The Serpent and the Milk
The former dairy store creates powerful associations to food and nourishment, as the surrounding white space, to purity, innocence, goodness, cleansing. 5 artists deal with the store’s dominant environmental narrative by introducing contradictory concepts of temptation, dark, and even diabolical. Ophis (the snake), signifies seduction. Mankind struggles daily with the morals of good and evil, in attempt to redefine their meaning in modern times.
Participating artists: Dimitris Kalagatsis, Panagiotis Kefalas, Andromachi Mavrou, Evita Pagona, Evi Roumani
Curated by: Fotini Kapiris
Opening: Thursday, June 8, 2017
Duration: June 8 – 18, 2017
Hours: 18:00 – 21:00 daily
Former Dairy Store
5 Tsamandou Str. 10683, Exarchia, Athens, Greece
The exhibition "The Serpent and the Milk" is part of Back to Athens International Arts Festival and the initiative "Be My Art Guest", a project that re-activates and occupies a variety of spaces within the Exarchia district with art presentations and cultural events. Artists are invited to engage with local business owners and create site-specific work that will showcase within their space. Stores are not seen as exhibition spaces for the artist's work, rather as a location where art integrates with the daily business flow. "Be My Art Guest" runs alongside Back to Athens, and the stores can be visited according to their normal opening hours. Frequent and familiar to us routes and passages in Exarhia, become a discovery map of art in unexpected places and old shops within the historic district. Artists express their humorous disposition and desire for exploration through a series of art exhibitions, music and theatre performances, screenings, and discussions open to the wide public. Contemporary art unravels in a setting where original 19th and 20th century buildings meet the architectural paranoia of the 70s and 80s!
The 5th edition of Back to Athens International Arts Festival opens for the second time in the historical Exarchia district, hosted in buildings, local shops and businesses. From June 8 - 18, 2017, Greek and international and artists revive public and private spaces with exhibitions, installations, performances, music performances and screenings. Back to Athens 5 is curated by: Georg Georgakopoulos, Dimitris Georgakopoulos and Fotini Kapiris, the performance series is curated by Thanos Vovolis. Back to Athens 5 is organised by CHEAPART with the participation of the Artwall Project Space and Offspring Young Artists Program, the support of the Faculty Scholarship Grant from the Office for the Advancement of Research, John Jay College and communication sponsors Ta Nea tis Technis (The Greek Art Newspaper), AAF All About Festivals, inexarchia.gr.
Back to Athens was initiated 2012, its concept roots on the idea that cultural activity can bring on an entirely new outlook on the Athens City Center. Greek and international artists, art groups and curators are invited to perceive the city as an open field of action, but also as a setting in constant and rapid transformation. Back to Athens is an idea platform, a public showcase of contemporary art and expression, a meeting point for the art community in the heart of the city where creative potential is unleashed and ideas are realised.
