Monday, March 25, 2013

Future Acropolis Museum

Recently, in the context of the AHO RESTORE studio I'm teaching with Espen Vatn on Alteration as a critical device, I had the chance to hear Christos Papoulias describe his seminal, critical, independent to the myriad competitions proposal for an Acropolis Museum in Athens.

Christos described the rock and it's many phases as atemporal, eternal.
the proposal focuses on a now invisible gap between two of the holy rocks' phases, the Mycenaean and the Classical 5th century AD, when the rock was significantly expanded to it's current retaining wall.
one of the excavations in the early 20th century uncovered the gap between the two walls
the gap is now only visible through a series of shafts left by the archaeologists. Those shafts and the now buried gap between the two retaining walls of the acropolis became the site for Christos Papoulias' proposal.

the walls of his museum would be the originally visible base 17m high base of the parthenon. 
the floor would mimic the roughly poured concrete that the archaeologists have long used to make the slippery rock accesible by visitors. It is a material that Papoulias suggest will look old even when its new.


the area of the museum would inhabit the south and south east part of the acropolis plateau
while remaining entirely below the ground surface

the museum
 
the floor of the museum would be a series of carefully placed platforms

 the interior of the museum is entirely made of the walls and ground already existing on the parthenon. the space would allow one solitude with the statues, a bridge of time.

 

 
the scaleless space is gigantic, with 17m high ceilings
 
inside the gap

the existing shafts together with a few additions would bring light down into this Erichthonean space


roof plan with southern slope antiquities

the museum would be visible only through it's entrance. And would offer an exit down to the south side of the acropolis hill, through one of the existing caves. One would exit onto the slope and visit the fascinating but mostly overlooked by tired tourists theater of Dionysus and other sites.
Christos finished his presentation by suggesting that this museum would certainly not be built in his lifetime. But lets hope Greece evolves up to that task at some point in a better future.
The drawings from The Erichthonean Museum belong to the collection of the Pompidou Center in Paris.
(the project was last presented at the 3rd Athens Biennial, Monodrome)

Sunday, January 27, 2013

PAOLA


Through the miracle of facebook
I rediscovered one of my teenage heroes

transvestive activist and publisher Paola Revenioti

her magazine Kraximo (fagbashing) one was of the reasons I would skip school 
and head to downtown Athens
its pages were full of hot guys and clever poets
Paola took most of the photos herself
 they were her lovers

and friends

the magazine was a total mystery


it was a cross between an anarchist newspaper and a porn magazine, 

 slashed together with a poetry and photography journal
 published out of the anarchist neighborhood of Exarchia
 it was full of police brutality reports against gays and trannies


 hot guys lazily lounging
 downtown legends like the cross dressing Andona (female for Andonis)
 pics of bad hot cops
 fellow Exarchia anarchists and punks
 When I first contacted Paola, who is still super active, though only online
on facebook and youtube http://www.youtube.com/user/thepaolaproject
where together with George Liakos she uploads documentaries on trannies, immigrants, male prostitutes and often antiquity.
I proposed a feature in the fabulous CANDY magazine, and thats how we met



Her combination of interests and activities is what I understand today as a contemporary art practice

visiting with Paola I realized she maintained a fantastic archive both of the magazine and her own photography.

 and I suggested we work on an exhibition of her photos

and videos (which we spliced together)
at The Breeder
 the show runs until Feb 16th
 on January 30 we will have a discussion with Paola on the show and her current and future activities
sexy boys sit together with aging queens


unexpected visitors

PAOLA curated by Andreas Angelidakis
The Breeder
17th Jan- 16th Feb. 2013
exhibition installation Andreas Angelidakis with Sotiris Vasiliou and Alexandra Syriou
special thanks to Manolito :)

read more about Paola
on Greek Wikipedia
LiFO (Greek)
BUTT