Art on the flipside of innocence
The malignant, dark side of human nature is the underlying theme behind GRUPS (an acronym for grown-ups), the title of this year’s Hydra School Project, the established, contemporary art exhibition curated each year in Hydra by artist Dimitris Antonitsis and organized in collaboration with Dimie Athanassopoulou. An episode of the Star Trek TV series, in which a spacecraft lands on a planet whose inhabitants are all children but behave like mean adults, inspired Antonitsis to design an exhibition around the flip, or distorted, side of innocence and the ills of contemporary society. As with most of his curatorial projects, Antonitsis makes his concept broad enough for different works to fit in, even when the relationship of the artworks with the initial concept seems distant. The concept is general and the connection with the works loose, something which gives freedom to the artists and flexibility to the exhibition but can also be criticized as lacking a sense of strong focus. Nevertheless, GRUPS, and the Hydra Project in general, is where one can see works by some of the trendiest and most up-and-coming artists in the international art market. The venture, which has attracted people from the international crowd, has introduced the Greek public to the work of foreign artists and has presented site-specific projects and original works made especially for each exhibition. In this year’s show, the works by Antonitsis – who besides being the curator is also one of the participating artists – are among the most relevant to the exhibition’s concept. One of his digital prints shows the late Leona Helmsley (she passed away in late August) posing as a queen on the staircase of the Helmsley Palace hotel in Manhattan. The picture is from a spread in Architectural Digest and includes a caption taken from the article. Using irony and the aesthetics of kitschy glamor, the work alludes to the corrupt underside of glitter and wealth (the Helmsleys were prosecuted for tax evasion and fraud), and a harsh reality that is disguised as a fairy-tale, almost a childhood fantasy, of living like a princess. Another of the artist’s works features Brown Sugar, a real ex-convict who makes a living in the USA working as a stripper. Antonitsis, who often refers to popular and celebrity culture in his work, met and photographed Brown Sugar and showed the frail, vulnerable side of him. As with the Leona Helmsley series, his work suggests that innocence and vulnerability along with violence and corruption can both be aspects of a person’s life. Where does one meet the other? Is innocence an alibi for violence? Or does each of us carry a certain childhood naivete that remains pure? The work of Antonitsis leaves the question open. Motifs that allude to a sinister reality and exploitation but have a decorative effect at a first glance define the work of Tillman Kaiser, one of the participating artists. In «Prayers,» one of the most engaging works on display, a small photograph showing African slaves with amputated hands appears below a slickly designed modern tray. The work is a sad reminder of affluence at the expense of peoples’ freedom in the Third World. In «Hydra Tree Snake,» an etching by Scott Campbell, the decorative aspect of the motif is counterbalanced by an ominous subject-matter. A similar idea underlies the vertiginous landscapes of Torben Giehler’s paintings. The colorful, abstract compositions that Giehler paints resemble virtual spaces of the digital, computer age. They feel alien but visually are pleasing to the eye. Tension and an underlying sense of threat also exist in Lisa Ruyter’s large-scale paintings of crowds. The works are based on photographs of crowds that the artist takes and then abstracts into paintings. Kon Trubkovich makes drawings and silkscreens of the so-called «Vanity Plates,» which are what customized car plates are known as in the USA. The plates are made by inmates as part of a work rehabilitation program in prisons. Again, behind the decorative surface lies a reality associated with violence. Rallou Panayiotou, the only other Greek artist participating in the exhibition apart from of Antonitsis, has constructed a sculpture inspired by the famous painting «The Island of the Dead» by the late 19th-century symbolist artist Arnold Bocklin. Like a giant toy, the sculpture replicates the dreamy, gloomy landscape of the original painting. The most violent images are those in the videos of Aaron Young. One of them shows an American pit-bull dog in the process of its training to become an attack-dog and another shows a motorcyclist driving around in circles in a closed, confined space. As the same image keeps repeating itself, one gets the sense of pent-up frustration, of violence that is building up and becoming increasingly dangerous. How do violence and innocence relate to one another and how do they shape human behavior? The concept behind GRUPS touches on complex issues related to human nature. Although the exhibition’s theoretical context is not communicated as forcefully by each of the works shown, this is still an exhibition that can be enjoyed for the actual art and the arrangement of the works. The eighth in a row of exhibitions that are known as the Hydra School Project, it continues a significant venture that has invigorated the Greek visual arts scene and has developed a broader reputation. GRUPS at the former secondary school of Hydra, through Sept. 29.
