Liseuses de Capital

Women with bobbed hair in negligées and bed-jackets read and dream, their cheeks a little flushed, reclining in bed. Their books have red covers. Are they educating themselves? Do they dream of political action, of new kinds of subjectivity? Do they imagine throwing inkwells? In proximity, on a collection of chairs from boudoir and schoolroom, small birds have alighted (have they escaped from the gilded cage of the bedroom), silk culottes in their beak (have they stolen them, little fetish thieves?), on which red phrases worked in soie de Paris replace more familiar monograms, declaring the lovely object that is the commodity. Oh yes, ‘words are dangerous things’. The particular exhibition embarks from Virginia Woolf’s legendary essay “A Room of One’s Own”, written in 1926, and its relevance to newly introduced sociological and political concepts like digital feminism and the #metoo movement. The room (ma chambre), personal space as described in Xavier de Maistre’s classic book “Voyage Autour de Ma Chambre” (1794), where the title derives from, as well as concepts such as privacy, autonomy and self-expression are key points of reference to the exhibition works created by international contemporary artists and writers. The exhibition initiates a new discourse on the notion of room and personal space in continuation to the discussion that originated in classic essays and works of literature. It was accompanied by an educational program, reading nights and the presentation of a limited edition publication (Greek and English) with original texts from Sam Albatros, Jeanne Graff, Philomena Epps, Dimitra Ioannou, Antony Katsouris, Sharon Kivland, Kika Kyriakakou, Sylvere Lotringer, Antonia Marsh, Εfterpi Mitsi, Maria F. Dolores, Theodoros Chiotis on April 17. Participating artists: Sophia Al Maria, Theodoros Chiotis, Dora Economou, Philomena Epps, Jeanne Graff, Juliana Huxtable, Dimitris Ioannou, Sharon Kivland, Sylvere Lotringer, Jonas Mekas, Maro Michalakakos, Eva Stefani, Amalia Ulman, Kostis Velonis Exhibition curator: Kika Kyriakakou Artistic advisor and curator of the Athens Gallery, Collections and Museums (OPANDA): Denis Zacharopoulos Production coordinator: Vicky Tsiro