On the fifth day of civil unrest in Greece- the worst the country has seen in decades- one fifteen year old student, the same age incidentally as the young Alexandros Grigoropoulos who has become the symbol of the Greek riots, said; “last year, the mountains were burning; this year, the cities are burning.” Indeed, Greece […]
Witnessing the Greek Riots Through Foreign Eyes
Athens: Last night I saw a nine-year-old boy wearing a black hood, with his mouth covered by a bandana, hurl glass bottles at the riot police in the heart of the anarchist stronghold, Exarchia. It was 2am, and no one seemed to wonder where the hell this little boy had come from. Watching his single […]
Stelios Faitakis on Art
Stelios Faitakis In a country where protest and anarchy are part and parcel of daily life, Greek artist Stelios Faitakis is raising questions in a nation where an emerging generation is desperately seeking social change. The need to break out of staunch traditionalism and archaic political practices is evident in the contemporary and underground art […]
Tod Papageorge in Black and White
Tod Papageorge’s photographic eye is as fierce as his reputation as the head of Yale University’s graduate photography department. Regarded as the bridge between Henri Cartier Bresson’s school of the ‘decisive moment’ and the American school of photographic realism exemplifed by street photographers Gary Winnograd and Diane Arbus, his highly-anticipated exhibition at the Xippas Gallery, […]
Carving Beauty
In the 1990s, there was a surge in cosmetic surgery amongst western women. I blame this on Baywatch. Suddenly, a caricature of what it was to be a woman was becoming a very real and everyday reality. Today, it is nothing short of common, with everyone and their sister going under the knife for one reason or another. […]
Destroy Athens; the First Athens Biennial
Chaos precedes creation; mankind understands this. Even modern science states that the Universe began with chaos. Through stories such as Noah’s flood, that erased and rebooted a civilization, and the Greek myth depicting Chaos as creator, we are shown that only in pieces can something be assembled into coherence. Perhaps that is why there […]