Athens Bookmark Timewarp

recently I stumbled upon this old book on Athens, and you know how old books are, everything looks sort of cool, like the Academy in 1900

the text was kind of complaining about Athens, like this image showing Omonia square (otherwise know as Junkie Central) "before it became a transportation hub". I guess that must be quite some time ago.

there was a map of Athens but it looked kind of boring and I couldnt tell how old it was, but the book definetly looked old.

as always, a nice plan of the acropolis as a palace proposal

then finally a date, Omonia Square in 1932,  before cars and junkies

 but then something weird. this picture looks really old too but the buildings not that old, and it says 1980, even if the photographic quality looks like from the 30s

but even more confusingly, this picture says 1986, when there was definetly color photography right? and why do the cars look like something from Grease? was it a major 1950s revival in the 80s?

ok obviouly the book not only is made to look like a much older book than it is, its also getting all the dates wrong, like these two cuties here (Syngrou Avenue otherwise known as Tranny Boulevard, in 1905? with 70s' modernist knockoffs?)

even the scans are kind of warped

a building thats probably not even in Athens

of course the cover explains everything: Athens Past and Future, (timewarped)

I took a Random Tumbl on a Book Friday

I havent been blogging as much because even if I had resisted Tumblr for the longest time, the fall into the abyss of Social Blogging was innevitable. Tumblr is great for random images that do not seem to be part of a larger post, like this image of a desert settlement from some book I scanned during a library hideout.

Tumbler has a dashboard view, which means you can follow people, so their images enter into your stream and of course your conciousness. This creates a unique combination of specificity and randomness.

Somehow the desert image seemed to lead to a photograph of a photograph ofTahrir square,

logically some pyramids came next,
which I perhaps found on Tumblr itself,
endlessly reblogged through time

they reminded me of some Stanley Tigerman pyramid city
that was lurking in a book-scan folder somewhere

weirdly sequing into a drawing of the Acropolis as a Palace,
as envisioned by megalomanic King Otto

and a plan of the Palace that actually he got, which typologically was a military barracks

morphing into some fake Greek ruins from the fabulous Mexico 68 Olympics,
which was before we all realised that the Olympics are just a big construction scam
to drown dumbass countries into forever debt

and out of nowhere came this image of the Acropolis angrily exploding

then a hand sculpture peeked out from a bad scan
of an intentionally deserted post-modern plaza by Oswald Mathias Ungers

absurdly followed by an exhibition of typewriters on strange marble plinths

and gloriously concluding with some Archizoom Red Square urbanism

PS: A Fish Faucet

Scroll Though This (The Venice)

Venice this year was all about the mega gesamtkunstwerk, kicking off with the heartbreaking Germania pavilion, which Christoph Schlingensief (1960-2010) turned into EGO, an out of control meta-fluxus church dedicated to his own death.

lung cancer

photos and videos cannot really decribe the simultaneous heavyness and lightness of this piece. Somehow it reminded me of The End, the 2009 Greek pavilion by Nikos Alexiou, who also passed away this year.

Moving on to the Swiss pavilion the always over the top gesamtkunstwerker Thomas Hirschhorn went over the over the top with "Crystal of Resistance"

aluminum foil car seats amongst a chaos of

monoblock chairs with empty aquariums and so much more

photodress menequin ending in crystal fringe while fingers scroll through photos on tv monitors

more broken mirrors

squirrels guarding magazines and crystals in brown tape caves was really the least of it. Again, you had to be there.

