Georgia Sagri portfolio

Page 1

THE BREEDER

GEORGIA SAGRI porfolio

THE BREEDER 45 Iasonos st, GR 10436, Athens, t/f: +30 210 33 17 527, gallery@thebreedersystem.com www.thebreedersystem.com


11/28/2019

Domenick Ammirati on the art of Georgia Sagri - Artforum International

TABLE OF CONTENTS PRINT NOVEMBER 2019

CHAOS CÉLÈBRE Domenick Ammirati on the art of Georgia Sagri

Georgia Sagri, Attempt. Come., 2016. Performance view, Municipal Arts Center and Museum of Anti-Dictatorial and Democratic Resistance, Parko Eleftherias, Athens, September 17, 2016. (Duration 24 hours.) Georgia Sagri. From Documenta 14. Photo: Stathis Mamalakis.

AT AN INTERDISCIPLINARY SYMPOSIUM called “Hiving: Living Forms, Forms of Living” at New York University in April 2019, Georgia Sagri provided her own etymology of the word

https://www.artforum.com/print/201909/domenick-ammirati-on-the-art-of-georgia-sagri-81067

1/21


11/28/2019

Domenick Ammirati on the art of Georgia Sagri - Artforum International

anarchy. Sagri had been invited to participate not for any experience with the apiary but because of her relation to the thematic of the hive as both metaphor and model for less hierarchical forms of political organization, which she rather famously knows something about. Overwriting the traditionally accepted etymon from her native Greek, anarchos, or “without leader,” Sagri instead offered the alternative meaning “without origin,” since arche in its ancient meaning signifies not just a ruler but also primacy, being first. This linguistic gambit was a small moment in a two-decade career of performance and sculptural practices. But it was characteristic of Sagri in a number of ways. She is tenacious about setting her own terms. As a Greek artist communicating with an international audience primarily in English, she pushes her attention to language, what it covers up and what it constructs, beyond mere niceties of translation. Her interest in redefinition is fundamental, whether in her earlier pieces that posit the contemporary laborer as an overwritable blank slate to be updated and edited per the economy’s needs, or in works like Attempt. Come., 2016, which helped inaugurate Documenta 14’s public programming by repurposing and, in a sense, reconsecrating a space that had been tainted by the Greek junta’s use of the complex. A pervasive suspicion of origins and the reactionary claims they support extends to Sagri’s conception of identity: It is fluid and in constant negotiation with the other. There is no origin, no linear flow, nothing irreversible.

https://www.artforum.com/print/201909/domenick-ammirati-on-the-art-of-georgia-sagri-81067

2/21


11/28/2019

Domenick Ammirati on the art of Georgia Sagri - Artforum International

Georgia Sagri, The Invisible Ones, 2008. Performance view, Portikus, Frankfurt, April 21, 2018. (Duration 3 hours.) Platform: Square, 2007. Georgia Sagri. Photo: Diana Pfammatter.

If origins are a scam, where to begin? In the middle of things, with Sagri’s move to New York in 2006 to enroll in the MFA program at Columbia University on a Fulbright scholarship. She’d already gotten a degree at the Athens School of Fine Arts and a diploma in cello at Greece’s national music school. The mid- to late-2000s in New York was not only the gestational period for so-called zombie formalism, nor merely a moment for white dudes making facile postConceptualism; it was also a time of resurgent interest in performance art, which had tapered off since its identitarian heyday in the late 1980s and early ’90s. The Performa Biennial, the first periodic exhibition for live art, began in 2005. In association with its third edition, MOMA PS1 presented a history of performance as a medium, “100 Years (version #2, PS1, nov 2009).” Marginal but not insignificant amounts of the money and cultural capital pouring into the art world were shunted away from object making and into performance. Sagri’s response was to forge a manner unique to her, though recognizably influenced by Fluxus. The intermedia nature of Fluxus, its cheapness, and its loathing of the commodity fit very well with the anarchist politics in which the artist had been immersed in Athens. https://www.artforum.com/print/201909/domenick-ammirati-on-the-art-of-georgia-sagri-81067

3/21


11/28/2019

Domenick Ammirati on the art of Georgia Sagri - Artforum International

The violence one half witnesses is a source of contamination. Its unseen agents could be allegorical or psychological, governmental or the cop in your head.

