⁰¹ Georgia Sagri, Clothes for the Coming Community / Popova, 2009, painted fabric, plastic, wood. Courtesy of the artist and AD Gallery, Athens.
⁰² Georgia Sagri, Different Faces, 2009, scratch ink on poster, 50 × 70 cm. Courtesy of the artist and AD Gallery, Athens.
⁰³ Georgia Sagri, Factory Machine Consumption Advertisement, 2008–09, acrylic on canvas, 23 × 30.5 cm each. Courtesy of the artist and AD Gallery, Athens.
⁰⁴⁻⁰⁶ Georgia Sagri, Γάλαξη / Milk for All, 2009, milk distribution machine, bronze, earthenware, metal, caoutchouc, plastic, electric motor, 55 × 40 × 168 cm. Courtesy of the artist and AD Gallery, Athens.

Christopher Marinos: In your recent solo show in Athens you emphatically address the role of the artist as a ‘producer’, envisioning a community-oriented work of art. At the same time, drawing heavily upon the revolutionary ideas of an avant-garde movement such as Constructivism, you are opting for an attitude towards life and art that is undeniably missing from contemporary everyday experience. From this standpoint, just how easy was it to strike a balance between your objectives and present-day reality while avoiding the risk of being simply nostalgic?

Georgia Sagri: I think your question would be more suitable if it was addressed to Paul Chan. He has the best solution to avoid the risk of being nostalgic, since he is promoting the separation of his life as an artist and as an activist. His work seems to illustrate what I cannot do; to balance politics and art, politics and life, life and art. My work might be read as just simply nostalgic or banal because of that, but why shouldn’t an artwork be like that? The new works are composed as a performance meaning the pieces offer themselves for translation they are not translations themselves. As when in a performance I don’t represent a character but I’m a character that performs, in the same way the pieces are present and they perform. They are verbs.

CM: Don’t you want these verbs to be more ‘active’ — that is to say, participatory— and less contemplative? For instance, why not giving the visitors a chance to share the poster drawings you exhibit?

GS: In each piece in the show there is a condition of participation. The work is built upon that idea. I find it more interesting to work on this idea by assuming the pieces stand as the chorus in ancient drama. The verb in that sense seems less active because it doesn’t want to embody power — this role belongs to the main character. The work illustrates the movements and responses of the citizens. Specifically, for the piece Different Faces, 2009, I used the format of the poster as a metaphor. The mechanics of reproduction that are used to produce a poster are those of the State’s panoptic view of the crowd. By using the scratch ink technique I wanted the piece to look as if there is a group we are looking at but at the same time each face is different. I wanted the work to look as common as it could possibly be but at the same time I didn’t want to reduce the gesture only in conversation to the mass product and to the way the State views the crowd, but to turn that view to its specifics, on how the crowd sees itself. In that case the format is used only as a tool to look closer at the differences and not the similarities. So, the posters are not there to be taken away like any other poster. If you take one you know that you are breaking a group because you recognise a specific face on it.

CM: By creating a two-way ‘mirror’ of the multitude, were you also trying to see more clearly the face of a local community or a society in crisis? Given that the original poster you used as a cast advertised an anti-racist event, which took place in the city of Athens, all of sudden the illustration of these faces acquires a specific context.

GS: If we take the condition of the verb in the way that the works were constructed I would prefer not to talk about a two-way mirror, because then we automatically imply that the work is referring to a kind of a visual response to the world, even more specific in a future projection — a vision — and a utopia more or less. Instead of a mirror I would like to suggest the notion of the amphitheater, which means to perceive from both sides, with the echoing of the voice being present in all parts of the space while the play is on stage. Thus the voices are present as an echo not as something that it was or it will be. I believe that Athens right now is this amphitheater. The clothes of the piece Clothes for the Coming Community / Popova, 2009, are meant to be worn and the sculpture Γάλαξη / Milk for All, 2009, contains milk — not paint— and it is supposed to be drunk. It is a public distributor or a model for it.

CM: Is it an act of generosity with an ironic twist? One can also argue that it is some kind of ‘fountain’ winking to Duchamp’s famous readymade.

GS: When I came up with the idea of the milk distributor I wasn’t thinking of generosity or irony. I did think of the company that is presenting that model. The company ΓΑΛΑΞΗ made the model and the banner advertises the company. I was also thinking about the libidinal connotations of the female breast, the stages of sublimation, specifically the child’s oral stage and the possible violence when the child stops sucking milk from its mother’s breast. The paintings are also connected to the company. There wouldn’t be any reason for me to paint if the paintings weren’t maquettes of the company’s factory, machine etc. Probably, the link with Duchamp’s fountain is not formal, but derives from the fact that the fountain never actually existed until its photographic representation (which, by the way, was distributed in The Blind Man magazine that he was publishing). Here it is though. In Duchamp’s terms what I tried to do here was to make a reverse ready-made. I don’t take something from the world to sign it and make it art. I make something that looks like art, I take out my signature and I give it to the world so it will be real again. I think what we are lacking is not art but reality.

