Fine Art Photography course

The course’s objective is to help participants develop their own photographic voice. The course aims to 1. provide an introduction to the nature and history of fine art photography 2. Explore ways of thinking and operational practices. The seminar will adapt to individual needs and interests.

Teacher : PANOS KOKKINIAS

Panos Kokkinias is a renowned Greek photographer. His photographs have been published in Vitamin Ph: New Perspectives in Photography, (Phaidon Press, 2006) and in Panos Kokkinias (Galerie Xippas, 2004).His monograph Here We Are, sponsored by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation, will be soon published by PowerHouse Books in New York. The recipient of grants from the Alexander Onassis Foundation and Yale University among others, Kokkinias has exhibited his work worldwide, including shows in Athens, Paris, and New York. His works are included in public and corporate collections in Europe and the US. He lives and works in Athens. more info

Recent data suggest that the cultural heritage of the Ottoman Balkans seriously threatened, as over 98% of monuments have been destroyed. The project «A Balkan Tale / A Balkan History" aims to create public dialogue on the common history of the Balkans and to help preserve and promote the cultural heritage of the area. It consists of a traveling exhibition of photographs and framed by social actions (educational programs, documentaries, web, paper and the journey of the senses). This is a project of the Goethe-Institut with the support of the European Union. Production undertaken by the Greek company producing ANEMON, and actively involve the Museum of Greek Folk Art and ten cultural NGOs in the Balkans. The scientific supervision is Christina Koulouris and participate internationally renowned historians, including Mark Mazaouer.

On February 9, will be inaugurated in Athens in the traveling photo exhibition "A Balkan Tale". This is the work of five renowned photographers from the region of the Balkans again showing a series of unique monuments of the Ottoman period: the major baths, aqueducts, churches, mosques, bridges, poor houses, etc. Photographers: Ivan Petrovic-Serbia-Greece Nollas Camilo, Jutta Benzenberg-Alvania/Germania, Ivan Blazhev-P.G.D.M and Samir Karahoda-Kosovo, illustrating the specificity of each monument and its current condition, with modern and timely look. Through the diligence of historians, the report will reach again the importance for us today while previously common, is an invitation to look beyond national borders and to explore the history of the Balkans as a whole. more info

THE SANTORINI BIENNALE OF ARTS

Categories: Art Installation, Ceramic Art, Collage Art, Comic Art, Drawing, Short Film, Glass Art, Graphic Design, Illustration, Industrial Design, Painting, Paper Art, Photography, Sculpture, Short Film, Video Art, and a Song Competition.

Our theme for 2012 is The Past. History, Time, Memory or Nostalgia: How do you define your relationship with The Past? How do people you have met in the past, all of your experiences, your memories, affect you in the present? Might they subconsciously or even explicitly influence your future? We as individuals each carry forward our own past as ‘vessels’. If everything about the present moment is determined by the past, then, when collectively imagining our future, we ignore the lessons of the past at our peril. more info

The new photographic work of Nikos Markou extends the research developed by the artist in his previous shows. He highlights a broader natural reality which surpasses human agony, but without concealing it. The lens focuses the earth and the ants’ movement carrying food to their colony is just a detail. The close observation of the flock of starlings, which shades the sky, reveals all the details of their physical build.

Beyond Markou’ s obvious fascination with the natural landscape, as his oeuvre of the last 20 years reveals, his works are being governed by a constant concern about human and society. His late body of work entitled “Topos” studied the notion of the “natural” and the “constructed”. Almost always, there is an artificial grid behind the appearances. However, these two elements are never being distinguished. They mix in order to create the images of “objective reality” which are being shown in the exhibition.

Working on his photographs with an almost transparent way, Markou depicts places, which “make us suspicious” of the world surrounding us, without the use of theatrical, dramatic or surrealistic elements. He frames his themes in a direct way and with no unnecessary decorations, presenting the natural landscape in a monumental manner. Contrary to the perception which seeks in the nature’s depiction the human appropriation by extending to it the urban landscape, the photographer’s work approaches the eastern philosophies according to which the human does not dominate over natural reality, but he traverses it. Markou’s images do not aim to create a landscape of incomparable natural beauty and harmony, nor to cause the feel-ing of surprise in front of something naturally unexpected, but to the construction of a new totality, where the balance between the universal and the particular is being imprinted, as Simmel suggests, with the masterly emergence of the detail.

The artist’s aim is not the recognizability of the landscape but he is interested in the inner contemplation. Landscapes of harmony are being composed by elements of chaos and images of deceptive “totality”, are being overturned in their inside by the existence of diverse details, as in the image with the geese. The full moon in the middle of the monochromatic night sky seeks Geometry as basic rule for comprehend-ing the world.

