The group show titled ViewMaster is curated by Christiana Galanopoulou and presents artworks by three young artists with a filmmaker’s background. The sensitivity of the three artists’ eye-view has been shaped through their contact with the camera and with cinematographic scripture. The works interact with one another and with the setting as constructions or installations; however what stands out, is the eye of the creator which explicitly records and transcribes reality at the same time. The refined artistic quality of the images is not derived solely from the primary material, which in some cases is found footage from old Super 8 or 8mm films bought at Athenian junk stores, but largely from their subsequent processing. The moving image of all three works, even though it employs in some cases digital technology, is a far cry from the “video” images we are constantly surrounded by.

 

“The eye of the cinematographer or of his/her accidental predecessor, the use and the absorption of the image into the artwork, the themes, the freedom of scripture and the sound are all elements employed to convey a familiar reality and to all at once undermine it just as acid eats away the film; or in order to convey a hard to accept reality, prone to be subverted by a free-fall with a parachute. 

 

ViewMaster: object-container; a box with holes to peek through; and inside the box images one can change. A toy which took us to a journey. Following one another, its images taught us to love each moving picture. Meshing with the paper disks, touching the film, smelling it. The minute photographs resembling Super 8 frames: obsession with the film.

ViewMaster, exhibition: Moving images captured on a reel. Curiosity and voyeurism. Journey, seduction, memory.”

 

[excerpts from Christiana Galanopoulou’s essay]

 

Sebastian Diaz Morales was born in Argentina in 1975 and studied film. He continued his studies in visual arts at the Rijksakademie Van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam. A resident of Amsterdam nowadays, Morales has been spending a lot of time in various countries working on projects as a fellow. 15,000,000 parachutes (2001, 25 min) is taking us to urban Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia and home of 15 million people, where it explores the wanderings of one of its inhabitants. Poverty stricken and desperate he releases daily small parachutes hoping that he will find a suitable place to “land”. City images and fragments of city life are recorded in a poetic way in this metaphor for quest and hope. The work is part of the Tate Modern permanent collection.

​

Eva Stefani was born in the US in 1964 and studied political science in Athens, and film in Paris (École Varan, Ateliers de Réalisation Documentaire), New York (ΝYU) and London (Νational Film and Television School). She is better known as a filmmaker and her documentaries have been prized in numerous festivals in Greece and abroad. Eva Stefani currently teaches at the University of Athens. Her work The Kiss challenges deeply ingrained preconceptions about the image of women in Greece, while she explores the notion of social “outcasts” (a favourite theme in her documentaries as well).

 

Konstantinos Hatzinikolaou was born in 1974 in Athens and studied surveying engineering at the National Technical University of Athens. He subsequently studied film in Paris, and new media in art at the graduate program of the Athens School of Fine Arts. He films on Super 8 and video; his films have been shown in festivals in Greece and abroad. He is a member of the KINE group. In Boy on an Athenian terrace, the length of the 8 mm film defines the dimensions of the accompanying construction, which is used to bring the film through to the projector as a loop. Friction wearing away the film as it travels again and again through the construction adds the sound, which amplified becomes the movie’s imaginary music score. The film, found footage portraying a boy dancing over Athens – an incredible Athens compared to the one we know -, is part of an original 1960s home movie; a rare sample of liberated shooting and expression. The artist will use an 8 mm projector and will tangle with the speed of the projection.

 

The Kiss by Eva Stefani and Boy on an Athenian terrace by Konstantinos Hatzinikolaou were created for the exhibition ViewMaster.

​

​