We are excited to announce our participation in Platforms Project 2019, the independent art fair of Athens, taking place from 16-19 May at the Athens School of Fine Arts. und. has been selected as one of 60 art platforms from 17 countries to exhibit in this year’s edition of the fair.
Inspired by its connection to the city and its mission to promote underrepresented art from Athens and its wider region, und. presents an extensive programme that includes a curated booth with a peripatetic element, a small publication, a discussion panel and two performances. Our curatorial concept revolves around the exploration of public space through a celebration of the unseen, as well as the idea of investing in the invisible both as a strategy of looking at the world and as a methodology for sustaining radical artistic practices today.
At Platforms Project Booth no.41, und. presents an exhibition of the project White Island Good View by visual artist Vasilis Botoulas and writer Kiriakos Spirou. The project has been developed specially for the context of Platforms Project and expands beyond the walls of the art fair into public space, along the trajectory that connects the Athens School of Fine Arts with the Kallithea train station. More specifically, the project explores Lefkados Street as a site for retrieving and inventing memory through found materials and interventions. During the four days of the fair, the artists are installing an open-air promenade along Lefkados Street with works created using materials found in situ. Visitors to the und. booth are given a small map designed by graphic designer Stavros Rossos, which they can then use to explore the area and visit the open-air exhibition. A visual diary of the project is currently being updated with daily entries here. A guided tour of the exhibition will take place on Friday 17 May at 18:00.
und. also organises a discussion panel as part of Platforms Project’s talks programme with the participation of four Athens-based art professionals. Speakers will discuss the idea of investment in the arts, issues of alternative currencies in the micro-economies of self-funded art spaces and the urgency of investing in the invisible. The panel consists of choreographer Ana Sánchez-Colberg, curator and writer iLiana Fokianaki, performance curator Macklin Kowal and curator Eleni Riga. The panel will take place on Saturday 18 May, at 17:00.
For the art fair’s performance programme, und. organises two performances. The performance A Beautiful Gaze (Friday 17 May at 14:00) is based on a semi-improvised score by Kiriakos Spirou that turns observation into an internalised process of reacting to the world. The work is performed by Konstantinos Anastasiades. Ana Sánchez-Colberg’s J[US]T 5 Micropolies - Athens invites participants to engage with the performer through an audio score composed of fragmentary narratives from places and layers of the city. The performance will take place along Lefkados Street on Sunday 19 May at 17:00.
und. supports Platforms Project 2019 with a media sponsorship and will be covering the event with social media posts and articles on und-athens.com. Follow us on Instagram for daily updates from the fair or subscribe to our email bulletin for a digest before and after the fair.
