photographers" which has been running since 1987 as well
as other group exhibitions. Last but not least, the Month of Photography is
accompanied by parallel events such as meetings, discussions, seminars, workshops,
etc.
This year's Month of Photography is about people, about those who photograph and
about those who are photographed, and how they are "immortalised" on the
photographic print. Part of it is a study on this familiar and easily recognisable
landscape called the face, which is however so hard to define. A study approached
through the deconstruction of the "portrait" in order to recompose it, by magnifying
in order to decipher shapes.
The main themes "On Faces" is divided into three sub-themes, or rather approaches:
1. The photographer's ethics
How does the photographer see the social events he/she depicts? Photography, which
began as an objective depiction of reality, has had to deal with the falling apart
of this myth of objectivity and of the accepted truth, something that has brought
about serious questions as to how photographers position themselves ethically before
what they see, and as to their use of photography itself.
2. Allegory in photography
By this we mean to show photographic work that is staged, that is carefully composed
and where the place of things has been purposefully chosen. In this manner symbols
and faces, light and shadows, objects which seem to belong elsewhere somehow begin
to talk about a new reality as seen by the artist. A reality that is struggling to
be taken as such, a thought that is on the lookout for new companions.
3. Ambiguity in the photographic portrait
Traditional depictions of faces have been replaced by new approaches, approaches
that give us an end result somewhat distant from the familiar human form.
"Ambiguity" travels between what is and what appears to be, just like we human
beings travel between the visible and the invisible.
A full thematic list of the exhibitions
1. The photographer's ethics
Archivo Fotografico Casasola, From the revolution and beyond (1900-1940)
Yiannis Behrakis, Swimmers
George Georgiou, Between the Lines
Yorgos Katsagelos, Silence
Charis Kakarouchas, Cuban Diary
Simon Norfolk, Et in Arcadia Ego
Voula Papaioannou, A Homage
2. Allegory in photography
Yorgos Chaidopoulos, Santorini's Scarecrows II
Sylvia Diamantopoulou, Under Pressure
Pella Dikonimaki, Efigies
Martin Kollar, Nothing Special
Jens Liebchen, Politics and Art - Art and Politics
Clement Page, Sleepwalker
3. Ambiguity in the photographic portrait
Anton, ImPRESSions
Athina Chroni, People (Stereoscopic Projection)
Chuck Close
Yannis Kostaris, Private Spaces I,II
Dina Koumbouli, Monographs
Pepi Loulakaki, Stage on Fire
Eleni Maligoura, Self-Portrait
Photo Booth: Selfportraits, self-portraits of 30 photographers plus...
Petros Sofikitis, Achania
Thematic Group Exhibitions
Corbis Outline 25
The photographic portrait: from trace to allegory
Projects
European Eyes on Japan / Japan Today, 8th vol.
Karin Borghouts, Saga
Stratos Kalafatis, Saga
Eleni Maligoura, Japan Project - Readings II
Changing Faces: WORK
an i(p+r)/n project (International Photography Research Network), UK
Rob Hornstra (The Netherlands), Roots of the Ru'ntur / Iceland
Renja Leino (Finland), Absent Minds / Czech Republic
Thomas Neumann (Germany), The Lithuanian Rocket / Lithouania
Orri (Iceland), Without Work / Slovakia
Stepanka Stein & Salim Issa (Czech Republic), Ordinary Living / United Kingdom
Arturas Valiauga (Lithounia), Still Identity / The Netherlands
Carte Blanche
Dimosthenis Agrafiotis, i-mobile domestications
Ilias Bourgiotis, Spectators
Panayiotis Elias, Human Scars
Evi Karagiannidis, En Face
Stelios Kasimatis, Stella
Christos Koukelis, Divine Light
Alnis Stakle, Living Space - Daugavpils
John Stathatos, lithoi
Takis, Hydromagnetic Fields
Group exhibitions
Young Greek Photographers, 15th Edition
29 Students of Athens Superior Fine Arts School
Photograohy Group 18 Ano, Faith
Leica Academy, Imprints
Other events
2nd Panhellenic Encounters of Photography Groups and Clubs
(Other events to be announced)
http://www.photographynetwork.gr
Download: Catalogue (PDF/3,9 MB)
http://www.photography-now.com/newsimages/Cat13_2006.pdf
Hellenic Centre for Photography
Tsami Karatasou 15, 117 42 Athens