KALO MINA 2.024
12 UNIQUE MONTHLY SHOWS
January 1, 2024 – December 25, 2024
Christos Mitsikas
Kalo Mina continues!
widmertheodoridis keeps finding and presenting art at new places. This time the event was limited by the spatial conditions of the exhibition space OTTTO: The art works had to fit into the display window in favour of a 24/7 accessibility.
On the first day of each month, Greeks will be greeting just about every single person they know and meet with: “Καλό μήνα” (Kalo Mina), which literally means “good month”. widmertheodoridis wishes you in 2024 with 12 Greek artists a ‘Kalo Mina’ in Athens. Kalo Mina is not a thematic exhibition but a window of Greek contemporary art. On the first of every month one artist out of twelve is presented.
January:
Kalo Mina kicks of in January with the painter Christos Mitsikas. His passion is abstract art which manifests in the paintings through a liberating, strong ductus and intensive color eruptions. While his abstract works are waiting for completion, or maturation, he paints still lives and portraits. Finger exercises in order not to get rusty, he says. Bottles, pots, chairs and tubes from the studio are the probs that he is arranging. For the portraits Christos Mitsikas often asks neighbors to sit for him. And sometimes he even paints with friends.
February:
Chrysanthi Koumianaki opens the February window of Kalo Mina. Her drawings and stickers cover the surface of the shop window and show figures of Mavromichalis passers-by. The quick, abstract and linear drawings are integrated into the urban environment and create a play of associations, they could be another font or symbols on a bus wallpaper or spray paint lines on the opposite wall.
Her practice investigates the idea of translation, creating symbolic systems, codings, scores and alphabets focusing on a non-verbal communication. She reconsiders and manipulates rules and methods of a global visual language, creating new narratives which reflect upon different times. Her works suggest dialogues and communication systems. In this way she often collaborates with other professionals such as dancers, actors, architects and musicians who have an active role in each piece. Her main body of work are installations combining different media like sculptures, drawings, prints, video, sound and performance.
Her work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in institutions, museums and galleries, such as: ΕΜΣΤ, Athens; The National Opera of Greece, Athens; Theocharakis Foundation, Athens; NEON Foundation, Athens; Fondation Hippocrène, Paris; Netwerk Aalst, Belgium; Kadist, Paris; Fondazione Prada, Milan; PHENOMENON; DESTE Foundation and New Museum New Yοrk. Since 2012, along with Kosmas Nikolaou and Paky Vlassopoulou, she is one of the co-founders of 3 137 artist-run space in Αthens.
March:
Kalo Mina in March opens Dimitris Kontodimos with the installation ¨More than meets the eye¨. The starting point of this work is the concept of remembering in a double meaning.
In his artistic work, which is based on a process of wandering around the city, Dimitris Kontodimos explores new forms of expression of the urban landscape. Starting from the everyday and universal nature of the city, he arrives at his own personal perspective by rearranging objects, contents and contexts from the public space. They lose their primarily functional role, as he places them in a newly defined context that opens up new possibilities for reading. The selected objects are mainly building materials or objects and products of urban civilisation.
By incorporating found objects from urban architecture, art and fashion, he creates images in which the sculptural process goes hand in hand with urban life. Seemingly disparate everyday objects, which together make up the totality of a city, encourage a dialogue between the concepts of memory, structure and spatiality and the collected objects. The city, a place of action, where the ephemeral and the monumental, the everyday and the impermanent meet as a chronology of its own history.
The installation ¨More than meets the eye¨ focuses on common and recognisable building materials in the urban space. Elements such as architectural ornamental decorations stand next to parts of scaffolding and pieces of marble. Although they are removed from their original context and far from their original purpose, they come together to form a new narrative. They are joined by small building blocks as a kind of commentary, reminiscent of children's toys - a reminder of our past, of our first attempts to build something. With the same playful approach to building - without rules and without purpose - Dimitris Kontodimos also assembles his works of art.
Kontodimos also assembles his works of art.
