ILiana Fokianaki

Last updated

iLiana Fokianaki is a Greek curator, writer, theorist, educator [1] and former journalist based in Athens and Rotterdam.

Contents

Biography

Fokianaki holds a B.A. in Fine Arts from Oxford Brookes University in Oxford and a M.A. in Arts Criticism and Management from City University London.

She is the founder and artistic director of contemporary art institution State of Concept in Athens. [2] [3] [4]

In May 2022, Fokianaki was announced as the artistic director of the 13th edition of the annual festival Survival Kit, [5] organised by the Latvian Center for Contemporary Art, in Riga. The festival entitled ‘The Little Bird Must Be Caught’, "is an exhibition with many questions, embracing them in a cascade of visually, sonically and vocally very strong works, each proposing a different mode of resistance to racially, ecologically and extractively oppressive governances". [6]

In November 2023, Fokianaki was announced as the new director of Kunsthalle Bern [7]

Exhibitions

Since 2013 she has showcased at State of Concept, solo exhibitions of artists such as Laure Prouvost, [8] the research agency Forensic Architecture, [9] Croatian artist Sanja Iveković, [10] [11] Dutch collective Metahaven, [12] the film collective Rojava Film Commune. [13] The exhibition of the Rojava Film Commune Fokianaki curated, titled "Forms of Freedom", was featured in Art Forum magazine in 2020, [14] and has travelled to Galerija Nova, in Zagreb, [15] the exhibition space of e-flux publications in New York [16] and Moderna Galerija / Museum of Modern Art of Slovenia, in Ljubljana. [17]

A retrospective of Fokianaki's curatorial work for State of Concept, titled State (in) Concepts was exhibited at Kadist Art Foundation in Paris in 2017. [18] Fokianaki was invited by artist Kader Attia to curate a group exhibition inspired by the program of State of Concept, at La Colonie (Art Space) in May 2018, titled "The Trials of Justice". [19] [20] She has curated the solo exhibition of artist Kapwani Kiwanga at the Formerly Known as Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art in Rotterdam, [21] [22] which coincided with Kiwanga's award for the Marcel Duchamp Prize of the Centre Pompidou. [23] [24] [25]

Fokianaki's work explores the relation between art, formations of power and how they metamorphose under the influence of geopolitics, national identity and cultural and anthropological histories. [26] [27] Her recent project "The Bureau of Care" received the Solidarity Grant of the European Cultural Foundation. [28]

Together with curator Antonia Alampi, she is the co-founder of Future Climates, a platform that aims to propose viable futures for small-scale organizations of contemporary art and culture. [29] Future Climates was part of the "Substance 100", a new, annual list, that outlines a diverse array of artists, activists, collectives, movements and organizations making a substantial change in the world, launched by on-line museum and platform "Collecteurs". [30]

Fokianaki was part of the artistic team (curator and programmer) at Kunsthal Extra City in Antwerp from 2017–2019, where she curated two large-scale group exhibitions: the exhibitions Extra Citizen (2017) [31] and Extra States: Nations in Liquidation (2018). [32] She has lectured in various institutions on issues that explore how institutional and curatorial practices respond to the current economic and socio-political shifts in the West

Teaching

Fokianaki is a lecturer at the Dutch Art Institute (DAI) of the ArtEZ University of Arts in the Netherlands, [33] and was a guest lecturer at HISK in Ghent, Belgium [34] and a resident curator at the NTU Center for Contemporary Art in Singapore. [35] She has guest lectured at the Athens School of Fine Arts, at Columbia University, and The Willem de Kooning Academy, the art school of the Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences among others.

She writes for various international art journals and publications, discussing issues ranging from art, politics, to ethics [36] such as a joint opinion piece on art, economy and documenta's arrival in Athens, written with former Greek Minister of Finance Yanis Varoufakis [37] and an opinion piece around the discussion of looted artefacts and specifically the Parthenon Marbles for frieze (magazine). [38]

Related Research Articles

Philippe Parreno is a French contemporary artist, living and working in Paris. His works include films, installations, performances, drawings, and text.

