Arthub Favorite: Week 148

Andreas Angelidakis
A Submissive Acknowledgment of Powerlessness

Duration: 2019 May 30 – August 31
Venue: 45 Iasonos st, GR 10436, Athens

The Breeder will present “A Submissive Acknowledgment of Powerlessness” a solo show by Andreas Angelidakis.

Yellow is a color used as a standard construction signifier. It is a color associated with sunshine, hope and happiness, but also the color of cowardice, sickness and jealousy.

With the exhibition “A Submissive Acknowledgment of Powerlessness”, Andreas Angelidakis continues to research the ways that external forces shape our built environment. Picking up from the work “Unauthorised”, presented during Documenta 14 in Athens and Kassel, and which examined how geopolitics, profiteering and government corruption shaped the city of Athens, a new set of works explores the ambiguities, contradictions and weaknesses of architecture. Taking further notes from the city of Athens, and its downtown neighborhoods almost entirely covered in graffiti, Angelidakis wonders if adding a layer of text onto a building is the only way to help it say something meaningful. As graffiti covers weak modernist buildings shaped by petty profit margins and corrupt governance, they become reactionary, political, buildings with a voice.

A group of 3d printed building-frames assume the typical, affected posturing of starchitecture developments, their slabs and columns twisting and turning, bending and arching to become desirable and attention worthy. Meanwhile, they are entirely covered with potentially contradictory graffiti, phrases picked up from random readings, such as “no master no plan”, or “stock narrative” used here to describe their weaknesses and faults. By receiving a voice, they suddenly attempt to speak their truth, the result both humorous, or downright cynical.

About artist

Andreas Angelidakis was born in Athens in 1968. He studied Architecture at the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) and continued his studies at Columbia University (MSAAD) in New York where he graduated in 1995. From the beginning of his career, he has been working at the intersection of art and architecture, often expanding onto other disciplines such as curating and writing.
His solo exhibitions include: Demos: A Reconstruction, Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto (2018) / I used to build my feelings, now I watch them leave, La Loge, Brussels (2018) / Soft Ruin, ALT Art Space, Istanbul, 2016 / Every End is a Beginning, National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens, 2014 / CrashPad – Preliminary Statement for the 8th Berlin Biennial Kunstwerke, Berlin, 2014 / Group Mountain, The Breeder Athens, 2013 / Paola, The Breeder, Athens, 2013 / The Angelo Foundations Headquarters, with Angelos Plessas, Jeu de Paume, Paris, 2009.