The Breeder
Frieze New York 2015
May 14, 2015–May 17, 2015Randall's Island, New York
The Breeder is pleased to present Andreas Angelidakis installation “Crash Pad” at Frieze New York 2015.
Crash Pad was first commissioned for the 8th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art and presented at KW in Berlin in 2014. The installation picks up the idea of the intellectual 19th century salon as setting for cultural and political conversations. Angelidakis arranges Greek folklore rugs handmade in the Greek countryside in an Ottoman tradition. Thus the project refers to the Western intellectual and scholar imagination of Ancient Greece at that time that was inspired by contemporaneous researches like Heinrich Schliemann’s archeological excavations of those ideal ruins. It originated the imaginary of Greece as the heart of European’s civilization and occident culture until today.
There is also an economic parallel to today that Crash Pad refers to: The liberation of the nation in 1830 and the introduction of the concept of a Modern Greece after the Greek War of independence was accompanied by differences and struggles between Britain and Turkey. It lead to the first bankruptcy of modern Greece in 1895. In order to supervise the debt of Greece, the original version of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) was put in place by France, England and Germany. Today we find Greece and Germany in an awkward financial exchange and somehow history repeats itself.
Crash Pad offers a space for contemplation and exchange for the visitor of the art fair, a domesticated ruin and a set for the presentation of works by Andreas Lolis, Jannis Varelas, Vanessa Safavi.
Andreas Angelidakis lives and works in Athens. Trained as an architect, Angelidakis switches roles between artist, curator, architect and teacher. His multidisciplinary practice often focuses around the internet, and the perceptive and behavioral changes it has brought about. Inspired by the city of Athens, his work often deals with the notion of ruin, be it ancient, contemporary or imaginary. The ruin becomes a vehicle for a building’s unfulfilled potential, powered by emotional, psychological or historical hallucination. Angelidakis has consistently challenged the expected end-product of architectural practice by reversing the representation to realization sequence of the production of buildings. He often starts with an existing building, producing models, films, ruins, installations or alternative histories, blurring fact and fiction, smoothing out the borders between the real and the virtual. Recent exhibitions includeSystem of Objects, The Dakis Joannou Collection Reloaded by Andreas Angelidakis at DESTE Foundation in Athens (co-curator and exhibition architecture), 2013; DO-IT Moscow at Garage, 2014 (exhibition architecture);Crash Pad, A preliminary statement for the 8th Berlin Biennial, 2014 (artist); Every End is A Beginning at National Museum of Contemporary Art Athens, 2014 (artist, co-curator); Fin de Siècle at Swiss Institute / Contemporary Art, New York, 2014 (curator, exhibition architecture); and 1:1 Period Rooms at Het Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam, 2015 (artist, curator). Upcoming shows includeAlexandro Jodorowskyat CAPC Bordeaux, 2015 (exhibition architecture); 12th Baltic Triennial at CAC Vilnius, 2015, (exhibition architecture); and Supersuperstudio at PAC, Milano, 2015 exhibition architecture).
