Michalis Kallimopoulos, Common View (Part I), installation view, Rex Theatre, Athens, 2008. Photo: Panos Kokkinias.

To expand the field of artistic experience, to experiment with ways of making and showing art far from museum or gallery spaces, to address a different audience from that of the gallery-goers, to interact with fields other than the art world, to spread creative activity into other disciplines — while seeking a long-desired autonomy — to provide a public situation for an audience, to make works with a more critical, more inventive potential, to escape the art world’s hierarchies and methods: these are some of the issues that have emerged from the last decades of art-making and critical writing, issues that have engaged both artists and curators in a very interesting debate. It is with the occasion of Common View, a series of art projects which address problems such as these and are presented in collaboration with the National Theatre this year in Athens that we have spoken with one of the curators, Ghislaine Dantan, who previously ran the cutting-edge gallery Unlimited Contemporary Art for eight years.


Polyna Kosmadaki: How did your involvement with the Greek art scene begin? What were you doing before?

Ghislaine Dantan: I studied at the School of Art and Research (Villa Arson) in Nice, in the south of France from 1989 to 1994. After a year in Paris, we decided (with Vassili Balatsos) to stay in Athens for a while. Late in 1995, we started to look for a space/studio.

PK: With Vassili you ran Unlimited Contemporary Art, a gallery in the area of Psyrri, from 1996 to 2005. What motivated you to open it? Could you retrace the gallery’s history, some of its artists and group shows?

GD: Our choice was mainly based on the affordable rents in Greece. At that time Paris was not a particularly dynamic place for contemporary art. In the course of our studies at the Villa Arson, which hosted a very active and cutting-edge art centre, we were in touch with many local and international artists. So, together with the idea of a space we thought about inviting artists and friends in a creative process. On the other hand, we soon realised there was a lack of contemporary art spaces in Athens, which made our approach doubly interesting … The important moments of the gallery, for me, are more related to encounters and collaborations, rather than commercial successes. Uri Tzaig, Erwin Wurm, Lothar Hempel are great artists and individuals with a sense of humour and true professionalism, which is not that common. We worked closely with all of them and produced new works in Athens. Another highlight was the opening of the second floor in 2001 with the group show Over, featuring Kay Rosen, Pae White, Richard Fauguet and Bernhard Martin.

PK: The artistic choices you defended in Unlimited were quite open to European artists as well as to a variety of mediums. How would you describe the gallery’s program? Did your coming to Greece modify your preferences?

GD: We had no strategy, no theoretical approach either; our choices were related to our own feelings, while we wanted to show high quality artists, internationally active and recognised for their aesthetic pertinence and keen to discuss problematics of the contemporary world. We never thought of adapting our program to the fact that we were living in Greece. We always behaved and made choices which we would have made if were living in Berlin, New York or Milan. This was the underlying criterion of the story of Unlimited. And it’s not that we wouldn’t consider the context in which we were acting; on the contrary, we never wished to underestimate the artist, the viewer or the collector.

PK: What made you decide to close the space in Psyrri and cease the gallery’s activities? Was your decision related more to practical difficulties or a shift in your interests?

GD: Both. To exist as a gallery working at an international level you have to be very present and active abroad, especially in art fairs. The number and frequency of fairs increased dramatically over the past decade, which is the way the market functions. Thus, a gallery needs to make more and more investments in order to be in the position to represent artists at such level. On the other hand, the local market was not developing at the same pace … However, running from fair to fair was never our goal. Furthermore, the local context (I guess what we now call art scene) was not developing any kind of network which we felt and considered to be a motivating factor.

PK: What do you think retrospectively concerning the trend of galleries moving to ‘alternative’ neighborhoods? How do you view the current relocation of the contemporary art centre towards the area of Metaxourghio?

GD: I don’t think we can talk about an ‘alternative’ neighborhood in Athens, as well as an alternative culture more generally; it’s all about lifestyle. Since I have lived in Psyrri (next to Koumoundourou Square) for some years, I am aware of the everyday reality of this area … and I cannot see anything attractive, but if rents are still motivating, why not.

PK: What have you been up to since the gallery’s closing?