Dimitris Kontodimos lives and works in Athens. He completed his education at the University of Ioannina GR. In 2021 he received the Master of Fine Arts from the Athens School of Fine Arts (ASFA). His work has been exhibited at home and abroad, in art spaces, at art projects and art fairs. Most recently his work was part of the European Capital of Culture Eleusis initiative: 2023 Eleusis, Mystery 56, “In from the margins”.
April:
In the April edition of Kalo Mina Evgenia Efstathiou presents the installation “Puppet” comprising of 16 cyanotypes.
Using different media and ways of processing, Evgenia creates autobiographical works that depict the transition from childhood to womanhood.
Combining the image of the adult self with constructions that refer to hanging crib toys, this work explores the notion of objectification and sexualization of the female body. The transition from childhood to female adulthood (womanhood) is described by self-portraits printed by cyanotype on disposable tea filters. The materials and technique emphatically emphasize the disposability of the body, the fragility and diminishment of the self in relation to the burden this adulthood carries.
Evgenia Eftstahiou is a visual artist based in Athens, Greece. She received her BFA in Photography and Imaging from NYU Tisch School of the Arts in 2017. In 2018, with the support of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation, she was the 12-month intern in the department of Photography at the Museum of Modern Art, NY.
May:
For the Kalo Mina in May, Paky Vlassopoulou presents the installation OSTRACOPHORIA inspired by her proximity to OTTTO, being one of the artists working in the adjacent studio. For her participation in the project, she wanted to work with characteristics that, according to her, define some basic differences between Switzerland and Greece, as well as to refer to Madame Tricot's last year's work "Wilgefortis" which provoked reactions in the neighbourhood. For her work Vlassopoulou focused on the practices of exercising democracy, the scale of the economy as well as the influence of religion on the daily life of citizens.
Wanting to bring these elements together, she starts from the institution of ostracism of the 6th century BC Athenian democracy and the form of the ostracon (a fragment/shard of a clay vessel). Ostracism was established as an attempt to protect the Athenian polity from tyranny and to enhance popular power. The utility of ostracism was to rid the Athenians of citizens who had accumulated too much political power to the point of becoming dangerous with their practices. For the process of ostracism they used the ostracon, on which was engraved the name of the citizen whose exile they wished.
With this as a starting point, Vlassopoulou incorporates elements that bring to mind contemporary processes of voting and political expression. Without attempting to answer specific questions, she creates an installation where she lists words, engravings and materialities that every individual may encounter in the exercise of their political rights. Overall, she juxtaposes soft with hard materials and makes images that do not carry a clear information in order to point out the versatility of the meaning.
Paky Vlassopoulou was born and raised in Athens. She is mainly engaged in sculpture and has previously worked intensively with themes related to the construction of knowledge, history and ruins. She has been awarded by ARTWORKS (2018) as a Fellow of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation's Artists Support Programme and by the Onassis Air Fellowship Programme (2023-24) of the Onassis Foundation. Her work has been included in exhibitions in Greece and abroad, and recently her works have been included in the collection of the National Museum of Contemporary Art (EMST) in Athens.
June:
Kalo Mina of June presents Hara Piperidou with the new installation “From drought to flowering”. Hara Piperidou, using sculpture, drawing and installation as her main means primarily researches the relationship between the material and immaterial, visible and invisible, the generative power of the void / opening, the concepts of corporeality, power, as well as the expanded contrasts through a socio-political, but also poetic prism.
The installation “From drought to flowering” consisting of the sculptural works “Let the water run”, “Bring moisture” and “Blooming from within” comments on the issue of drought and invocation towards flowering through a socio-political connotation. Abstract forms alluding to imaginary organic forms of male and female of the archetypal human reproductive system point to the contradictory concepts of drought and fertility. Implicitly is indicated the urgent need to create the desired conditions of moisture, growth and productivity in a climate of intense general "drought" of our time.
