Happiness
belongs to those
that suspect its existence
Research Centre for the Identification of Happiness (KEPE) Press Release, 26 September 1999
Chondros and Katsiani have been working as partners since 1974, using the city of Thessaloniki as their base. In their artistic and non-artistic practices (first as an artistic partnership and later as a duo of ‘retired’ artists and philologists), both as partners and as a family, they have long rejected the existence of boundaries between art and life inviting us to seek out a way of everyday living through art (as Areti Leopoulou wrote in her text, in the volume On clarity between velocity and duration: Crumbs that Chondros and Katsiani left behind to find their way, 2019).
Their work, both as a duo and in collaboration with others, has spanned three decades and includes numerous artistic events, concerts, publications and albums. The unconventional freedom with which they moved between different art forms, as well as their playful use of available creative means, in turn characterised their daily lives. Given their interest, from early on, in unifying disparate approaches, over this last decade and following their early ‘retirement’ from the arts in 2004, they have participated in mountain road races as Anonymous Rationalists alongside their son and daughter, whilst they also formed the group Oikoi, sharing moments of family play, sound compositions, photographs, publications, and jars of traditional sweets. They still take part in art events, whilst avoiding the creation of new works. They often post announcements online, offering publications and other items from their archive and personal collections with the intimacy and immediacy one would expect from a yard sale.
A selection of artistic actions and casual displays of love, intimacy, experimentation and resistance are presented on a specially designed platform at Villa Kapandji, as part of the Biennale’s main exhibition, Being as Communion. The work of Chondros and Katsiani debunks dichotomies and pseudo-dilemmas, with the ostensibly separation of art and life, the private and the public, the causal and the formal, finding a way to co-exist. In Incest, for example, a pair of Alexandra’s shoes tenderly inhabits a pair of Thanasis’ shoes, whilst in turn Thanasis’ pair is inhabited by Alexandra’s. Reprinted publications, press releases from KEPE and a stack of fliers from Poetry One Way or the Other―in which all the words, except the disjunctive “or” have been scribbled over―are placed on the various levels of the wooden platform. To the right and left, visitors can access a selection of compositions by Oikoi2310 and the group Dimosioypalliliko Retire, while at the top of the platform, videos and recorded footage of their actions are displayed on a series of screens. On the wall above the screens, a photo from the 2003 anti-war march is pasted on the wall, depicting the two artists, among others, holding a banner that reads “CALL FOR THE RECONSTITUTION OF A HORIZON”.
The opposite wall has been covered, top to bottom, with multiple reprints of a sticker that was disseminated throughout the streets of Thessaloniki on New Year’s Eve in 1984. The sticker depicts the two of them facing the world, arm in arm, and the words “We love each other,” with their home address printed underneath. The centre of the wall features Community, an installation re-situated straight from their kitchen wall, consisting of 36 spoons coupling each other, whilst collectively they contain a spoonful of sugar. Facing the installation is a bright neon sign, inviting us to address their question “Would you like me to be your family?”
The Research Centre for the Identification of Happiness (KEPE) therefore reintroduces itself to Thessaloniki, 25 years after its launching, inviting a new public to identify happiness by taking part in a shared experience in the hope of identifying fresh ways of communicating, living consciously, joyously, through art.