Sagri began her life in New York by plunking down a literal foundation. In her studio, the artist created Square, 2007, a concrete slab somewhere between a low plinth and a small stage. She designated the space within the platform’s bounds public. With this gesture, she not only took up the mantle of a disruptive post-Minimalism in a moment of condensing formalist tendencies, but also made explicit the title’s resonance with the concept of the polis. Sagri’s first significant performance after her move, The Invisible Ones, 2008, is spare of construct: Sagri stands atop Square and, accompanied by the recorded sound of physical blows, acts out the process of being repeatedly struck. She recoils against an unseen strike, staggers, falls, rises. She reels again, falls. The cycle repeats for a good while, and it gets painful to watch. Its most recent performance, at Portikus in Frankfurt in 2018 as part of Sagri’s first survey exhibition, lasted three hours.1 A key effect of Sagri’s movement in the piece is its production of a material trace: her flinchings, scrapes, and tumbles grind up dust from the concrete, which covers her and sifts into the air by the time the piece ends, landing beyond the plinth’s geometrically ideal boundaries. The violence one half witnesses is a source of contamination. Its unseen agents could be allegorical or psychological, governmental or the cop in your head. The title, however, cues one to recall the invisible hand that allegedly regulates free markets but is in fact a cryptoreligious illusion.

https://www.artforum.com/print/201909/domenick-ammirati-on-the-art-of-georgia-sagri-81067

4/21


11/28/2019

Domenick Ammirati on the art of Georgia Sagri - Artforum International

Georgia Sagri, The Invisible Ones, 2008. Performance view, Portikus, Frankfurt, April 21, 2018. (Duration 3 hours.) Platform: Square, 2007. Georgia Sagri. Photo: Diana Pfammatter.

The Invisible Ones employs a loop structure: Its soundtrack lasts five minutes and then restarts, causing the performer to begin again as well. The motif of the loop was a common one in Sagri’s earlier work, appearing also in Do Jaguar, 2009. There, the loop is doubled, made manifest in the form of a circle painted on the floor that serves as Sagri’s stage as she plays the role of a “spin-and-grin girl” of the type one might have found glassily smiling on a rotating dais at a 1960s auto show. Sagri’s laps around the circle’s perimeter suggest the motions of an animal in a cage, and the audio involves the recorded cries of an actual jaguar, which the protagonist begins to imitate—she “does” jaguar, but errantly. Flouting the imperative to sell cars (and her own sexualized image), she undergoes a transformation that evokes both Simone Forti’s engagements with nonhuman locomotion and the becominganimal of A Thousand Plateaus. Though the soundtrack here lasts only ten minutes, the piece can go on as long as eight hours.

https://www.artforum.com/print/201909/domenick-ammirati-on-the-art-of-georgia-sagri-81067

5/21


11/28/2019

Domenick Ammirati on the art of Georgia Sagri - Artforum International

Georgia Sagri, Do Jaguar, 2009. Performance view, Kunstverein Braunschweig, Germany, December 2, 2017. (Duration 8 hours.) Floor: If Approaching Pain Gives You Recovery the Memory of Flesh Then Go Elsewhere, 2009. Georgia Sagri. Photo: Stathis Mamalakis.

In 2009, Sagri’s use of the loop suggested specific referents very much at hand. In part, it seemed a commentary on the art world’s difficulty in accommodating performance. A convention of video art was transposed to a living, breathing performer, as if to mockingly anticipate the work’s reuptake as documentation in the white cube. At the same time, while it seemed to wryly allude to the postmillennial art world’s romance with the ’70s, and to stage a dark burlesque of labor conditions, the loop was a clear attempt to reckon with digital technology’s pervasive influence at that historical moment. This was the dawn of popularized streaming video: YouTube launched in 2005; Netflix and PornHub began streaming in 2007. Hence the foregrounding in Do Jaguar of the iPod as the device on which the audio component of the piece is stored; hence not only the loop but also the glitch, an accidental mini-loop or inadvertent fast-forward, as a choreographic riff on postindustrial labor and the erratic recursions of immaterial gig economics. Artists such as Ryan Trecartin and Lizzie Fitch were

https://www.artforum.com/print/201909/domenick-ammirati-on-the-art-of-georgia-sagri-81067

6/21


11/28/2019

Domenick Ammirati on the art of Georgia Sagri - Artforum International

mining this same vein in video work, but Sagri was a key adapter of these concerns to live modes.

Georgia Sagri, Working the No Work, 2012. Performance view, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, March 1, 2012. (Duration 1 hour.) Sculptural element: Working the No Work (Zoom In and Out), 2012. Georgia Sagri. From the 2012 Whitney Biennial. Photo: Paula Court.

