Athens Art Scene – The New Visionaries: Panos Fourtoulakis

It is more than obvious that during the three years of the pandemic, the contemporary art scene in Athens was anything but idle. New proposals, new projects, new exhibition spaces, and large-scale exhibitions that activate abandoned city buildings, compose a fresh and at the same time dynamic reality. Behind and in front of that there are new faces who either returned from their curator duties abroad with suitcases full of experience and optimism or dared to present their own dreams with stubbornness and above all vision and expertise. We give the floor to five of them with the wish that they continue to dream.

Panos Fourtoulakis is a curator and producer with vigorous activity in London and Amsterdam. He
is the curator of Courtyard, an online project space that was created with Rodeo Gallery’s support,
while a few months ago along with Titus Nouwens they presented a pop-up project space that was
entertained in the off-site space of Haus N in Vathi’s Square.

 

Panos Fourtoulakis says:

“Living in Athens last year, I had the chance to collaborate with people, which helped me to ‘listen’ to life here in a better way and to explore questions regarding everything that happens around us while preparing new projects’ and exhibitions’ editing and production. The artists which whom I worked with, in various ways, imprint and reflect the city’s rhythms, often through images. Whether they are moving or still, these images uncover elements that tend to go by unnoticed when experienced, allowing me among others access to dreamy places while at the same auto-reflective. The distance between image and viewer, the temporary -usually- collective meeting that takes place in viewing areas, determines a project’s experience and
that is something that charms me: the mystification of that path between viewer and exhibit and that distance’s redefinition.

The relationship between art and cinema constitutes a central interest in my work, along with the widened presentations of moving images’, expositions’ and instalments’ projects. While I am here I realise to my surprise that even though there is a strong cinephile tradition in Athens, there is a distance from the rest of the artistic community and the presentation of moving images as means of art is limited. I want, through my work, to cultivate and embroil those relationships, to keep on cooperating with artists that I admire, and to develop plans and collaborations that inspire, initiate, and enable conversations and collective meetings, especially among those who they -usually don’t meet each other“.

Read the new issue 132 of Ozon Magazine here: https://issuu.com/ozon/docs/ozon_2022_final_lr_issuu2