Hara Piperidou graduated from the Master of Visual Arts of the School of Fine Arts of Athens and from the School of Fine Arts of Aristotle University. She also studied Architecture and contemporary Philosophy (RCA, NYU, Paris VIII). Recently she created the permanent interactive sculptural installation “Through Rupture Comes The Flow” in the public space of Elefsina (OSE Elefsina), in the context of the 2023 Eleusis Cultural Capital of Europe. Her work has been presented in Biennales (Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art, 2009) and solo and group exhibitions in Greece and abroad such as Kunstverein Neukölln (Berlin), The Anya and Andrew Shiva Gallery (New York) and Momus (Experimental Arts Center). She has presented the seminars "Skin - In and Between Two Worlds" (2017-2020) and "The Body in Contemporary Art" (2014-2017) at the Benaki Museum (138 Pireos). Hara Piperidou has also curated shows at the Back to Athens International Art Festival, the Benaki Museum and the Hellenic American Union.
July:
Kalo Mina in July presents Dimitris Rentoumis, a visual artist based in Athens. As part of the 'Works on Paper' series, the presented pieces can be perceived both as painted surfaces and three-dimensional objects. The making process, which involves layering with color, sanding, and folding, blurs the line between painting and sculpture and invites us to explore not only the visual but also the tactile qualities of the medium. Often, the fatigue and corrosion of the paper becomes intrinsic to the artworks serving eventually as an analogy for vulnerability alongside resilience.
For the window exhibition at OTTTO space, a composition of several painted papers is arranged by the artist on a wall panel. Adapted in a form that seems familiar, the textured works become susceptible to affective responses. During the opening day of the exhibition, the installation is supplemented by a collage of verses from poet Vera Pavlova, displayed as subtitles on a TV screen.
Dimitris Rentoumis’ practice encompasses painting on papers, large-scale drawings with ink and graphite, sculptural installations, and video projections. He studied painting at the Athens School of Fine Arts (2006-2011) and completed his master's degree in the Netherlands at the AKV St.Joost Academy (MFA, 2012–2014). He was awarded a Mondriaan Fonds fellowship to participate in the Jan van Eyck Academie residency program in Maastricht, the Netherlands (2016-2017). He was also an Onassis Air exchange resident at the Beirut Art Residency (BAR) in Lebanon (2019–2020). He has presented his works in various shows in Greece and abroad.
widmertheodoridis keeps finding and presenting art at new places. This time the event was limited by the spatial conditions of the exhibition space OTTTO: The art works had to fit into the display window in favour of a 24/7 accessibility.
On the first day of each month, Greeks will be greeting just about every single person they know and meet with: “Καλό μήνα” (Kalo Mina), which literally means “good month”. widmertheodoridis wishes you in 2024 with 12 Greek artists a ‘Kalo Mina’ in Athens. Kalo Mina is not a thematic exhibition but a window of Greek contemporary art. On the first of every month one artist out of twelve is presented.
January:
Kalo Mina kicks of in January with the painter Christos Mitsikas. His passion is abstract art which manifests in the paintings through a liberating, strong ductus and intensive color eruptions. While his abstract works are waiting for completion, or maturation, he paints still lives and portraits. Finger exercises in order not to get rusty, he says. Bottles, pots, chairs and tubes from the studio are the probs that he is arranging. For the portraits Christos Mitsikas often asks neighbors to sit for him. And sometimes he even paints with friends.
February:
Chrysanthi Koumianaki opens the February window of Kalo Mina. Her drawings and stickers cover the surface of the shop window and show figures of Mavromichalis passers-by. The quick, abstract and linear drawings are integrated into the urban environment and create a play of associations, they could be another font or symbols on a bus wallpaper or spray paint lines on the opposite wall.
Her practice investigates the idea of translation, creating symbolic systems, codings, scores and alphabets focusing on a non-verbal communication. She reconsiders and manipulates rules and methods of a global visual language, creating new narratives which reflect upon different times. Her works suggest dialogues and communication systems. In this way she often collaborates with other professionals such as dancers, actors, architects and musicians who have an active role in each piece. Her main body of work are installations combining different media like sculptures, drawings, prints, video, sound and performance.
Her work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in institutions, museums and galleries, such as: ΕΜΣΤ, Athens; The National Opera of Greece, Athens; Theocharakis Foundation, Athens; NEON Foundation, Athens; Fondation Hippocrène, Paris; Netwerk Aalst, Belgium; Kadist, Paris; Fondazione Prada, Milan; PHENOMENON; DESTE Foundation and New Museum New Yοrk. Since 2012, along with Kosmas Nikolaou and Paky Vlassopoulou, she is one of the co-founders of 3 137 artist-run space in Αthens.
