ARTIST

Vasso Katraki

Pebles and tools

Print-maker and painter Vasso Leonardou Katraki (1914-1988) has a two-pronged participation in Being as Communion. Her work is presented across two different spaces: on its own and in a new commission, in dialogue with a contemporary Greek artist.

Her hometown, the town of Aitoliko, in Aitoloakarnania, with its lagoon, as well as the local and international political landscape of the 1940s, played a decisive role in her artistic work. Katraki received several international distinctions (such as the lithography award at the 1966 XXXIII Venice Biennale) and took part in numerous international exhibitions and biennales (Alexandria, Sao Paulo, Tokyo, Leipzig). She studied at the Athens School of Fine Arts, graduating in 1940, in the aftermath of the First World War, and shortly after the eruption of WWII. This was the political landscape in which Katraki would “land,” as she would put it, “…on the side of the political left, fighting against Metaxas’ dictatorship. We were stirred by these social struggles and ideologies asking for social democracy and visions in art, especially the vision of freedom.”

Her work, in Greece, needs no introduction. In her engravings, she initially used an arguably more traditional material, wood, whereas stone―and in particular sandstone―would play a key role in her work over the final thirty-five years of her career. Sandstone is a porous rock that has the capacity to filter and store large quantities of liquid. It is formed in areas previously occupied by small seas. One cannot but wonder whether this choice of material was purely incidental, considering that the artist’s place of origin―this small island rooted in the water―is so closely connected to one of the most important lagoons in Greece.

Her earlier themes can be described as ‘folk social realism.’ The War, the Occupation, the Resistance, and the Civil War take on a central role, with the fishermen of her hometown appearing in her work in the late 1940s, also featuring prominently in her stone engravings over the following decade. The same can also be said of her distinctive mother-figure. From her early portraits, made with stone and sandstone, using the delicate chisels of  her trade, Katraki would move on to the rough tools of the sculptor. The artist would become increasingly abstract; her forms ascetic and archetypal. Stern female figures, bloody suns, wounded horses.

In 1967, Katraki was among the first people arrested, the day after the military coup of April 21st. She was exiled to the island of Gyaros, where she would remain for almost ten months. Gyaros, or Yioura as the engraver and her fellow prisoners called this uninhabited island in the Cyclades, had served as a place of exile and punitive isolation since Roman times. It was under these conditions that the pebbles on the seashore were painted, in a defunct building turned ―on Katraki’s initiative―into an informal workshop or improvised studio. The pebbles would be painted with suns or mostly female figures, almost always smiling―a feature completely absent both from her earlier female forms and from the later, almost formalistic figures that she would carve into stone during the period immediately after her exile. Katraki would send painted pebbles of girls and suns to her eight-year-old twin children, Marianna and Spyros: small offerings, of hope and optimism.

In the showcases of Villa Kapandji, these iconic pebble (time capsules of historical and personal memory) but also tools and handwritten notes that relate to her engravings, will be on display. The artist herself had said in an interview that she had never considered these “pebbles” as works; for her, “they were nothing more than a game.” And yet, it is almost impossible for us to overlook their meaning as testaments of her time, work and struggle and how seamlessly they fit in with the rest of her work.

ARTIST'S VENUES

MAIN EXHIBITION

BEING AS COMMUNION

The central exhibition of the 8th Thessaloniki Biennial of Contemporary Art aims to think critically about co-existence and collaborative practices as creative tools for handling the multiple crises that we face. Thinking through being as communion, 28 artists via their respective practices touch on various forms of more than human collaborations, with our spectral past and our challenging present, thinking of how we can co-exist with animate life around us, the land that we stand on, the food that we eat and the air that we breathe. Being as Communion will focus on inclusive practices that explore different forms of care, love and mutuality, whilst also proposing generous forms of support systems. Invited artists and artist collectives will explore the human impact on the eco-systems that we share, whilst suggesting forms of more equitable existence, for humanimal survival, probing to what extent we can learn new ways of being with, rather than dominating the world around us.

Ten key sites and museums of the city of Thessaloniki will host the exhibition’s works, in dialogue with the city’s layered history, allowing for a polyphonic reading of the exhibition in ten equal parts.

