Angelo Plessas, Chrysanne Stathacos
Feature, Art Basel
June 11, 2019–June 16, 2019Art Basel
The artistic practice of both Chrysanne Stathacos and Angelo Plessas is situated within communal and participatory performative space. Their sensibilities intersect where ritual meets social consciousness.
Stathacos reconfigures and subverts patriarchal histories through a feminist perspective. In the 1970s, she became associated with General Idea. After two of the group founders died of AIDS, Stathacos began travelling to India, where she became involved with Eastern spirituality. Her Rose Mandalas are time-based installations formed from rose petals in concentric circular constructions. The mandalas are swept away in a final gesture, reflecting on the ephemerality of life and loss.
Plessas takes up the activist baton from Stathacos and the generation of General Idea. In his hands, the Internet becomes a techno-shamanistic facilitator of on- and offline interactions among like-minded participants. His Noospheric Quilts can be seen as physical mantles that are composed of talismanic symbols, communicating across time and cultures. The work also draws on the subversive, activist concept of commemorating loss and ephemerality that inspired the AIDS Memorial Quilt.
