« Crisis and Paganism »
The rocky heat, cooled by the sea spray and the roar of the wind, characterizes the Cycladic landscape, from which emerges a living force, a mixture of perpetual grandeur and latent anxiety. In Mykonos, the Biennale, nourished by this duality, crystallized these paradoxes in a terse statement « Crisis and paganism. » In her statement, Lydia Venieri, artist and organizer of the Bienniale, sets out her bias and thus declares that « the crisis punishes in an exemplary manner pagan Greece, weak cicada when the crisis came »1. The ambivalence of paganism is linked to its semantic plurality, although its broadest sense refers to polytheism « by the early Christians ».2 Pejoratively used, this term is synonymous with laziness, carelessness or inconsistency . Besides, « paganism is a subject that deserves a thorough study [...]. We can see at a glance what extent it embraces, as it closely interests science of the facts as well as laws, literature, monuments, religions, history, ethnography, archeology, philosophy and theology. »3 The spectrum of Greek paganism spreads, like its cultural impact. The Biennale understood it and exploited it by organizing its presence in significant places such as Kouseyiares Church, the Museum of Popular Art, the Windmills, Lena’s House, the Museum of Agriculture, the Folklore Museum … Other events were programmed at the Cine Manto, the Big White gallery, the municipal Art gallery and the School of Fine Arts.
Biennale Mykonos imagined connections among different parts of the Greek popular culture by considering the concept of the social fact as developed by Claude Levi-Strauss. « Any culture can be considered as a combination of symbolic systems headed by language, the matrimonial rules, the economic relations, art, science and religion. All the systems seek to express certain aspects of physical reality and social reality, and even more, to express the links that those two types of reality have with each other and those that occur among the symbolic systems themselves. »4 By focusing on complex relationships between art, economics, society, the Biennale has put into perspective the richness of Greek culture, while indicating an awareness of contemporary challenges.
The path was inaugurated at the School of Fine Arts, where a children’s choir happily sang few choruses of popular songs to welcome curious visitors. The visit was followed by an exhibition of different types of mediums. Maria Nymfiadi presented an installation, No. 29291, consisting of an immaculate paper roll on which stood a block of pencils. The whiteness called the intervention of visitors who were surprised by the arabesques and rough sketches left by the rubbing of leads. Panagiota Apostolopoulou exhibited a poetic work, a hand-woven frame on fabric, giving the viewers the pleasure to imagine what could be framed inside. Incongruous and zany characters from the « Universal Love Portraits » series, created by Mark Hadjipateras, were surprising. They are an explicit reference to the multitude of cultures and rituals, across countries and continents, responding to the photographs of Tassos Vrettos. Diversity has been widely honored by the programme of Mykonos Biennale, and its willingness to present various young and promising artists such as Esthir Lemi, Leonidas Chalepas, Lydia Andrioti… The exhibition was followed by a tour through the narrow winding streets of Mykonos, hiding in many corners young musicians dressed in the welcoming colors of the Biennale.
A Dionysian banquet hosted the palates in lack of taste discoveries at the Town Hall. On the tablecloth, were arranged flower-made dishes cooked by a team of « Flower Girls ». The performance was complemented by a choreography of Sylvia Macchi’s troupe, where mythological hybrid creatures skimed the sand with their strange grace. Later, a few notes of the singer Anna Pangálou rose above the visitors trooped under the balcony of the town hall.
At the Folk Museum, tapestries, plates and traditional objects stood alongside some contemporary artworks, including a silkscreen of a one dollar bill created by Aleta Lee and symbolizing the cost of happiness in American culture. The tour leaded to the The Mythological Deer of Nobuhiro Ishihara, which fitted closely the walls of the Windmills. Inside Lucas Samaras presented a video installation, mysteriously hidden behind a fanlight.
At twilight, the Cine Manto, an outdoor cinema, projected artists’ films during the International Short Film and Art Video Festival where films of Carlos Amorales, Steve Mc Queen, ORLAN, Lydia Venieri Mark Hatzipateras Adonis Volanakis were shown…
The first edition of Mykonos Biennale is an adventure. In this land, there is an incredible atmosphere, combining sparkling antiquity and contemporary fall. Art is sometimes a catalyst, sometimes a release. « It is impossible [...] to neglect art [...] because art is part of the culture, and also perhaps for the still more definite reason that art constitutes to the highest degree that take-over of nature by culture [...]. »5
1 Lydia Venieri, Press release « Crisis and Paganism », Mykonos Biennale 2013.
2 Larousse, definition of common name « paganism ».
3 CHESNEL, François, Paganism, principles and history, 1868.
4 LEVI-STRAUSS, Claude, An Introduction to the Work of Marcel Mauss, 1950, p. XIX.
5 CHARBONNIER, Georges, Interview of Claude Levi-Strauss, « Art as a system of Signs », 1961.
Captions :
Pictures 1-2 : Maria Nymfiadi, No 29291, 2006, Installation, Variable dimensions
Pictures 3-4 : Panagiota Apostolopoulou, Promise, 2009
Picture 5 : Choreography of Sylvia Macchi’s troupe, Mykonos Town Hall, June 2013