In response to the current social and economic conditions, this year's Athens Biennale will set out to explore creative alternatives to a state of bankruptcy by setting in motion a collaborative process in producing an exhibition.

By News Editor 29 Jul 2013

4th Athens Biennale 2013 AGORA

29 September 2013 –
1 December 2013.

Preview 28 September 2013.

Former Athens Stock Exchange,
8-10 Sofokleous str, Athens, Greece.

While Monodrome (AB3) attempted to reflect upon Modern Greek history and the origins of the crisis, this year the Biennale will set out to explore creative alternatives to a state of bankruptcy.

Titled AGORA, the exhibition proposed by AB4 (as an answer to the question Now what?) will be realized in an emblematic building, the former Athens Stock Exchange, by a nameless and ephemeral group of artists, curators, theorists and practitioners in the creative industries. AGORA is thus a collective experiment, the result of a process of fermentation between professionals from different backgrounds. What matters most to those who participate in such an experiment is a shared sense of responsibility and an urge to co-produce meaning.

Using the empty building of the former Athens Stock Exchange as its main venue, AB4 proposes AGORA not only as a place of exchange and interaction, but also as an ideal setting for critique and a radical re-orientation in thinking. As a contested space where multiple theses and doctrines emerge, this AGORA cannot be taken for granted: it aims for pleasure and purpose; it opts for the carnivalesque and the ambiguous, for the significant as much as the insignificant.

AGORA is formulated through a succession of objects, collaborative events, performances, roundtable discussions, film screenings, workshops and educational programs. In AGORA works and theses evoke that which is urgently needed at this particular moment: an unearthing of timely attitudes, a reevaluation of artistic and lifetime strategies, a deconstruction of dominant myths in order to discover new, functional approaches and attitudes.

AGORA draws on the notions of the assembly and the assemblage. Conceived both as a living organism and an exquisite corpse, it is formulated through a succession of objects, collaborative events, performances, roundtable discussions, film screenings, workshops and educational programs. In AGORA works and theses evoke that which is urgently needed at this particular moment: an engaged subjectivity, an unearthing of timely attitudes, a reevaluation of artistic strategies, a deconstruction of mystifying narratives.

In response to the current social and economic conditions, this year’s Athens Biennale will set out to explore creative alternatives to a state of bankruptcy by setting in motion a collaborative process in producing an exhibition.