Nicolaus Schafhausen is a German curator, director, author, and editor of numerous publications on contemporary art. Since 2012 he has been the Strategic Director of Fogo Island Arts, an initiative of the Canadian Shorefast Foundation to find alternative solutions for the revitalization of the area that is prone to emigration. Schafhausen is also a Visiting Lecturer at HISK, Higher Institute of Fine Arts, Gent.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Başak Şenova</span>

Basak Senova is an art curator, writer and designer from Istanbul, Turkey. She lives and works in Vienna since 2017.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zdenka Badovinac</span> Slovenian writer, museum director and curator

Zdenka Badovinac is a curator and writer, was the director of the Museum of Contemporary Art Zagreb, Croatia. She served between 1993 and 2021 as director of the Museum of Modern Art in Ljubljana, comprised since 2011 of two locations: the Museum of Modern Art and the Metelkova Museum of Contemporary Art in Metelkova, an autonomous art, culture, and social center in Ljubljana. In 2022, she was appointed director of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb. She resigned from her position in the fall of 2023 due to personal reasons. She returned to Ljubljana, where she currently works as an independent curator, author and international consultan

Mami Kataoka is an art curator and writer. She is presently the director of the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo.

Massimiliano Gioni is an Italian curator and contemporary art critic based in New York City, and artistic director at the New Museum. He is the artistic director of the Nicola Trussardi Foundation in Milan as well as the artistic director of the Beatrice Trussardi Foundation. Gioni was the curator of the 55th Venice Biennale in 2013.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Athens Biennale</span> Exhibition of international contemporary art

The Athens Biennale is an international cultural event held every two years at various locations in Athens, consisting of a large-scale exhibition and a diverse programme of side events, such as performances, workshops, lectures etc. It is one of the largest international art events of contemporary culture in Greece and it has been acknowledged as one of the most significant and innovative cultural initiatives in Europe by the European Cultural Foundation.

e-flux is a publishing platform and archive, artist project, curatorial platform, and e-mail service founded in 1998. The arts news digests, events, exhibitions, schools, journal, books, and art projects produced and/or disseminated by e-flux describe strains of critical discourse surrounding contemporary art, culture, and theory internationally. Its monthly publication, e-flux journal, has produced essays commissioned since 2008 about cultural, political, and structural paradigms that inform contemporary artistic production.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chris Dercon</span> Belgian art historian and curator

Chris Dercon, is a Belgian art historian, curator, and museum director.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Galit Eilat</span>

Galit Eilat, born 1965 in Israel, is an independent curator and writer living in the Netherlands.

Anne Barlow is a curator and director in the field of international contemporary art, and is currently Director of Tate St Ives, Art Fund Museum of the Year 2018. There she directs and oversees the artistic vision and programme, including temporary exhibitions, collection displays, artist residencies, new commissions, and a learning and research programme. At Tate St Ives, Barlow has curated solo exhibitions of work by artists including Thảo Nguyên Phan (2022), Petrit Halilaj (2021), Haegue Yang (2020), Otobong Nkanga (2019), Huguette Caland (2019), Amie Siegel (2018) and Rana Begum (2018). She was also co-curator of "Naum Gabo: Constructions for Real Life" (2020) and collaborating curator with Castello di Rivoli, Turin for Anna Boghiguian at Tate St Ives (2019).

Marie-Cécile Zinsou is a French-Beninese art historian and entrepreneur, She is president of the Fondation Zinsou, founded in 2005 in Cotonou, Republic of Benin, West Africa, which promotes contemporary art in Africa and leads cultural, educational and social initiatives. In 2014 she opened the first museum of contemporary art in Benin.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Filipa Ramos</span>

Lisbon-born Filipa Ramos is a writer, lecturer and curator. She received a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) from the School of Critical Studies at Kingston University, London. Her research, manifested in exhibitions, critical and theoretical texts, lectures, workshops and edited publications, focuses on how art addresses ecology, fostering relationships between nature and technology. She advocates a move away from anthropocentric approaches in the arts and humanities.

Kapwani Kiwanga is a Canadian artist working in Paris, France. Her work is known for dealing with issues of colonialism, gender, and the African diaspora.

Adrienne Edwards is a New York–based art curator, scholar, and writer. Edwards is currently the Engell Speyer Family Curator and Director of Curatorial Affairs at the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Stefanie Hessler is a German-born contemporary art curator, an art writer, and the current director of Swiss Institute in New York. From 2019 to 2022 she was the director of Kunsthall Trondheim in Trondheim, Norway.

State of Concept Athens is a not-for-profit, independent art institution, founded in Athens in 2013 by curator and theorist iLiana Fokianaki. It is the first institution of this kind to operate in Greece.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maria Lind</span> Swedish art historian, art critic and curator

Maria Lind is a Swedish curator, art writer and educator. Since 2020, she has been the Counsellor of Cultural Affairs at the Embassy of Sweden in Moscow.