GD: I had no plans after Unlimited. In the meantime, Vassilios Doupas of The Apartment gallery, who appreciated a lot of our program at Unlimited, invited me to think about an exhibition. After a few months we presented Here, I disappear, a group show based on the different levels and meanings of the idea of absence. It was quite personal and I was very happy that we managed to show valuable works by international artists such as Bojan Šarčević or Tatiana Trouve as well as under-represented Greek artists such as Nina Papaconstantinou and Vassili Balatsos. I’m very grateful to Vassilios Doupas for his interest and support.

PK: Tell me more about the project Common View you are working on at the moment in collaboration with the National Theatre and Yannis Chouvardas. How did this collaboration begin and what are your aspirations about it?

GD: A few months later, I was invited by Yiannis Houvardas to organise a small group show with the Amore Theatre, in the framework of Dialogoi VI – Dokimes IV, a programme putting younger writers and emerging theatre directors in dialogue with contemporary artists. Among others, Christos Lialios designed a silk-screen poster that covered a part of the foyer and which visitors could take away. When Yiannis Houvardas was appointed Artistic Director of The National Theatre of Greece, he thought of pursuing this contemporary art-related programme on a more ambitious basis. He invited me, together with Eleni Koukou, to organise this series of events and exhibitions which we proposed to name Common View. The idea is in principle to present new works on a site-specific basis, making references to the architecture and the repertoire of the theatre. As the title implies, our goal is to invite local and internationally renowned artists through very specific projects focusing on the similarities or differences between performing and visual arts. The shows aim to explore different levels and possibilities and strive to question conceptual and formal dynamics.

PK: This project is site-specific, audience-specific, context-specific and relies on the viewer’s experience and participation. Amongst other things one could consider it as a platform for experimenting with these genres of art as well as with their reception and therefore as a conscious position vis-à-vis curatorial practice. Is that so?

GD: We’re still in an experimental and research phase, observing how these spaces are functioning under real conditions. We also look forward to investing the historic building of the National Theatre on Agiou Konstantinou Avenue, still under renovation. In parallel with this functional and material context, we have to think in terms of immediacy. It’s important to note that it is a much larger public concerned by the said events: the theater audience. The viewer entering the foyer a few minutes before the play starts is confronted by the artworks with no distance involved. We have to be very focused on these conditions of viewing and reception. Here, I feel our role is to educate without making any concessions in terms of quality.

PK: The contemporary situation in the globalised economy can be described as a victory of the market over all the attempts to question it. In what way do you think curatorial practices like Common View could resist the spectacularisation of art and reconstitute public space?

GD: In contemporary art, there is no doubt that the power of the market has dramatically increased and the choices are directly connected to this reality. Galleries, museums, artists and curators do develop marketing strategies. Simultaneously though, there are hundreds of new approaches proposed, the very notion of exhibition has imploded; public and private spaces are re-invested and are now experienced in an open manner: ephemeral events, disaffected buildings, private apartments, traveling boats or whole cities … All these features and concepts are often incorporated in spectacular events such as biennial exhibitions that, in their turn feed the market forming thus a closed system. So the question is, how can we use this system to make strong statements rather than thinking in terms of resistance to spectacularisation.

PK: In the past, curators used to function as arbiters of taste, controllers of visibility in the art world. Things have evolved after the artist-as-curator/curator-as-artist discussion towards curators who conceive exhibitions as a creative process, work closely with the artists to develop a common project but also critically challenge the very concept of curating. In addition, contemporary art curators often function as the intersection between artist and public, wanting to ensure that the audience is given the best possible opportunity to engage with the work. Considering the current situation how would you — as a curator with a fine arts background — describe your own practice?

GD: I’m very interested in the system of correspondences and echoes between the works. Beyond the singularity of each piece and the rational or literal dimension we often find in thematic group shows, I like to focus on these very thin interconnections and hopefully generate different levels of lecture. In an exhibition, even the blanks, the silences can be very powerful … This is very subjective but I believe that it can be engaging with the audience. In this respect, The Third Mind, the recent exhibition curated by Ugo Rondinone at The Palais de Tokyo, was very impressive.