Moving on to gesamtkunstwerk number 3, Mike Nelson at the British Pavilion

who incredibly recreated a collage of Istanbul instances, a labyrynth of spatial and programmatic snapshots of everyday mayhem

complete with open air areas to just reming you that you have no idea where you are anymore: Neither Istanbul nor Venice, just inside his mind

or reaching down to grab his heart 

(Danish Pavilion curated by our very own Katerina Gregos)

or becoming scaled into space (Dominik Lang Czech pavilion)

Rotating (Dominik Lang Czech pavilion)

practicing (Elas Lassry Arsenale)

burning (Urs Fischer)

melting office chair 

Franz West showed his kitchen insideout, with all the works that hang there

Haroon Mizra got the golden lion for his "The National Apavilion of then and now"

a mountain of plinths

Gabriel Kuri upsidedown trashcans 

(see you in Basel next week, together with A LOT of the Arsenale, 

which was great, and ever so transportable, 

gallerists must be happy indeed

great Rosemarie Trockel

FOS boat party, Danish pavilion

the at the great Padigline Internet, at San Servolo island, which this year hosted BYOB Venezia featuring gnes Bolt, Alterazioni Video, Andreas Angelidakis, Angelo Plessas, Anna Franceschini, Billy Rennekamp, Britta Thie, Claudia Rossini, Cristian Bugatti, Eilis McDonald, Elisa Giardina Papa, Giallo Concialdi, Hayley Silverman, Interno3, Iocose, Jaime Martinez, Jeremy Bailey, KUNSTKAMMER, Les liens invisibles, LG Williams/Estate Of LG Williams, Luca Bolognesi, LuckyPDF, Marc Kremers, Marco Cadioli, Marisa Olson, Marlous Borm, Martin Cole, Matteo Erenbourg, Mai Ueda, Mike Ruiz, Miltos Manetas, Nazareno Crea, Nikola Tosic, Parker Ito, Pegy Zali, Petros Moris, Priscilla Tea, Protey Temen, Rafaël Rozendaal, Rene Abythe, Riley Harmon, Sarah Ciraci, Sarah Hartnett, Theodoros Giannakis, UBERMORGEN.COM, Valery Grancer, Wojciech Kosma, Yuri Pattison, Constant Dullaart, Daniel Swan, Duncan Malashock, Jodi, Panos Tsagaris, Travess Smalley.

and curated by Margherita Balzerani, Gloria Maria Cappelletti, Caroline Corbetta, Silvia Ferri De Lazara, Marina Fokidis, Elena Giulia Rossi, Valentina Tanni, Mara Sartore, Yvonne Force Villareal, Doreen Reemen, Jan Aman, Manuel Frara, David Quiles Guilló, Miltos Manetas, Lev Manovich, Angelo Plessas, Rafaël Rozendaal, Domenico Quaranta, Francesco Urbano and Francesco Ragazzi.

a night of mega projections in a garden on an island 

inspiring Luigi Ontani at Peggy Guggenheim, which showed the collection of Ileanna Sonnabend

great Wilhelm von Gloeden

the over at the super weird Dogana, which I had visited before, and had not idea what a little over manicured ruin it was. I think the Tadao Ando renovation almost beats the fake ruins of Knossos in it's Disneyfied decadence. Why? Anyway I only post things that I like in this blog, so its not that I dont like it, its just that I was taken aback by the extreme fakery provided by endless coats of Euros.

inside the space is equally weird, and I'm not just saying this because they didnt give me the cute yellow bag for free. Still Marcel Broodthaers' piece seemed to resist the space

I think I would prefer these amazing Chen Zhen candle houses against a proper white cube

maybe my favourite video of all time, Bruce Nauman Clown

Adel Abdessemed

over at Palazzo Grassi further akwardness, though Urs Fischer's Raymond Pettibon exhibition wallpaper still rocks

Angelo did a Robot Poetry Reading from his just published Automatic Book

who also put together the fantastic Book Affair ay MetriCubi

we finished the Venice Rounds with 

The Mediterranean Approach at Palazzo Zenobio, 

curated by Adelina von Furstenberg and Thierry Ollat 

and featuring Ghada Amer, Ziad Antar, Faouzi Bensaïdi, Marie Bovo, David Casini, Hüseyin Karabey, Ange Leccia, Adrian Paci, Maria Papadimitriou, Khalil Rabah, Zineb Sedira, Gal Weinstein, Peter Wuethrich (image David Casini)