Zurich Art Prize is a Swiss art prize that has been awarded annually by the Museum Haus Konstruktiv together with the Zurich Insurance Group, since 2007.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elena Sorokina</span> Writer, curator and art historian

Elena Sorokina is a curator, art historian and writer. She was part of the curatorial team for documenta 14 (2017) and co-curator of the Armenian Pavilion at the 59th Venice Biennale (2022). She served as chief curator of the HISK Higher Institute of Fine Arts, Belgium in 2017–2019. As independent curator, Sorokina has organised projects at BOZAR Centre for Fine Arts, Art Brussels, and WIELS, Brussels; Centre Pompidou and Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; SMBA Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Rudolfinum, Prague; and Pera Museum, Istanbul, among others.

References

  1. ↑ Website, Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, collaborators
  2. ↑ BBC World Service, "Interview with curator iLiana Fokianaki, director State of Concept Athens", September 2, 2015
  3. ↑ The New York Times, “In Athens, Austerity makes Contemporary Art Palatable”, June 21, 2015
  4. ↑ Frieze magazine, Critic's Guide: Athens, “A round-up of the best current shows in the Greek capital”
  5. ↑ "Survival Kit 13: Curator and artist list announced – Announcements – e-flux".
  6. ↑ "In these Precedented Times … Survival Kit 13 in Riga". Echo Gone Wrong. 2023-01-23. Retrieved 2023-06-30.
  7. ↑ https://artreview.com/iliana-fokianaki-to-helm-kunsthalle-bern/.{{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  8. ↑ Website Outset Foundation, Visual tour of Laure Prouvost's exhibition "C'est L'est Not Ouest"
  9. ↑ Website Forensic Architecture, exhibition “Violence, Fast and Slow"
  10. ↑ Website Art Forum, exhibition review “Weird Sisters, Ivana Bago on Sanja Iveković’s Whether we were brave”
  11. ↑ Website Kunstkritikk, “Women are Obliterated, Yet Endure”
  12. ↑ "Metahaven". IMDb .
  13. ↑ Announcement of Rojava Film Commune's exhibition "Forms of Freedom," e-flux, 2018
  14. ↑ Website Art Forum, September 2020, Alan Gilbert, "Autonomous Determination The Rojava Film Commune"
  15. ↑ Website, Galerija Nova, Exhibitions Forms of Freedom
  16. ↑ "e-flux presents: Rojava Film Commune, Forms of Freedom". www.e-flux.com.
  17. ↑ "EXHIBITION | Rojava Film Commune: Forms of Freedom – MG+MSUM". www.mg-lj.si.
  18. ↑ Announcement "State (in) Concepts," Website Kadist Art Foundation, Paris, 2017
  19. ↑ Website,La Colonie, exhibition Fokianaki Trials of Justice
  20. ↑ E-flux announcement, exhibition Trials of justice
  21. ↑ Website, fkaWdW, On view, new works Kapwani Kiwanga
  22. ↑ Artnet Interview Kapwani Kiwanga, Unearthing Buried Histories
  23. ↑ Artforum, Kapwani Kiwanga Wins Prix Marcel Duchamp
  24. ↑ Website Amis Centre Pompidou
  25. ↑ Website, Art Review announcement Marcel Duchamp Nominees
  26. ↑ Website, Parasite Center for Contemporary Art hong Kong, international conference participation
  27. ↑ iLiana Fokianaki, "Redistribution via Appropriation: White(washing) Marbles," e-flux journal, #91, May 2018
  28. ↑ "Culture of Solidarity: first round grantees – LIBRARY". European Cultural Foundation.
  29. ↑ Federica Bueti, "iLiana Fokianaki and Antonia Alampi in conversation," Ocula, May 19, 2017
  30. ↑ Website,Substance 100, the list
  31. ↑ Tamara Beheydt, "Burgerschap en verbeelding: Extra Citizen in Antwerpen," Metropolis M, September 25, 2017
  32. ↑ Stephanie Bailey, "Extra States: Nations in Liquidation at Kunsthal Extra City," Ocula, December 8, 2018
  33. ↑ Profile iLiana Fokianaki, Website Dutch Art Institute
  34. ↑ HISK website
  35. ↑ Residency · iLiana Fokianaki
  36. ↑ iLiana Fokianaki, "Ethics After Defeat," Kaiera, No.2, 2017
  37. ↑ iLiana Fokianaki, Yanis Varoufakis, "We Come Bearing Gifts," Art Agenda, June 7, 2017
  38. ↑ Frieze magazine, Opinion, “How I lost My Marbles”
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.