March:
Kalo Mina in March opens Dimitris Kontodimos with the installation ¨More than meets the eye¨. The starting point of this work is the concept of remembering in a double meaning.
In his artistic work, which is based on a process of wandering around the city, Dimitris Kontodimos explores new forms of expression of the urban landscape. Starting from the everyday and universal nature of the city, he arrives at his own personal perspective by rearranging objects, contents and contexts from the public space. They lose their primarily functional role, as he places them in a newly defined context that opens up new possibilities for reading. The selected objects are mainly building materials or objects and products of urban civilisation.
By incorporating found objects from urban architecture, art and fashion, he creates images in which the sculptural process goes hand in hand with urban life. Seemingly disparate everyday objects, which together make up the totality of a city, encourage a dialogue between the concepts of memory, structure and spatiality and the collected objects. The city, a place of action, where the ephemeral and the monumental, the everyday and the impermanent meet as a chronology of its own history.
The installation ¨More than meets the eye¨ focuses on common and recognisable building materials in the urban space. Elements such as architectural ornamental decorations stand next to parts of scaffolding and pieces of marble. Although they are removed from their original context and far from their original purpose, they come together to form a new narrative. They are joined by small building blocks as a kind of commentary, reminiscent of children's toys - a reminder of our past, of our first attempts to build something. With the same playful approach to building - without rules and without purpose - Dimitris Kontodimos also assembles his works of art.
Kontodimos also assembles his works of art.
Dimitris Kontodimos lives and works in Athens. He completed his education at the University of Ioannina GR. In 2021 he received the Master of Fine Arts from the Athens School of Fine Arts (ASFA). His work has been exhibited at home and abroad, in art spaces, at art projects and art fairs. Most recently his work was part of the European Capital of Culture Eleusis initiative: 2023 Eleusis, Mystery 56, “In from the margins”.
April:
In the April edition of Kalo Mina Evgenia Efstathiou presents the installation “Puppet” comprising of 16 cyanotypes.
Using different media and ways of processing, Evgenia creates autobiographical works that depict the transition from childhood to womanhood.
Combining the image of the adult self with constructions that refer to hanging crib toys, this work explores the notion of objectification and sexualization of the female body. The transition from childhood to female adulthood (womanhood) is described by self-portraits printed by cyanotype on disposable tea filters. The materials and technique emphatically emphasize the disposability of the body, the fragility and diminishment of the self in relation to the burden this adulthood carries.
Evgenia Eftstahiou is a visual artist based in Athens, Greece. She received her BFA in Photography and Imaging from NYU Tisch School of the Arts in 2017. In 2018, with the support of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation, she was the 12-month intern in the department of Photography at the Museum of Modern Art, NY.
May:
For the Kalo Mina in May, Paky Vlassopoulou presents the installation OSTRACOPHORIA inspired by her proximity to OTTTO, being one of the artists working in the adjacent studio. For her participation in the project, she wanted to work with characteristics that, according to her, define some basic differences between Switzerland and Greece, as well as to refer to Madame Tricot's last year's work "Wilgefortis" which provoked reactions in the neighbourhood. For her work Vlassopoulou focused on the practices of exercising democracy, the scale of the economy as well as the influence of religion on the daily life of citizens.
Wanting to bring these elements together, she starts from the institution of ostracism of the 6th century BC Athenian democracy and the form of the ostracon (a fragment/shard of a clay vessel). Ostracism was established as an attempt to protect the Athenian polity from tyranny and to enhance popular power. The utility of ostracism was to rid the Athenians of citizens who had accumulated too much political power to the point of becoming dangerous with their practices. For the process of ostracism they used the ostracon, on which was engraved the name of the citizen whose exile they wished.
With this as a starting point, Vlassopoulou incorporates elements that bring to mind contemporary processes of voting and political expression. Without attempting to answer specific questions, she creates an installation where she lists words, engravings and materialities that every individual may encounter in the exercise of their political rights. Overall, she juxtaposes soft with hard materials and makes images that do not carry a clear information in order to point out the versatility of the meaning.
