METALIBRARY - CHRISTINA MITRENTSE
A collaboration between the Contemporary Art Center of Thessaloniki (CACT) of the State Museum of Contemporary Art (SMCA)
with the National Bank of Greece Cultural Foundation (MIET)
at the 11th Thessaloniki Book Fair
Helexpo Exhibition Centre
Pavilion 15, Stand 16
Sunday 11th May 2014, 12:00
The Contemporary Art Centre of Thessaloniki of the State Museum of Contemporary Art, in collaboration with the National Bank of Greece Cultural Foundation, is pleased to present a special art project for the 11thInternational Book Fair in Thessaloniki. An interactive intervention entitled "Meta-Library” by artist Christina Mitrentse, to be held in the pavilion of MIET (within the IBF) on Sunday, 11 May 2014, at 12:00 noon (Pavilion 15, Stand 16). The project is kindly supported by the Scholars’ Association of the Onassis Public Benefit Foundation.
The main body of the project will consist of dozens of books, which will be selected by the artist from the libraries of the SMCA and the MIET and with additional favorite books selected by the staff of both institutions. These are the main material for the construction of an ephemeral "Meta-Library”. Mitrentse, along with the public, will construct a participatory floor-based interactive installation, as a site-specific intervention in the grounds of the Stand 16, that focuses on the culture of the book. The public's participation and interaction with the work is a vital element. During the day, the audiences are invited to bring and add their own favorite book in order to expand the content of the continual "Bibliographic Data Flow” of the Meta-Library.
As refer to by the curator - art historian of the CACT / SMCA, Areti Leopoulou: Mitrentse is eventually ultimately building an Heterotopia of her own, As a result, she initiates a kind of post-museum for books that are symbolically “disabled” or “dead”. This concept has a strong theoretical and methodological infrastructure: emblems, ancient monuments and plinths, cultural or historical symbols, the internet, as well as the background of other artists (i.e. British conceptual artist John Latham). In this way she brings the books back to life with her own museological idiom. She recommends a new type of language –she proposes a new knowledge. Even if the death of books or other cultural products is perennially announced, even if access to information has become equal to absorbed information, what still remains a need is knowledge. And knowledge never dies.
Christina Mitrentse was born in Thessaloniki. She is a multidisciplinary London based artist, freelance curator and educator. With an A. Onassis foundation fellowship Mitrentse awarded an MFA and P.G dip. from Chelsea College of Art & Design and PGCE from Uni. of Greenwich London. She has exhibited extensively in solo and group shows in galleries, museums and public spaces including Liverpool Biennial UK, XV Biennale de Mediterranean Thes/niki-Rome, ICA London, NDSM-werf Amsterdam, Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art, Nadine Feront Gallery Brussels, Departure Foundation London, Dalla Rossa Gallery London, Royal Academy, The Stephen Lawrence Gallery, Mitte Gallery Barcelona, Book Art Center NY. Her work has been profiled and reviewed in major publications including Art Monthly, InteRartive, Athens Voice, Book Art magazine, Macedonia paper ,Close Up, Time out London ,AN magazine , Hackney Gazzete, In/flux, Frieze.
Mitrentse’s artworks have been acquired by private & public collections including Fine Art Society London, Greenwich Council, The Women’s Arts Library Special Colections, Mol’s collection Holland, Tate Archive, Penguin Collectors Society, Zablutowitz collection, Griechische Kultustiftung Berlin, M. Altenman NY,Benaki Museum and El.Venizelos Airport Athens, Beltsios & Karathodoros collection. Awards include Swedenborg Society London 2013, Salon Art Prize 2010, Matt Roberts Foundation, 2000 Hellenic Art Award national airport El.Venizelos, Athens.1997 4th Heineken Art.
With the kind support of Scholar’s Association of Onassis Public Benefit Foundation.
