The Courtauld Institute of Art, London and The Sotiris Felios Collection present the exhibition Poetics of the Ordinary: Still Lifes from the Sotiris Felios Collection curated by Kirk Patrick H. Testa. The exhibition opens on Wednesday 2nd November 2022 at 18.00-21.00 at the art space 16 Fokionos Negri Athens.

Poetics of the Ordinary: Still Lifes from the Sotiris Felios Collection is the first exhibition presented in the context of the Residency Programme and is the culmination of curator Kirk Patrick H. Testa’s six-week residency in Athens, during which he immersed himself in its vibrant arts community and developed his research and curatorial practice through meeting artists and art professionals from leading museums and galleries of Greece.

The exhibition comprises paintings, drawings, and sculptures by: Tasos Aridas, Christos Bokoros, Chronis Botsoglou, Leda Contogiannopoulou, Stefanos Daskalakis, Michel Fais, Panos Fidakis, Stratigoula Giannikopoulou, Maria Hadjiandreou, Dimitris Hantzopoulos, Konstantinos Kerestetzis, Alecos Levidis, Afroditi Liti, Andreas Lolis, Natalia Mela, Louiza Missiou, Vally Nomidou, Kostas Papanikolaou, Vasilis Papanikolaou, Kostas Papatriantafyllopoulos, Yannis Psychopedis, Giorgos Rorris, Pavlos Samios, Anna Maria Tsakali, and Popi Tsoukatou.

CURATOR’S NOTE

Historically considered the lowest of the types of painting, the still life genre is a locus of oppositional forces: the fragment and the whole, the ephemeral and the eternal, or the sacred and the profane. Despite its simplicity in subject matter through the representation of mundane objects, this genre of painting encourages beholders to perform slow looking, an experience corrupted by our digital age’s deluge of images. This problem of having ‘too much world’, as coined by media theorist Hito Steyerl, stems from the ungraspable velocity of data and information within our globalized digital world.

One remedy to the nausea and angst produced by the twenty-four-hour news cycle and algorithmic social media feeds are encounters with art that invite beholders to pause, slow down, and reflect on lived reality. Poetics of the Ordinary: Still Lifes from the Sotiris Felios Collection offers such an opportunity. Comprising works from The Sotiris Felios Collection, this exhibition offers insight not only into the sensibilities of the collector, but also an opportunity to witness the continuity between classical and contemporary Greek culture.

Sparking dialogue between the public and the still life works in the collection, this exhibition also features a social media campaign inviting the public to submit digital still life photographs from everyday life, using hashtag ‘#stillathens’. Including these photographs in the exhibition will help produce a contrapuntal relationship between the rhythms of contemporary life and the works from the collection.

ABOUT KIRK PATRICK H. TESTA

Kirk Patrick H. Testa completed his studies in Art History and Philosophy at Vassar College (Poughkeepsie, New York) in 2019, continuing further his studies at The Courtauld Institute of Art, London from where he graduated in 2022 with a Master’s degree in Art History. His research focuses on global conceptualism, as well as the intersection of painting and digital media.

ABOUT THE RESIDENCY PROGRAMME

The Residency Programme for Academic and Curatorial Research of Greek Contemporary Art of The Courtauld Institute of Art, London and The Sotiris Felios Collection, Athens aims to create support channels for emerging curators and art historians, who want to expand academic research around contemporary figurative art and its position within the international art scene.

The Programme takes place twice a year and invites current PhD candidates, MA and third-year students and recent alumni of The Courtauld Institute of Art, with an academic background in art history and curating to participate in a six-week, fully-funded residency at the Sotiris Felios Collection. Residents of the Programme are given the opportunity to develop their art research by engaging in self-initiated projects that build on themes linked to The Collection and the artistic community of Athens.

The design and coordination of the Residency Programme is under the direction of Daphne Politi, Head of Residency Programme, The Sotiris Felios Collection.

The Residency Programme for Academic and Curatorial Research of Contemporary Greek Art is funded by “The other Arcadia” Foundation and is supported by the Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports.