Architecture in the Arts

Talk curated by locus athens as part of the British Council’s Metropolis series

Chaired by Memos Filippides

Participants: Muf architects, DECArchitects, Andreas Angelidakis

6 pm Sat 24th Feb

Athens Conservatory, Vassilis Georgiou B 17-19 & Rigillis

It is common knowledge that artistic and architectural practices increasingly cover common ground. As the question, “what is art?” seems more and more irrelevant, replaced by “when is art?”¹ the question “when is architecture?” could easily also be applied. The recent Venice Architectural Biennial’s focus on cities as its subject matter and last years Berlin Art Biennial’s use of a whole street, its’ schools and churches as places of art reveal how cities, urbanity and artistic practices are becoming more and more intertwined (if indeed they were ever separated?).

Art works produced in situ, reflecting a given city, specific building or culture, signs of artists’ “real” interaction with a given place are increasingly common in a cultural landscape full of biennials and a saturated art market hungry for new works. In return architectural practices’ using new malleable technologies are producing buildings sculpted in space or even in cyberspace and are producing alongside their commercial architectural practices furniture or art works that reflect their interest in design.

So when is architecture and art? The talk architecture in the arts curated by locus athens as part of the British Council’s Metropolis series brings together Muf architects from London whose practice incorporates an experimental approach to architecture and urban planning, DecArchitects from Athens who have a strong conceptually based architectural practice and have produced two art hotels and Andreas Angelidakis from Athens who investigates through his video installations and work on the net the correlations of art and architecture. The talk will be chaired by Memos Filipiddes a practicing architect who has curated several architectural exhibitions.

The talk will take place in the Athens Conservatory designed by Ioannis Despotopoulos(Jan Despo),from 1969-76. Ioannis Despotopoulos had studied under Gropius, so the building’s stark white facades, abstract forms and rhythmic austerity reflect Bauhaus influences. Screening of the film "Ioannis Despotopoulos: The Secret Axiom" by Yorgos Tzirtzilakis, directed by Spiros Papadopoulos, production by ERT.

¹from Raimundas Malakauskas interview with Mario Garcia Torres