PRESS RELEASE

Nikos Alexiou will present the installation, The End, in the Greek Pavilion at the 52nd Biennale of Art in (Giardini, 7/6 – 21/11/07). 52nd International Art Exhibition In this time of expanded understanding and re-orientation of La Biennale di Venezia contemporary art, the Greek participation in the 52nd Biennale of Venice focuses on the possibilities of diversity, the critical re-negotiation of the Greek Participation concepts of identity, the repetition of the same as different, the new condition of handicraft, the sensory materiality and the multiplicity of artistic practices. Nikos Alexiou (born 1960) is the artist who adds tension “THE END” to these characteristics, representing the emergence of alterity and the innovative relationships between minor and major. In terms of cultural Artist: Nikos Alexiou politics, this kind of attitude seems to embody the ambiguities and the www.nikosalexiou.com [email protected] dormant potential of the minor “local scene” for participation in the international cultural discourse. Commissioner / Curator: Yorgos Tzirtzilakis Alexiou will present in Venice a modular installation inspired by the [email protected] floor mosaic in the Catholicon of the Iviron Monastery on Mount Athos Assistant Curator: th th (10 -11 c. AD). The artist has made frequent visits to Mount Athos and has Nadja Argyropoulou been hosted at Iviron Monastery at various times from 1995 to date, where [email protected] he got to know the spirituality, the quickening of the soul and the strange Organisation: Hellenic Ministry of interpersonal experiences of coexisting in monastic communal life. Culture - Directorate of Visual Arts, During this time, after much “copying” and redesigning of the mosaic Department for the Promotion of Contemporary Art he attempted to understand the mysteries it contains as he sought its semantic structure as well as its vortex. One could describe this ‘mobile Coordination: Marina Vranopoulou immobility’ of this floor as a composite ideogram, a symbolically packed [email protected] system, the kind of condensing of the Whole that we call “data storage” International Communication today. & Press: Brunswick Arts Alexiou belongs to that generation of artists who, during the 1980s, Alexandra Zafiriou expanded the object of art into the realm of installation, with strong azafi[email protected] sensual and evocative setting, using disparate materials, textures and tel.: +44 7810701179 techniques as a reaction to the physical and tactile annihilation to which Communication & Press: contemporary art was led by the ascendancy of images. He turned from Alexandros J. Stanas [email protected] the outset to a fragile and ephemeral world, which he introduced into tel.: +30 2103821222 the artistic language, setting the obsessive use of non figurative grids, fax: +30 2103829979 patterns, decorations and repetitive structures as a kind of existential Organization support: D.ART metaphor. Handmade, lace-like, paper cuts, linen bookbinding string, [email protected] glues and reeds, even digital technology, in this most recent work, are 140 Solonos str, 106 77 the materials of Alexiou’s worlds. The labyrinth structure, the DNA grid, fossilized rocks, the astral vortexes, shells, marble veins, Stanley Kubrick’s Space Odyssey, images in old scientific American magazines, psychedelic 70’s graphics, spiritual practices, eastern lattices, bohemian fabrics, theatrical experiences, contemporary art works that he collects as a chronicle of his era, are some of the artist’s references. Handiwork, is, in his own words, “an extension of breathing”.

• Nikos Alexiou has participated in the 23rd Biennale of (2005), in the Outlook and Athens by Art exhibitions (2004 - Athens Olympic Games), Breakthrough! 2004 (Sala Alcala 31, , ), in Free Transit (?) (2003 - Zappeion, Athens, Greek Presidency of the EU), DESTE Prize 2003 (DESTE Foundation, Greece), et. al. 52nd International Art Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia

• 52nd International Art Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia Greek Participation “ Think with the Senses - Feel with the Mind. Art in the Present Tense”, June 10th – November 21st, 2007, June 7,8,9: Biennale Previews. www.labiennale.org “THE END”

• For more information on the artist and the Greek Pavilion, please refer to www.nikosalexiou.com or contact: azafi[email protected] , [email protected] , [email protected]

• The Greek Pavilion is located in the Giardini (next to the new entrance to the Biennale, St. Elena vaporetto stop).