Paky Vlassopoulou was born and raised in Athens. She is mainly engaged in sculpture and has previously worked intensively with themes related to the construction of knowledge, history and ruins. She has been awarded by ARTWORKS (2018) as a Fellow of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation's Artists Support Programme and by the Onassis Air Fellowship Programme (2023-24) of the Onassis Foundation. Her work has been included in exhibitions in Greece and abroad, and recently her works have been included in the collection of the National Museum of Contemporary Art (EMST) in Athens.
June:
Kalo Mina of June presents Hara Piperidou with the new installation “From drought to flowering”. Hara Piperidou, using sculpture, drawing and installation as her main means primarily researches the relationship between the material and immaterial, visible and invisible, the generative power of the void / opening, the concepts of corporeality, power, as well as the expanded contrasts through a socio-political, but also poetic prism.
The installation “From drought to flowering” consisting of the sculptural works “Let the water run”, “Bring moisture” and “Blooming from within” comments on the issue of drought and invocation towards flowering through a socio-political connotation. Abstract forms alluding to imaginary organic forms of male and female of the archetypal human reproductive system point to the contradictory concepts of drought and fertility. Implicitly is indicated the urgent need to create the desired conditions of moisture, growth and productivity in a climate of intense general "drought" of our time.
Hara Piperidou graduated from the Master of Visual Arts of the School of Fine Arts of Athens and from the School of Fine Arts of Aristotle University. She also studied Architecture and contemporary Philosophy (RCA, NYU, Paris VIII). Recently she created the permanent interactive sculptural installation “Through Rupture Comes The Flow” in the public space of Elefsina (OSE Elefsina), in the context of the 2023 Eleusis Cultural Capital of Europe. Her work has been presented in Biennales (Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art, 2009) and solo and group exhibitions in Greece and abroad such as Kunstverein Neukölln (Berlin), The Anya and Andrew Shiva Gallery (New York) and Momus (Experimental Arts Center). She has presented the seminars "Skin - In and Between Two Worlds" (2017-2020) and "The Body in Contemporary Art" (2014-2017) at the Benaki Museum (138 Pireos). Hara Piperidou has also curated shows at the Back to Athens International Art Festival, the Benaki Museum and the Hellenic American Union.
July:
Kalo Mina in July presents Dimitris Rentoumis, a visual artist based in Athens. As part of the 'Works on Paper' series, the presented pieces can be perceived both as painted surfaces and three-dimensional objects. The making process, which involves layering with color, sanding, and folding, blurs the line between painting and sculpture and invites us to explore not only the visual but also the tactile qualities of the medium. Often, the fatigue and corrosion of the paper becomes intrinsic to the artworks serving eventually as an analogy for vulnerability alongside resilience.
For the window exhibition at OTTTO space, a composition of several painted papers is arranged by the artist on a wall panel. Adapted in a form that seems familiar, the textured works become susceptible to affective responses. During the opening day of the exhibition, the installation is supplemented by a collage of verses from poet Vera Pavlova, displayed as subtitles on a TV screen.
Dimitris Rentoumis’ practice encompasses painting on papers, large-scale drawings with ink and graphite, sculptural installations, and video projections. He studied painting at the Athens School of Fine Arts (2006-2011) and completed his master's degree in the Netherlands at the AKV St.Joost Academy (MFA, 2012–2014). He was awarded a Mondriaan Fonds fellowship to participate in the Jan van Eyck Academie residency program in Maastricht, the Netherlands (2016-2017). He was also an Onassis Air exchange resident at the Beirut Art Residency (BAR) in Lebanon (2019–2020). He has presented his works in various shows in Greece and abroad.
Exhibition
January 1 – December 25, 2024
Reception and presentation of new works:
On the 1st of every month, 6–8pm
Duration: 1st to 25th of every month
Visit: Window exhibition 24/7
Reception and presentation of new works:
On the 1st of every month, 6–8pm
Duration: 1st to 25th of every month
Visit: Window exhibition 24/7
Location
OTTTO
Mavromichali 137
11472 Athens GR
Mavromichali 137
11472 Athens GR