Nikos Tranos, Horsefly, 2008, painted cast brass, 25 × 6 × 4 cm

The need for the existence of grounds for experimentation and new ideas in the practice of art beyond conventional art spaces is already an acknowledged fact. However, in Athens today it seems that it’s the established art spaces that dominate the art scene, a scene that is active with curatorial proposals, which are characterised on the one hand by an elitist interpretation and are viewed as products of luxury and on the other by the — still subtle — gentrification of post-industrial or rather, post-workshop Athens, a trend based primarily on northern-European examples. This results in the artwork being considered a luxury object or a trend, with a corresponding value and significance attached to each case, without coinciding with everyday routine, a stance in art or the tracing of an identity, which, nevertheless, never seems to be the issue.

Since it is practically impossible for a space stripped of all burdens, connotations and descriptions — a white cube — to exist, some exhibitions-proposals are held in spaces that act as affiliates or as patrons and contribute to the curatorial proposals. At the same time, they provide an opportunity to view the artwork from a different perspective. Spaces with a different exhibiting tradition and without ‘subversive’ ambitions such as museums, cinema or theatre spaces but also artist-run project spaces are distinguished by the dynamics of those who run them. All these spaces function experimentally in terms of contemporary art practices, the relationships regarding form, subject and communication tactics, but they also correspond to the attempts of evaluating and determining an identity for the art scene, which shouldn’t ignore the history of the broader art region but should explore the relationship between the traditional and the contemporary in order to become autonomous.

It is within this context that I understand the project space kafeneon which seems to be more than anything else a ‘continuous performance’ on communication, on its necessity and methods, but also on confusion and the absurd almost like in a Roman Signer gag, essentially tickling a condition and setting a new example in relation to the progress or the breech with existing art tactics. This particular attempt seems to reveal a significant void, mainly in the field of Greek contemporary performance, which is developing rather slowly and conservatively — something that has to do with a broader tendency, the excessive lack of self-sarcasm or the overall introversion and public self-consciousness, that dominates even the practice of art.

The kafeneon is a carefree space in the elevated ground floor of a Gkyzi block of apartments, just on the street. It is open and accessible (to the extent that it makes passer-bys uneasy); it is a place for meetings, self-made exhibitions, performance-lectures and screenings, a place where, as proprietor Paul ‘Artzog’ Zografakis claims while offering Greek coffee, he can become familiar with the energies and tensions of his environment, his neighbourhood and the local art scene, the people taking part in the kafeneon programme as well as those who attend it.

From the moment Zografakis, who is ‘almost a foreigner’, an American of Greek descent, chose to work as an artist in Greece, it seems that the objective of his project has been to familiarise him with the current situation in Athens, to participate and introduce his own individual elements but at the same time to form his own identity, finding or creating affiliations and subscribing to an existing condition on his own terms. Resorting to Greek stereotypes to find a common place and means of communication and, inspired by the Greek experience of coffee as the casual promise and postponement of a meeting, he turned the kafeneon into a place of action. He used the specific identity of the kafeneon in a purely residential area with its lack of an exciting market or nightlife, and only with the large juridical shadow of the Areios Pagos falling upon it, which can only mean that it has to do with a righteous routine in everyday life.

Part of the kafeneon project was the beautiful like Americans — or wpaioi san amepikanoi, as it was printed on the exhibition invitation in perfect Greeklish — which, according to Zografakis, was a ‘spontaenous curatorial’ by the participants. The overall idea of the exhibition, which is also that of the kafeneon, was that of the site-specific where the ‘site’ could be considered to be the particular ground floor shop but also the whole art scene with the artists functioning as the ‘objets trouvés’. This concept also emerged from Zografakis’ own participation in the exhibition with works he made from things he found in the space such as a clichéd — but very relevant in this case — joke, which was the construction of a ‘white cube’.

The artworks that were ‘found’ in the space, those that were chosen by the participants to be shown, defined the curatorial or rather, the composition of the exhibition, bringing out issues of the familiar, the homeless or otherness, the emblematic work, the condition and the experience of the work of art. Nikos Tranos’ Horsefly, 2008, which could be the literal subversion or fall of the heroic (male) artist, the shrine to the unknown patron of the kafeneon, an installation by the whole group, the composition of objects and video by Kostas Roussakis, in which his subject was the ‘foreigners’ and cultural commodities (traditional knives, the playmobile, Hendrix) — all these works in a way illustrated the example of the kafeneon. The same applied to Stelios Karamanolis’ drawing of the noble vomit or Margarita Bofiliou’s installation about a canary, the American singer, which seemed to get confused by its reflection.

These works acted as comments about the space and in a way they provided an identity for the kafeneon since it was not entirely clear what choices and relationships were made in this ‘social experiment’. Wpaioi san amepikanoi was an exhibition that gave a particular aspect to a project space that first of all rejected the theatricality of art shows and their public, suggested an interesting artistic practice and aimed for people’s participation, which it definitely enjoyed.


Tereza Papamichali is an artist.