CM: The replacement of art with aspects of reality and the use of the body as a sign and code for a social expression have been a major preoccupation of performance art since the 60s. Your new work seems to relate with these concerns but in a rather complicated way. Maybe because the body here, unlike most performances you’ve done in the past, functions as part of a strong and multidimensional narrative structure. For the first time you are willing to sacrifice it for the sake of an alchemical process, a grand master plan so to say. The fact that the performance Exodus never took place intensifies this impression of mine, without necessarily feeling that something is missing or that the exhibition remains unfinished.

GS: Through a performance — I use the term here to refer both to objects and performances/events; for me there is no distinction — I am not trying to represent a social subject. Until the performance occurs, I don’t know yet to which social group the gestures will finally refer. I also don’t think of my work as a cultural product and I don’t think of myself as an artist but I do make some pieces in search of my community and I will continue doing that. I am terrified of large scale and I do think of a particular person that each work might refer to. In a performance there is a becoming of a subject (an ‘it’) — not yet a ‘he’ or ‘she’, but a potential ‘he’ or ‘she’, simultaneously ‘he’ and ‘she’, momentarily ‘he’ or ‘she’ — that acts something out. It is a task that wants to occupy space (a centre) for the time of its duration. That’s why it is important for me to be part of this procedure, instead of just giving directions to someone else to do it on my behalf. My work doesn’t want to critique the object, particular groups, a subject or subjects or illustrate issues of any kind. I make scores/scripts/fictions, so there is an ontological precondition that makes each piece. The score is not only the material of the future but of the past, not as a trace but as the material that creates the parameters for the act to take place. It also constitutes my presence and any other presences coming from the same score as variations so the body can stand as a member of a group. That’s why I referred to the ‘chorus’ before. The ‘chorus’ is also the mediator, the link between the stage and the viewer. But when the performance and the work stands as a ‘chorus’, when there is no stage to make the distinction of producer and receiver, maybe that means that the body is already both, it is a participatory body, as well as a force. When, during the performance, I use recognisable postures some of them are there as a reminder that the body carries itself already knowing that it is information. It is a presentation, video-presentation and not a representation. Information is perceived in various forms and from different media but it is always present so I’m more interested in the multi-mediation of the body. When I think of performance I have in mind these two paths, the one that starts from Jackson Pollock (to be more specific, from the famous picture of Pollock in his studio, as appeared in Life magazine) and the other that starts from Andy Warhol. I am more interested in the latter and specifically in Warhol’s films. There is a vast amount of performance through the spectrum of Jackson Pollock’s master narrative, body expression, and we are used to watch performances through the prism of trace and singular master plan. However, for me performance has to do with image formation and specifically with body/face-on-a-screen state. Miming, gestures, repetition are important and I’m mostly interested in film and music. When we watch performances most of the time we end up focusing only on what the body represents — that comes straight from art history and from being used to being theatre, concert / part of a crowd, monitor viewers. On the other hand, the body in a performance is not a final material/product. It can move its context from being viewed on a stage, in a concert hall to a monitor at a single act only by the postures and the gestures used during the act. The performance creates landscapes inside a landscape. The body is present at the moment of its time, space and subject formation and by extent we can focus talk about what kind of subjects we become during its task. What kind of viewers are we becoming? Are we bored, aggressive, strong, sexy, during the performance? How long did that feeling last? Do we remember the piece the next day and how?

CM: Apart from Warhol, can you give me some examples of films and music performances or performers, which have been particularly influential for your practice? I remember discussing with you a video I discovered on YouTube featuring a memorable live performance of Ghost Rider (circa 1978) by Suicide. It was really interesting to see, through a close-up video recording, the way Alan Vega moved on stage, his body language, miming and gestures.

GS: I used Warhol as a category. I love Jean-Marie Patte’s performance in The Taking of Power by Louis XIV directed by Roberto Rosellini, Tyga- Cali Love, Robert Bresson, Pier Paolo Pasolini (dubbed voices), Annie, Luchino Visconti, John Cassavetes, Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Louis Malle, The Drinking Song from the film Just Imagine, 1930, Blue Daughter of Heaven, “I’ve got my eye on you” performed by Alice White dubbed by Belle Man, Over the Counter ‘Check your husband’, Pre-code shorts on you tube, Eisenstein, Bergman, Fritz Lang, Lyl Wayne’s mouth, Kid Millions, Flash Gordon when Ming says to Dale: “ … your eyes, your hair, your skin … I’ve never seen one like you before … you’re beautiful”, featuring Buster Crabbe, Jean Rogers and Charles Middleton as Ming, Ramones Judy is a punk live performance, The Knife Pass this on (live Sen Van Kvall Med Luuk), Green Day Billie Joe Armstrong’s performing live is the worst I ever seen, Billie Idol Eyes without a face video, Iggy Pop live I wanna be your dog, 1979, Stooges, Madonna’s Like a Virgin (all the live performances), Suicide, Alan Vega, Silver Apples, Glenn Gould, Vaselines, Kurt Cobaine unplugged, Nina Simone performing Feelings, David Byrne, Prince, James Brown, Michael Jackson and Prince on stage, 1983, Elgar’s Cello Concert by Jacklyn Dupre, and I must not forget Katina Paxinou, Thanassis Vegos, Panos Gavalas, Vicky Mosholiou in Pera apo ti thalassa, 1966, Margarita Papageorgiou and Dinos Iliopoulos in the movie Drakos, 1956, Marinela, Jacques Tati, M.I.A., Nic Xedro, Dennis Agerbald & Miss Fish in the forest!

