‘Νο;
Let us
cross over
the river,
and rest
under
the shade
of the trees.’ [i]


In an era where phenomena can be deceiving and impressions can actually see us [ii] (does anybody doubt that the truth has become a shadow of itself?), the idea of publishing a new art magazine with the name kaput apart from raising the stakes for its publishers, can also raise a number of questions. Despite everything its title may suggest, kaput is not a direct or indirect reference to Curzio Malaparte’s classic novel — although it does induce the anti-bourgeois and iconoclastic Akt of the German pioneers Einstürzende Neubauten [iii] — because it requires the knowledge of Hal Foster’s well-known text about the role and the dialectic substance contained within the art of the new millennium. [iv] Of course the play of violence, as described by the Italian novelist, and the romanticised scarehead, as preached by the Berlin group, are not far from the current ‘condition of the aftermath’ as the art historian Foster underlines in an effort to interpret the dead-ends of the contemporary art, art history and critic. Therefore sooner or later one is led to the conclusion that the expression ‘the aftermaths of war’ is not a mere euphemism but a crucial topic that concerns, unavoidably, the production and the engagement of the art today. [v]

Additionally and inevitably kaput is nurtured constantly by reading and interpreting the overflow of reality and its simulations. What stand — if any — the Greek artists ought to take in this quick-sand situation? As Malaparte’s hero, isn’t the artist a reporter in a war zone more than a mere peacekeeper?

On the occasion of the exhibition In Present Tense: New Greek Artists, held at the National Museum of Contemporary Art, this present issue attempts to articulate certain positions and comments as a references to the art produced within the last decade in Greece. Perhaps the title of the exhibition was absolutely convincing in terms of its intensions and in terms of the framework in which the curators attempted to include works by new Greek artists, however the need for a more assiduous, historic type narration seems more imperative than never — it is not a coincidence that most of the works included in In Present Tense were produced in the last decade. Within the framework of this effort and within the apparent lack of an exhibition or publication with a historic and defined retrospective aspect that presents evidence of a solid re-viewing of the contemporary Greek art and, more crucially perhaps, the kind of insight such an opportunity can provide for our own society, the 2nd issue of kaput will continue with an examination of the Greek art production from 1988 until today. At this current moment we cannot but reflect on the words of Alberto Savinio: ‘Does the habit continue to exist past the death of what has caused it?’


[i] Jonathan ‘Stonewall’ Jackson, Confederate General during the American Civil War.
[ii] Jim Morrison, The Lords: Notes on Vision.
[iii] In relation to the band’s name, the founder of Neubauten, Blixa Bargeld in a 1981 interview with the German magazine Rock Session 6 said: ‘So mysterious … it’s simply fantastic, and our image was so kaputt’.
[iv] Hall Foster, ‘This Funeral is for the Wrong Corpse’, Design and Crime and Other Diatribes, London: Verso, 2002.
[v] It is not a coincidence that in 2007 three major exhibitions examined this subject: System Error: War is a force that gives us meaning, curators: Lorenzo Fusi & Naeem Mohaiemen, Papesse Centro Arte Contemporanea, Italy; Not Only Possible, But Also Necessary: Optimism in the Age of Global War, curator: Hou Hanru, 10th Istanbul Biennale, Turkey; Apocalypse Now: The Theatre of War, curators: Jennifer Allora, Guillermo Galzadilla & Jens Hoffmann, CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco, USA.