EXHIBITIONS

Caroline May | Photini Papahatzi| Maria Paschalidou

Dates happen: 11/05/2012 ... 17/06/2012

Beyond the limits of the gaze:
Caroline May, Photini Papahatzi, Maria Paschalidou

Contemporary Art Center of Thessaloniki-Greece
Warehouse Β1
May 11-June 17, 2012
Opening: Friday May 11, 2012, 20:30

The Contemporary Art Center of Thessaloniki (Greece), part of the State Museum of Contemporary Art, presents the new works of three contemporary greek female visual artists, Caroline May, Photini Papahatzi and Maria Paschalidou under the title “Beyond the limits of the gaze”, from May 11 till June 17, at Warehouse B1 (Thessaloniki port area) (Opening: Friday May 11, 2012, 20:30. Opening hours: Tuesday-Saturday 10:00-18:00, Sunday 11:00-15:00)

The exhibition focuses on three autonomous, independent to each other projects that are on view for the first time in Greece. All of them share photography as their basic means, though stretching its technical and conceptual boundaries. Curators of the exhibition are Syrago Tsiara CACT Director & Curator, and Domna Gounari, CACT Curator.
“Beyond the limits of the gaze” is organized in the framework of CACT’s policy to promote original artistic creation and strengthen partnerships with agencies and organizations of the city and forms part of the Photobiennale parallel program of the Thessaloniki Photography Museum. The Contemporary Art Center of Thessaloniki presents the three artists in the context of this year Photobiennale, under the basic theme of Logos - discourse. All of them use language, archives and inter-textual communication in their oeuvre.

The exhibition
In the central hall of the CACT Maria Paschalidou’s original interactive photography installation entitled Arbitrariness extends (Sound synthesis / sound installation: Manolis Manousakis. Programming and software development: Marinos Koutsomichalis). According to the artist: “Arbitrariness seeks to map the area between the 'random', 'non-random' or even 'unfortunate' through repeated acts of narrating and correlating speech/language, photographic image and sound. The project explores the fragile and unforeseeable relation between image and language taking as a reference Louise Bourgeois’ art/book He disappeared into complete silence; Arbitrariness is an interactive photographic installation, which invites audiences to participate in a game of ‘choices’, ‘random choices’, ‘necessities’, ‘dilemmas’ or ‘indifference’. The specially designed software gives the possibility to viewers to interact with texts accompanying each projected photographic image”.

On the ground floor, around the central hall, Caroline May’s photographic series entitled The Killing Pictures is exhibited. The Killing Pictures is the artist's latest photographic series and premiered at the Freud Museum, London in June 2011. For this series, May has researched the homophobic murders that have taken place in London parks over the past decade, and has photographed the locations of the murders devoid of any indexes to these events. The work continues the artist's exploration of sexuality and collective codes of behaviour but at the same time it questions the documentary genre, and re-asserts the medium's subjectivity. The Killing Pictures addresses issues of representation in relation to collective memory, subjugation and trauma, and examines the ways in which photography largely constructs history.

Photini Papahatzi’s media environment Elevador extends across the first floor of the C.A.C.T. A work in progress, it currently consists of a series of photo prints and videos, which capture the personal stories, living conditions and interpersonal relations of prostitutes in the Brazilian city of Salvador. The artist points out that the specific video and photographic installation “addresses matters of choice, sexuality, media, age and sex in prostitution in a particular place. The place is defined in reality and symbolically of Elevador Lacerda, in Salvador de Bahia in northern Brazil, a modernist structure of iron 72m, built in 1873. Salvador, capital of Bahia, the northeastern province of Brazil, is a city built on a cliff overlooking the sea. The steep slope separates the city into two parts, the Cidade Alta and Cidade Baixa, the Upper City and Lower City. The two cities are joined, actually and metaphorically, with Elevador Lacerda: its 'bridge' hosts two elevators serving the public”.

Short artists’ cv’s
Maria Paschalidou (b. in 1966 in Peiraias, Greece) is an artist working with photography, digital imaging, video and installation. Her work blurs the boundaries between ‘real’ and ‘unreal’, the space among fiction, image and narrative by employing ‘visual’ metaphors, fabricated environments, ephemeral constructions and participatory installations. She has participated in exhibitions, festivals and art projects in Europe, the U.S., Canada, Russia, Australia and China. Her research interests include initiatives for collaborative projects and participative acts in art as well as activities that challenge dichotomies such as artist-audience, image-language, theory-praxis. She is a PhD candidate, Imaging and creative technologies, De Montfort University, UK and holds an MFA in Photography from Columbia College Chicago; Chicago, US. She currently lives in Athens where she works as an art educator specializing in Photography (conceptual approaches and interventions) and digital imaging & video.http://www.mariapaschalidou.com

Photini Papahatzi (b. 1966, Athens, Greece) currently lives and works in Kastrosekia, Preveza, Greece. She holds a Master in Arts Management from City University of London (2001). She studied fashion design, computer graphics, photography, video editing και documentary filmmaking. She was a member of the Photography Circle from 1990-1999. She has organised and participated in photography exhibitions in Cuba, U.K., Russia, Kroatia, Germany and Greece. Solo exhibitions were presented in Athens, Yiannena and Preveza. Her works are held in private collections in Greece and abroad. Since 1997 she collaborated with magazines and newspapers as a freelance photojournalist.

Caroline May (b. 1975, UK) lives and works in Athens, Greece. In 2011 her series The Killing Pictures premiered in a solo exhibition at The Freud Museum, London. In the same year, her work was included in the 3rd Athens Biennial, curated by Nicolas Bourriaud & XY. She has participated in many exhibitions in museums such as The Royal Academy, London (2007), The Centre for Contemporary Art, Barcelona (2006) and the Greek State Museum, Thessaloniki (2006). She is represented by The Apartment, Athens.

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EXHIBITIONS

Caroline May | Photini Papahatzi| Maria Paschalidou

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