This article is transferred from the author | Song Peifen
The theme of this year's Athens Biennale is "Eclipse," and the organizers look forward to using art and discussion to illuminate issues that have long been neglected in the big cities.
At the end of September, I went to Greece to attend the Seventh Athens Biennale and was admitted to the Cardiac Surgery Hospital. Please don't panic, I didn't see a heart attack because of watching art, I went to the hospital on a Saturday morning to test the number of antibodies against the virus against COVID. The day before, I met Afroditi Panagiotakou, the cultural director of the Onassis Foundation. The cultural director of the same name as Eros (in Greece, called "Aphrodite" and only became "Venus" in Rome) told me that she had just been informed that she had more than 2,200 antibodies against COVID, "Generally speaking, you only need 4 to have them," she proudly announced. Everyone immediately asked Aphrodite where to go for the test, and she immediately generously invited everyone to the surgical hospital affiliated with the Foundation for blood tests. This charitable foundation began 46 years ago and uses 40% of the profits of the Greek mega-rich Onassis business empire to charity. The Foundation is the main sponsor of the Athens Biennale and has also been involved in this year's planning work. The theme of this year's Athens Biennale is Eclipse. "Eclipses should happen occasionally, but we now seem to be experiencing an endless eclipse." Aphrodite explains, "Through this biennale, we want to explore the coexistence of different communities and cultural backgrounds in a big city like Athens. For example, some scattered communities that have fled the African continent for different reasons and settled in Athens. Most citizens either ignore their presence or turn a deaf ear to them. Not only immigrants, the Biennale provides a voice for ethnic groups marginalized by gender orientation. The Biennale has no ambition at all to change racially prejudiced people, but it wants to highlight these neglected communities through art and discussion.
In addition to inviting already well-known figures in the art world, such as feminist Judy Chicago, New Zealand artist Simon Denny, who uses video games to attack labor oppression, and transgender artist Zeng Wu, there are also many very young artists and art groups that are just starting out at the Biennale. The vast majority of the works are exhibited in three buildings in the city center, a long-defunct department store, an abandoned courthouse and a used mansion. On display in the theater at the Foundation's headquarters is the Biennale's most blockbuster work, "End Credits," a video installation created by Oscar-winning best director Steve McQueen and produced with the help of the Foundation. This is the artist's work that continues from 2012 to the present day. Inspired by the life of the legendary African-American singer and social brawler Paul Robertson (1898-1976), McQueen structured the work, mimicking the rolling subtitles at the end of a traditional film. McQueen copied thousands of pages of the FBI's Robertson archives, although there were still a lot of abridged content, and spun them into a video with only rolling subtitles and narration that kept looping. Here, the rolling subtitles at the end of the film become the narrative itself, and the narrator tells how Robertson was monitored by the FBI for more than 30 years because of his involvement in social movements, until the rest of his life.
In addition to sponsoring the Biennale, the Foundation carries out a number of artistic, cultural, sports, educational and health projects in the city of Athens. There are many private foundations in Greece that provide cultural sponsorship, but Onassis is probably the broadest and most grassroots. In addition to inviting renowned national and international artists, choreographers, actors and film directors to Greece to be inspired to create, the Foundation also goes deep into the community, builds grassroots relationships, and invites contemporary artists to carry out a series of creations and restorations in the city. For example, during the lockdown period when everyone could not get together, on the wall of a building in the Metaxourgio district, Ilias Papailiakis was invited to create a huge kissing mural, which made people look forward to the arrival of the reunion time. In the socially charged Neos Kosmos district, the Foundation has completely renovated the playground, playground and changing room, inviting two street artists, SUMMER84 and ATH1281, to color the basketball courts of the two youth centers, "so that every child and adult has the opportunity to unleash their potential and be reborn like these spaces." ”
Aphrodite argues that "these works not only beautify the surrounding environment, but also provoke emotions and discussions, illuminating places and corners that we may never notice." She believes that talking to residents, listening, and injecting creativity are the most important parts. To improve people's lives, it is not necessary to give money, but to create better conditions for daily life, such as through art projects in public spaces, "not for gentrification," Aphrodite emphasizes, "but to try to bring some light to the dark parts of the city through art or the creation of workspaces." "That's why, in addition to inviting big names like Fran Lebowitz and Gus Van Sant, the foundation is busy all year round to provide the community with rehearsal spaces, artist studios, or to clean up parks that have not been used for years, turn them into outdoor exhibition spaces, and change the local living environment." We never just talk about great works of art---- we think that's too easy. We want to talk about democracy, social justice and human rights, and art and culture are the vehicles that make us happen. We can offer what is called high-level cultural works, but we are also the people who walk the streets with you. For the Foundation, art and culture have no class and no boundaries. That's why, in addition to sponsoring art biennials and improving communities, the foundation also arranges for art critics to go to hospitals for antibody testing.