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Μάρτιος 2012

The role pf the photographer in our times Talk Forward / elculture at the OCC 2012, March 20 19:00 3rd Floor Foyer

The brave new world of Higgs 2012, March 20 19:00 Upper Stage "The main characteristic of matter, from which everything else is produced, is mass. All the fundamental constituents of matter, quarks, leptons..., have mass and according to the Standard Model of Particle physics, this mass is generated from the Higgs mechanism, proposed back in 1964! We had to wait for 50 years in order to 'see', finally, the first tantalizing hints for the existence of the Higgs boson/particle at the LHC experiments at CERN.This discovery goes beyond the limited interests of just a group of physicists, as it answers one of the biggest questions of all times: WHAT IS THE ORIGIN OF MASS? The (experimentally based) answer to this grand question should be of interest to all of us and will be the gist of my talk." - Dimitri Nanopoulos Speaker Dimitri Nanopoulos: Distinguished Professor of Theoretical Physics, Texas A&M University, USA

Political memoires: shedding light on history? 21 March 2012 19:00-21:00 Upper Stage

The event is part of the Cycle Literature: people’s stories The general shortage of Greek-language biographies does not extent to political memoires, which are positively plentiful. From Eleftherios Venizelos to Andreas Papandreou and Konstantinos Karamanlis —plus, of course, a host of other politicians whose careers were conducted on a more modest scale—people who have wielded power have left, if not memoires, behind them, then at least documents in which they seek to explain their actions. But what sort of light do such texts actually shed on the reality of the eras to which they refer? Do they suffice in themselves? Are they reliable? And how should they be read? Do they reveal truths that could not be uttered when their authors were still active in politics, or are their authors simply smoothing the rough edges off reality for the sake of their legacies? The “Literature: people’s stories” cycle seeks to shed light on individual life stories which, having acquired a mythic dimension by being set down on paper in book form, can go so far as to influence a nation’s cultural, social and even political life. Speakers: Effi Gazi: Assistant Professor of History and Theory of Historiography in the Department of Social and Education Policy, University of Peloponnese Giorgos Giannoulopoulos: Journalist and Writer, ex-director of the Greek Section of the BBC Ilias Nikolakopoulos: Professor of Political Science, University of Athens Co-ordinator: Anastasios-Ioannis Metaxas: Professor Emeritus of Political Science and Chair of the Political Communication Workshop, University of Athens Entrance to all the events in the “Talks and Thoughts” Cycle is free and on a strictly first come, first served basis. The distribution of entrance tickets begins one (1) hour before each event.

March 2012 Onassis Foundation Cultural Centre Main Stage, 107-109 Singrou Avenue (opposite to Panteion) 2130178000

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ΣΥΓΧΡΟΝΗ ΤΕΧΝΗ ΑΠΟ ΤΗ ΣΥΛΛΟΓΗ ΤΟΥ ΒΡΕΤΑΝΙΚΟΥ ΣΥΜΒΟΥΛΙΟΥ

Η έκθεση περιλαμβάνει περίπου 150 έργα από ένα μεγάλο φάσμα καλλιτεχνών, ανάμεσα στους οποίους οι Keith Arnatt, Helen Chadwick, Peter Doig, Gilbert & George, Damien Hirst, Sarah Lucas, Mark Titchner, Cornelia Parker και Mark Wallinge

Αυτή η συνάντηση καλλιτεχνών τόσο ετερόκλητων μεταξύ τους απεικονίζει την ευρύτητα και την ποικιλομορφία της Βρετανικής Τέχνης καθ’ όλη τη διάρκεια αυτής της περιόδου. Πρόκειται για μια μοναδική ευκαιρία για τους φίλους της τέχνης που επιθυμούν να γνωρίσουν από κοντά το δημιουργικό ταξίδι κάποιων από τους πιο παραγωγικούς σύγχρονους Βρετανούς καλλιτέχνες των τελευταίων τριάντα χρόνων. more info

ΕΚΘΕΣΗ ΦΩΤΟΓΡΑΦΙΑΣ "Η ΠΑΡΑΒΑΤΙΚΗ ΟΥΤΟΠΙΑ"

Η Πρεσβεία της Ισπανίας και το Ινστιτούτο Θερβάντες παρουσιάζουν την έκθεση Οούκα Λεέλε: Η παραβατική ουτοπία με την επιμέλεια του Δρα. και κριτικού τέχνης Manuel Romero. Η έκθεση αποτελείται από 15 έργα της μαδριλένιας καλλιτέχνιδας Οούκα Λεέλε που εκπροσώπησαν την Ισπανία στην 11η Μπιενάλε του Καΐρου το 2008. Πρόκειται για έργα βασισμένα σε ψηφιακή και ασπρόμαυρη αναλογική φωτογραφία.

H Οούκα Λεέλε - καλλιτεχνικό όνομα της Μπάρμπαρα Αγιέντε Χιλ ντε Μπιέδμα - γεννήθηκε στη Μαδρίτη το 1957...