Playing Ground

Group exhibition
Opening: 10/10/2019
Automatic Transmission, Meg. Alexandrou 95, Keramikos, Αthens
automatictransmission.gr

“In this intensity, this absorption, this power of maddening, lies the very essence, the primordial quality of play”.
Huizinga, J.

Sense and insanity, logic and emotions, purpose and the lack of it, constantly shape susceptible in-between spaces. In those spaces, eternally evolving, questioning the existence of bipolar perceptions of life is where the practice of playing lies. Games and playing redistributing hierarchical schemes doubt normativity and invite us to reimagine the commonplace.

Constantly present in contemporary culture, play due to its abrupt and unexpected nature has been put under manifold and -one could claim- inspired control mechanisms: absolute connection with infancy or idleness, educationally tooled to infuse common principles and behaviors. Ιn the 20th century, in the sake of the socially engaged communicational strategies, play has been used from arts institutions to propagate the inclusive cultural model. Participatory art practices, public programming built on the triptych of “play-create-learn” have functioned as attempts to orchestrate the notion of play and the playful practice of art into hegemonic narratives. Artists themselves, are invited to constrain their playful power of experimenting, creating, interacting with the material and the immaterial to pace with the prevalent art industry.

Playing however, when not closely supervised can lead to unexpected paths and create undesirable situations, dead ends or even threatening environments. Breaking the boundaries of time and space, thus the structures and the roles affiliated with space, time and economy, play creates a battleground of its own. In those dark, fluid places of conflict, passion and extraordinary imagination practitioners of art and other players point out what’s missing from the ordinary: the disdained, the overlooked and the silenced.

Huizinga, in 1944, evidently in favor of the performative arts and poetry claims that physical labor demanded from the “craftsmen” and the lack of “visible and “public action” exclude the element of play from the plastic arts. We can’t but ask ourselves what is contemporary art actually seeking to incorporate through public intervention, social engagement and activism in the past century?

Is it to build communities, the establishment of a common ground profoundly political or simply the living, daring and revolutionary experience of taking part in games?

Irini Karayannopoulou, Anna Lascari, Irini Bachlitzanaki and Anastasia Pavlou explore the possible ground of the element of play through various practices, media and gestures in the recently founded space of Automatic Transmission. The following months, Automatic Transmission aims to create a living archive on the notions of play in contemporary art and culture opening a dialogue between the show and researchers from interdisciplinary backgrounds through open discussions, workshops, educational programs and contributions on the online platform of the project space. The active public program will be engaged on the opening, 10/10 with the performance of Katerina Yannouli.

Curator: Christina Petkopoulou