CM: So far you’ve pointed out how your works rely heavily upon mechanisms used in the ancient Greek theatre, in popular music videos and on-screen performances, as well as in acting methods — such as the ‘verbs’ metaphor- — reminiscent of the extremely influential Stanislavski system. How you would describe the relationship between text and image in your work? I recently read that you are going to publish your first collection of poetry.

GS: Well, now what comes to mind is the trial scene in Pasolini’s movie The Gospel according to St.Mathew where for the entire scene the camera stands at the back of the people that watch Jesus’s trial. We hardly hear the conversations and the decision taken. The position of the camera records how the crowd perceived the event and how it is seen from their gaze’s perception. In that sense the camera stands as the ‘chorus’ stands in ancient theater. The camera mediates our way of seeing the trial’s sequence and offers an entire new way of participation at the event. In the same way the ‘chorus’ navigates the viewers during the plot and engages them with the drama. Can the body in a performance take a similar position? Can a performance embody the camera’s role? Can we think of an individual body as part of a group, member of the ‘chorus’ like a citizen among the citizens? Is this body able to speak its own truth? Can the body be in constant re-contextualisation only by its gestures? Can I avoid being perceived only as a female body? Do I want that? When do I become a woman and when do I become a man? Is it possible? Where and when I am an ‘it’? Can a work exist only by an ‘as if’ I am an ‘it’? I agree with Stanislavski’s claim: “what the actor has it’s his body and only”. The actor cannot count on literature. Performance sets in motion the texts that the body carries through experience and constant confrontation with social scripts, personal scripts, body scripts, formalities and informalities. How do you sit on your lover’s bed and how on your friend’s bed? How do you enter a church and how a hospital? Observation by leaning in front of the screen and spend time repeating a film fragment again and again. As if the fragment is in a microscope. The other day I noticed a man just letting the one side of his scarf fall down only until it just touched the edge of his shoe. With his hand he moved the scarf back and forth and let it touch the shoe as if he was polishing it. That might have been a movement of boredom, comfort, shyness, play, thinking, contemplation, accident, happiness, experiment, memory, isolation, participation. I truly don’t know, so I will repeat the move in order to define it and then we will see what will happen. What else can I say? Ah! The poetry book. I am very scared about that.

CM: If the camera doesn’t scare you, then you don’t have to worry about exposing yourself through writing — in any case, it is just another way of expression. Speaking of fear, however, it is interesting to note the ambivalent relationship between politicians and the camera: ‘Coming into a television studio is like entering a 20th-century torture chamber, but we old dogs have to learn new tricks’, said English prime minister Harold Macmillan in 1961. Have you ever considered this relationship in terms of what you’ve just described? It is a different kind of performing-acting out which has its own tragi-comic history …

GS: Who said that the camera doesn’t scare me? Actually, I would like to make a small remark on that. When I’m speaking about the camera, I am specifically referring to Pasolini’s camera. I’ve pointed out that particular camera and the specific scene where the camera takes a very intense position. That particular position is experienced through the camera’s recorded material and the image that is projected on the screen. Fortunately for the viewers Pasolini uses the mechanisms of recording to make us look far away from the conversation about the medium’s mechanics. A few days ago I had a conversation with a friend about the three trajectories of mediation, which are the mediation, re-mediation and hyper-mediation. We ended up deciding that, currently, the body is in hyper-mediation like the computer — it is a medium that always tries to call attention to itself. Perhaps the tragi-comic aspect of it is that images are produced in order to reproduce and serve our hyper-mediated bodies. Images change because our bodies change also. So, in a way it is always interesting to realise that the mechanisms of our reality are always interwoven with the reality of the images that surround us. But are we aware of that affective dialogue? The hyper-mediated body effectively moves, occupies space and transforms its image and the images that surround it. Then, what kind of politics will this body be able to constitute? Perhaps the image politics of the image.


Georgia Sagri’s solo show ΓΑΛΑΞΗ / Another Study of the Same Page was presented at AD Gallery, Athens, from 25 November 2009 to 10 February 2010.