February 21 through April 3 ,2020
Opening 6 to 9 pm Friday, February 21, 2020
Artists: Eirini Linardaki, Jenny Marketou,
Vincent Parisot, Peter Soriano
Fanzines and editions: Julien Gardair, Tattfoo Tan
Panel discussion: Juanli Carrion
Interpretive participation by Maria Dimanshtein
Curated by Eirini Linardaki and Jenny Marketou
During several discussions Eirini Linardaki and Jenny Marketou co-curators and participating artists discussed terms of interdependency, participation, performance, collaboration in relation to art and social practice. They began by asking how they could bring together sustainable relations among themselves, the artists/curators, and most important with their audiences from the diverse communities across the five boroughs of New York City. They reflected on artistic actions as political and social forms in the context of contemporary art discourse, as well as, within their work and the works of other artists. They envisioned Interdependency Now being an exhibition based on the potential of participatory, performative and socially engaged practices. Interdependency means to learn from one another; to take care of one another; to cultivate human exchanges; to change perspectives; to overcome differences in experiences of everyday life. One of the things contemporary art can help make visible is how creativity resides within our society in multiple ways. Our connectivity with each other. Our environment is not a linear process of development, as it is a process in which we are all relational and interdependent beings. As Judith Butler, American philosopher mentions the idea of Interdependency establishes a principle of equality and connectedness. (1)
Interdependency Now brings together the works of artists who contribute to this participatory experience which takes place from February 21st through April 3rd, 2020 at Radiator Gallery in Long Island City.
Eirini Linardaki and Vincent Parisot are creating a common installation titled “Monkey meets war”. They are combining magnetic fragments of drawings and collages both from previous explosions and faux marble drawings of dismembered monkeys. The fragments can either be assembled into separate drawings or be messed up to create abstract collages. For a long time, the artists thought about the techniques each one is using in their installations. Vincent practices drawing and painting inspired by intriguing objects interrogating our perception of heritage and nature. Eirini works with patterns from countries in war and is using imagery from disasters and explosions to speak about our human condition, tragedy and our psyche in war. Under the auspices of interdependency, they have decided to join their works in one installation, intertwining their materials, techniques and practices. They are displaying them in a way that the visitors become the authors of the images that are created anew from their fragmented artworks.
Jenny Marketou creates a new iteration of Evergrowing through my city originally realized for The Garden. It is her ongoing art & praxis initiative for youth in Athens which was presented during the School of Everything, Parliament of Bodies, Documenta 14, Athens/Kassel. Evergrowing through my city is an ephemeral sculptural intervention meant to be constructed over time with the participation of the audience which develops the artist’s interest in working with models and infrastructures for play and civic engagement. Jenny’s inspiration has been Karl Johansson’s (1890) self-stabilizing prototypes of the tensegrity construction systems in which each part is essential to the function of the larger structure. Evergrowing through my city is made out of tensegrity units of wooden sticks, knotted together with elastic threads, colorful yarns, found materials, and objects. Throughout the exhibit participants are offered the opportunity to build and add their own colorful wooden units, to attach found objects, textures and material. A digital data system compiles all of the objects along with the names of participants. By the end of the exhibition, the evergrowing construction becomes whimsical and joyful embodying the character of the participants by the construction of relationships with the elements that have been used.
Peter Soriano whose work is instructional based wall drawings contributes with a work titled ““Jungfrau- Aletsch””. It is a section of a larger wall drawing project that he will exhibit this summer in the Université de Bordeaux. The work is based on observations and the experience of being on a glacier last summer, and forms part of a larger project observing melting snow. More specifically he focuses on the large cracks that form on the ice surface. During the exhibition Peter intends to complete the wall drawing with the help and interpretation of other participants. These individuals will choose from a large selection of preselected marks, to complete the drawing as they see fit.
During the exhibition there will panel discussions, artists talks and readings.
Juanli Carrion’s participation takes the form of a panel discussion that he organizes titled OSS Project Inc: Community + Conflict + Art = Garden .The panel addresses public gardens as art, interventions, using urban farming, storytelling, educational programming and community building as means to address sustainable social or political structures and art practices.
Julien Gardair participates with a series of Fanzines and Tattfoo Tan is offering reading possibilities with his current editions.
Bios
Eirini Linardaki was born in Athens and studied in Limerick L.I.T., Ireland, Berlin and Marseille. She lived in France for more than twenty years before moving to the island of Crete, where she is based now, developing projects within the city and questioning the relation between public policy and art.
Vincent Parisot is a visual artist born in France, he lives in Heraklion, Crete. He realizes projects in situ, in the public space and at the same time develops a practice of drawing. He is inspired by the correlation of movement in urban areas, ready-made objects that help him produce minimal artistic interventions in the public space.
Their common public art projects are on view in Paris, New York, Nigeria, Liberia, Athens and on the island of Crete.
Jenny Marketou born in Athens, Greece based in New York is an interdisciplinary artist, researcher, author and activist. She understands her artistic practice as the practice of enabling, of making possible, unearthing, opening, performing, playing and channeling ideas and energies in developing sustainable social, pedagogical structures and art practices. Her art projects have been exhibited and her videos screened in International Art Biennials, museums and galleries worldwide. She is the co-editor of “Organizing from Below/How Assemblies Matter? (2017) Naked Punch (London) and contributor to “Performing Interdependency” (2017) with Zurich University of Arts, School of the Arts and Design,Kassel and ASFA in Greece.
Born in Manila, Philippines, Peter Soriano received his B.A. in Art History from Harvard College and studied at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture before moving to New York City in 1981. Represented in Paris by Galerie Jean Fournier and in New York by Lennon, Weinberg, Inc., his work has been widely exhibited with recent solo shows at CIRCUIT Centre d’art contemporain in Lausanne, Domaine de Kerguéhennec in Brittany, Busan Biennalle in South Korea, and, at the Colby College Museum of Art in Maine. Works by the artist are included in The Morgan Library and Museum, Harvard Art Museums, Colby Museum of Art, Fonds national d’art contemporain (FNAC) in Paris, Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, and the Wanås Foundation in Sweden, among other institutions.
Juanli Carrión is an artist, researcher and activist whose work unfolds in the development, research and education of community engaged design and artistic practices. He is currently focusing on the research of practices that expand beyond the art/design realm to become policies, non-profit organizations, associations, groups, or other sustainable social or political structures and practices, with the aim of translating the results into pedagogical strategies.
Julien Gardair extends his studio practice into editions playing with the hand made and the mechanical, the unique and the multiple, digital and analog, abundance and scarcity.
Artist Tattfoo Tan’s practice focuses on issues relating to ecology, sustainability and healthy living. His work is project-based, ephemeral and educational in nature. Tan has been widely recognized for his artistic contributions and service to the community and is the proud recipient of a proclamation from the City of New York.
Notes
1 Judith Butller and Athena Athanasiou, Dispossession: The Performative of the Political, Cambridge, Polity Press, 2013
Evergrowing through my city by Jenny Marketou, 2020
ARTWORKS
OPENING
Instagram Live Series during Covid-19:
Watch One on One, Instagram LIVE Interview with Peter Soriano here.
Watch One on One, Instagram LIVE Interview with Vincent Parisot here.
Watch One on One, Instagram LIVE Interview with Julien Gardair here.
Watch One on One, Instagram LIVE Interview with Tattfo Tan by Erini Linardaki here.
Watch One on One, Instagram LIVE Interview with Tamas Veszi and Rachel Eliza Griffiths here.
