[UPDATE 12/03/2020: The event has been postponed until further notice, due to Coronavirus Covid-19. Stay home, stay safe!] Show Us Your Collection: und. Part of #DeathInAthens festival by Athens ArtCore Where do exhibitions go when they die? Depends who you ask. Some say that they exist in perpetuum, like a Platonic idea, and never die but keep reincarnating. Others say that exhibitions disappear when they're unmounted and cease to exist as soon as they're over. In either case, exhibitions leave behind traces that they have been, useful for us to remember them and revisit them. There are the photos documenting them, the writings of others about them, and of course the printed matter that accompanies them: catalogues, leaflets, posters, brochures—all in endless variations. The world of exhibition publications reflects the exhibitions themselves in interesting ways, both in terms of content and presentation. From simple "press releases" printed on A4 paper using inkjet home printers to handmade artist books and expensive productions, exhibition publications exist in every shape and kind—adopting aesthetic trends and production techniques that sometimes complement their exhibition in an organic way and sometimes awkwardly attempt to justify it. Their purpose is of course to communicate, to explain, to extend and (in the best of cases) to offer an entry point to the viewer. Thankfully for us, they don't always succeed. The Athens Zine Bibliotheque and und., within the framework of Death in Athens festival, present an exhibition of exhibition catalogues—giving us the opportunity to remember exhibitions we have seen and discover exhibitions we haven't, through their printed collateral. The exhibition includes a selection of catalogues, books, posters, flyers and other exhibition paraphernalia from und.'s collection, which have been collected from different countries. Visitors to the exhibition are invited to donate catalogues or other printed materials that they have collected themselves, to enrich und,'s collection and preserve them as part of the history of contemporary art in Athens.
Text by: und. Facebook event, here. - - - und. is an Athens-based publishing platform for contemporary art. Through publishing, exhibitions, media coverage and collaborations, it documents, promotes and develops underrepresented contemporary art from Athens and its wider region. und. publishes the online art journal und-athens.com, the und. Athens art guides, a newsletter and exhibition catalogues. Since its founding in 2017, it has organised five exhibitions and has participated in art fairs in Greece and abroad, as well as offered support to cultural events in Athens through media sponsorships. und. is founded by Cypriot art writer, critic and composer Kiriakos Spirou. - - - The Athens Zine Bibliotheque is a proud member of Athens ArtCore, an association of artist-run spaces in Athens, with the goals of creating a network of support, advocacy, collaboration, and shared curatorial programming, as well as raising the visibility of the value of these types of non-commercial spaces. As a first step toward these lofty goals, we propose a 3-day festival, to take place in March 2020, in which each space/platform (22 spaces) will independently host a project under the common aegis of Athens ArtCore. Death In Athens facebook event, here.