04.03 –
21.05.2023

MOMus-Museum of Contemporary Art, Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki, Museum of Byzantine Culture, National Bank of Greece Cultural Foundation, Hamidie – Islahane Cultural Venue, Eptapyrgio, Yeni Jami, Thessaloniki French Institute, Glass Box “Scultures’ Garden” (seefront area), Thessaloniki Concert Hall (building M2)

The central exhibition of the 8th Thessaloniki Biennial of Contemporary Art aims to think critically about co-existence and collaborative practices as creative tools for handling the multiple crises that we face. Thinking through being as communion, 28 artists via their respective practices touch on various forms of more than human collaborations, with our spectral past and our challenging present, thinking of how we can co-exist with animate life around us, the land that we stand on, the food that we eat and the air that we breathe. Being as Communion will focus on inclusive practices that explore different forms of care, love and mutuality, whilst also proposing generous forms of support systems. Invited artists and artist collectives will explore the human impact on the eco-systems that we share, whilst suggesting forms of more equitable existence, for humanimal survival, probing to what extent we can learn new ways of being with, rather than dominating the world around us.

Ten key sites and museums of the city of Thessaloniki will host the exhibition’s works, in dialogue with the city’s layered history, allowing for a polyphonic reading of the exhibition in ten equal parts.

04.03 –
21.05.2023

MOMus-Museum of Contemporary Art, Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki, Museum of Byzantine Culture, National Bank of Greece Cultural Foundation, Hamidie – Islahane Cultural Venue, Eptapyrgio, Yeni Jami, Thessaloniki French Institute, Glass Box “Scultures’ Garden” (seefront area), Thessaloniki Concert Hall (building M2)

EXHIBITIONS

PROJECTS

09.02 –
30.04.2023

An exhibition collectively put together by curators of MOMus

21.12.2022 –
21.05.2023

ΜΟΜus-Museum of Modern Art-Costakis Collection

09.02 –
30.04.2023

An exhibition collectively put together by curators of MOMus

09.02 –
30.04.2023

An exhibition collectively put together by curators of MOMus

21.12.2022 –
21.05.2023

ΜΟΜus-Museum of Modern Art-Costakis Collection

BIENNALE 8

GEOCULTURA

The exchange of ideas, values and norms, within a context of a multitude of cultural, geographical and political debates and conflicts, is at the core of the concept of 'geoculture' in the political and social sciences. This is the rationale behind the decision of the 8th edition of Thessaloniki's Biennale of Contemporary Art to turn its attention to the terms 'land' (“geo-”) and 'culture', connecting the cultivation of land with culture, understood as a set of resources, texts and practices which are available to people, helping them better understand and more effectively act in the world. It explores issues of memory, history, and managing both the natural and man-made environment, under the conditions of the climate, economic and refugee crises.

The participating artists focus on histories of places and people; they touch upon issues of identity, ethics, equity and sustainability; they suggest improvised ecological technologies; they explore the potential for collective existence and question the systems by which production, consumption and profitability are organized; they put into practice ideas of resource sharing and equitable living, as well as ways of reassessing the commodification of human and non-human life. Through their works, imagination becomes a crucial factor in facilitating the audience to imagine different versions of the future.

Firmly believing that art broadens our understanding of the world, the 8th Biennale seeks not only to raise environmental awareness, but also to multiply future possibilities, with new claims and visions. The 8th Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art aspires to serve as a means of communication with the world, as an act of justice and freedom, of trust and progressive thinking.

The Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art is financed by Greece and the European Union (European Regional Development Fund) is organised by MOMus and implemented by MOMus-Museum of Contemporary Art-Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art and State Museum of Contemporary Art Collections.

The participating artists focus on histories of places and people; they touch upon issues of identity, ethics, equity and sustainability; they suggest improvised ecological technologies; they explore the potential for collective existence and question the systems by which production, consumption and profitability are organized; they put into practice ideas of resource sharing and equitable living, as well as ways of reassessing the commodification of human and non-human life. Through their works, imagination becomes a crucial factor in facilitating the audience to imagine different versions of the future.

Firmly believing that art broadens our understanding of the world, the 8th Biennale seeks not only to raise environmental awareness, but also to multiply future possibilities, with new claims and visions. The 8th Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art aspires to serve as a means of communication with the world, as an act of justice and freedom, of trust and progressive thinking.

The Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art is financed by Greece and the European Union (European Regional Development Fund) is organised by MOMus and implemented by MOMus-Museum of Contemporary Art-Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art and State Museum of Contemporary Art Collections.