PK: Your gallery exhibitions always had a thematic center, e.g. about beauty and aesthetic judgment, the dimension of drawing, the action as oeuvre, etc. In your current work you are also preoccupied with the existence of a central theme, a concept. Apart from your own projects, which current topics interest you the most, whether they reflect upon artistic practices or theoretical questions?

GD: I am concerned by practices that involve a poetic as well as a conceptual approach. The notion of displacement, for example, in a literal sense but also as a socio-psychological state, as it is developed in the work of Bojan Šarčević or Eran Schaerf. I think beauty has still an important role to play, even if we talk about politics. I am quite bored with the ‘documentary’ aesthetics … In a more general sense, the investigation of temporality and space is of interest to me, through a wide range of practices such as the ones employed by Roman Signer or Gedi Sibony, with an economy of means and always at the edge of failure.

PK: More than ever before the art world presents itself as a system of hierarchical relations and position-takings between artists, gallery-owners, curators, institutions, which function as a social-economic network. Based on your experience first as a gallery owner and now as a freelance curator, how would you describe the situation in Athens?

GD: I think this socio-economic network is not properly functioning in Athens, or that it works in a very superficial manner: very few gallery owners make their living from the revenues generated by the gallery. Furthermore, institutions often ask the artists and galleries to provide works for free, while some collectors are interested in buying directly from the artists and some other simply opt to buy abroad and, by doing so, develop their own power network. As a gallery owner I experienced situations where all actors involved often disregarded principled relations; as a curator in collaboration with the National Theater, one of the priorities is for instance to enhance the status of the artist; in this respect, the National Theater covers production costs or pays honorary fees.

PK: Do you think that Greek art and the art world in Athens have changed since you arrived here? And if so, in what ways and why?

GD: Greeks are become more and more aware of what is happening abroad. Furthermore they are no longer informed through lifestyle magazines only. Occasional trips and visits abroad are increasing awareness. Basel is the top destination for art tourism. So, galleries, viewers and collectors are now more experienced and more demanding. The few contemporary galleries take advantage of the potential of international art fairs; therefore, all these aspects have an impact on the Greek art scene. However, the overall interest in contemporary art in Greece is still very low.

PK: In France, where you come from, there has been since the ’90s a systematic effort by writers, curators, museums and other institutions, as well as through state initiatives, to define and promote a French genre in contemporary art. In analogy, there has been in Greece a similar discussion in order to define a ‘new Greek art scene’ along with a strong expression of the desire to ‘put Greece on the international contemporary art map’. What are your views concerning these recently set objectives for contemporary Greek art?

GD: This effort from the French state to promote French artists and support French galleries was highly domestic. I’m not sure it was so effective in promoting such artists outside of France. Twenty years later, the result is quite deceptive; the public collections in the regions (FRAC) cannot afford to do an effective job. The outcome is a subsidised and politicised scene whose typical example, unfortunately, was the exhibition La Force de l’Art at the Grand Palais in 2006 which is far from reflecting a creative surge. Concerning Greece, I wish I could see more regular, smaller projects in terms of budget and production means, rather than big, ‘once-a-year’ events. The international art scene is saturated with endless group shows like biennial, triennial or whatever names they have, such as the apotheosis of the last summer (Venice-Kassel-Münster). I think that the paradigm of these large-scale exhibitions is about to collapse (in terms of content and legitimacy at least). Greece should take advantage of this shifting moment, to promote differences, including weaknesses and failures, and propose a real debate; especially on the meaning of doing and showing art — this could be far more relevant instead of re-enacting global tactics and could develop a kind of fidelity with the audience, be it local or not.

PK: What is, in your sense, a promise in a work? What seems promising to you today in Greek art production and exhibition? In the global art scene?

GD: What I have observed over the past 12 years in Athens is that there is a strong socio-political conservative trend. This seems to increase with the economical instability. Naturally, the art ‘scene’ is not an exception. The promise you refer to starts with the attitude and especially with the aptitude of the artist to take risks. I wish artists were more radical in their investigations, choices and behaviors, instead of reasoning in terms of visibility.