Announcing Artist List for 6th Athens Biennale: ANTI

Image courtesy of Athens Biennale

6th Athens Biennale
ANTI
October 26 – December 9, 2018
http://athensbiennale.org/anti

The 6th Athens Biennale: ANTI announces the artist list for its 2018 edition.
Curated by Stefanie Hessler / Kostis Stafylakis / Poka-Yio

Participating artists: 
Spyros Aggelopoulos*, Monira Al Qadiri, Loukia Alavanou, Korakrit Arunanondchai & Alex Gvojic, Ivana Bašić, Tianzhuo Chen, Chim Pom, Sarawut Chutiwongpeti*, Brody Condon*, Celia Daskopoulou, Ted Davis, Danielle Dean, JP Downer, Nina Runa Essendrop*, Georgia Fambris, Cao Fei, Ed Fornieles*, Angelos Frentzos, Sarah Friend, Front Deutscher Äpfel, Dorota Gawęda & Eglė Kulbokaitė, Eva Giannakopoulou, Gigas, Joey Holder, Carsten Höller, Callum Leo Hughes*, Actually Huizenga (of Patriarchy), Jacob Hurwitz-Goodman & Daniel Keller, Binelde Hyrcan, Maryam Jafri, Sascha Jahn & TheBoundCollective, Jakub Jansa, Geumhyung Jeong, Kahlil Joseph, Florence Jung, Raja’a Khalid*, Joy Kolaitis, Peter V. Kritikos, Laboratory for Microclimates*, Euripides Laskaridis / Osmosis*, Delaine Le Bas*, Candice Lin, Fei Liu, Rachel Maclean, Basim Magdy, Miltos Manetas, Marianne Maric, Eva and Franco Mattes, Metahaven, Quenton Miller, Molleindustria, Shana Moulton, Sirous Namazi*, Narcissister, New Models, Pinar Öğrenci, Marisa Olson, Uģis Olte & Morten Traavik, Omsk Social Club*, Ilias Papailiakis, Eva Papamargariti*, Yuri Pattison*, Heather Phillipson, Signe Pierce*, AnnaMaria Pinaka*, Wong Ping, Michail Pirgelis, Agnieszka Polska, Lykourgos Porfyris*, Porpentine Charity Heartscape, Johannes Paul Raether*, Jon Rafman*, Kosta Rapadopoulos / Jasin Challah, Tabita Rezaire, Roee Rosen, Iepe Rubingh, Saeborg, Tai Shani*, Heji Shin, Aliza Shvarts*, Helle Siljeholm*, Marianna Simnett, Linnéa Sjöberg, Panos Sklavenitis*, Marilia Stagkouraki, Jenna Sutela, The Agency, The Domestic Godless*, The Peng! Collective*, Ryan Trecartin, Theo Triantafyllidis, Anna Uddenberg*, Nicole Wermers, Tori Wrånes, Lauren Wy, Lu Yang, Young Boy Dancing Group, Costas Zapas, Zhala*

*An asterisk denotes a new production

The artists participating in ANTI inhabit the center of Athens offering a distinct, idiosyncratic and uneasy screenshot of our political, social and cultural momentum.

ANTI’s main venue is TTT, an iconic Athenian building that, since the 1930s, has served as the central offices of the Hellenic Telecommunications Organization. The building, with its Kafkaesque, administrative architecture and interior design, is a symbol of the transition from analog to digital communication—a symbol of the shift from the era of wire consoles to the early computer age to the current era of online pleasures and discomforts.

The exhibition dissects the way we polarize, fight and antagonize in post-digital times: in the age of social media, of neo-reactionary movements, of post-truth nihilism and of conspiracy theories developed by the alt-right. ANTI is about inventing the most effective strategies to oppose the hate of the alt-right and other neo-reactionary fronts. Can we discover strategies that go beyond the algorithmic, visual and political regimes weaponized by regressive and fascist agendas?

Today, an oppositional stance, an attitude of ANTI, seems to encompass wide arenas of life, including cultural expressions, identity politics, art labor and media including weird advertising, video games and music video productions. In other words, attitudes of non-conformity, dissent and alternativeness are rapidly becoming canonized and commodified. How can we tackle the dynamic dialectics between ANTI’s eruption and ANTI’s commodification?

The artists in ANTI interrogate the post-digital era, scenarios of transhuman enhancement, cults of wellness as well as bodily and spiritual transformation. They do so by devising structures of everyday life: from the gym to the shopping mall, from the online forum to the sex dungeon, from the office to the political front. The artistic devices composing the 6th Athens Biennale reveal the dangers of today’s neo-reactionary revolt, asking what might motivate reactionary emotions and fantasies and how to change the current structures of pleasure. As such, the 6th Athens Biennale invites viewers to explore various instead-ofs, both speculative and earnest, open to contamination, dirty and alive.