Sagri continued to dramatize the vicissitudes of labor under late-late-late capitalism in subsequent projects, notably her contribution to the 2012 Whitney Biennial, Working the No

Work. Her most elaborate piece to that point, it involved a long performance billet, with Sagri portraying eleven characters (clubgoer, folk-dancer, etc.) in eleven days, each engaging in activities that are not (or that the characters believe are not) work. The coherence of these identities and their orderly presentation over the duration of the piece was scrambled, however, by Sagri’s use of recorded snippets of her voice: She would record a vocalization on her laptop and then replay it a moment later or in a subsequent session hours or days later. At times, she would imitate the recording and engage in a riff-based polyphony of personalities. If this technique had schizoid implications, the effect in the moment was less disturbing than https://www.artforum.com/print/201909/domenick-ammirati-on-the-art-of-georgia-sagri-81067

7/21


11/28/2019

Domenick Ammirati on the art of Georgia Sagri - Artforum International

entrancing: rhythmic, comic, musical, an experimental sinfonietta arranged for a one-woman chamber ensemble. The installation included a photomural featuring those talismans of dematerialized labor, human hands—a pair of them, one gripping the other as if to massage away tendinitis—along with a grid of Post-its and some looping geometries topped by the phrase DEAD LINES. All in all, it’s a convincing imaging of the office drone’s permeated consciousness. One sequence of the performance involved Sagri hurling herself against the wall; others involved fragmented, tic-like gestures and repeated phrases that suggest a psyche gradually fracturing under the demands of cognitive-affective production. In 2016, in a statement accompanying Documentary of Behavioral Currencies, one of her contributions to Manifesta 11, the artist wrote, “Work is not the decision of a free person, of a free will. On the contrary, it is a barrier to living freely.”2 Given Sagri’s frequent recourse to etymology, it’s surely not lost on her that one of the Greek words for “worker,” doula, originally meant “slave.”

Georgia Sagri, Working the No Work, 2012, ink-jet print on self-adhesive vinyl, wood. Installation view, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. From the 2012 Whitney Biennial. Photo: Paula Court.

https://www.artforum.com/print/201909/domenick-ammirati-on-the-art-of-georgia-sagri-81067

8/21


11/28/2019

Domenick Ammirati on the art of Georgia Sagri - Artforum International

The loop and the glitch are historically pertinent technological references, but they also are temporal strategies—markers of involution, pauses, or leaps forward. Sagri has long been committed to representing and reconfiguring modes of time. Though this is not her most obvious concern, it is her most consistent. Working the No Work epitomizes the artist in exposé-ist mode, illuminating the grotesqueries of the skittering tempo of post-Fordist labor, the blending and confusion of on-the-clock and off-the-clock hours. But even as early as 1999, when, at age twenty, she made what was perhaps her first significant work, her interest in time as an embodied phenomenon—for instance, in the way exhaustion registers duration—was apparent. For this piece, Polytechnic, she stood for some six hours, clad only in a few bandages, in a vitrine on the sidewalk outside the Athens Polytechnic. It was November 17, the day of the annual protests commemorating the 1973 uprising that killed dozens of students and led to the fall of the military dictatorship. Her confinement, with her near-naked body on display, served as a potent reminder of the risk one takes in political action. Yet even as it affirmed the protests, it stood outside them, posing a query to those chanting and marching with flags held high; seeming to assert that there is something human, rooted in the corporeal, that lies beyond ideology, and in a sense beyond historical time, embodied by Sagri’s stillness while the protests roiled around her. Over the years, Sagri has evolved her metaphysics in a Bergsonian direction, against clock time and the mode of organization for life and work it promotes. Like the becoming-animal of Do

Jaguar, this inclination has a Deleuzean grade. In an interview for artforum.com about her epic Dynamis, 2017, Sagri broached the work’s temporality with a reference to Deleuze’s treatment of Bergson in Cinema 2 (1985): Everyone talks about the here and now of performance, the presence of the artist, and that performance is ephemeral. For me, what takes place in performance has already been formed before, meaning that it was already. As the material has taken place before, it is a heritage of shadows you carry. Performance is crystal-image. It is projection. It is visual affect. And it has the materiality of a dream.3

https://www.artforum.com/print/201909/domenick-ammirati-on-the-art-of-georgia-sagri-81067

9/21


11/28/2019

Domenick Ammirati on the art of Georgia Sagri - Artforum International

Georgia Sagri, Documentary of Behavioral Currencies, 2016, sand and acrylic paint on plywood, shatter boards, corrugated metal sheet, fans, acrylic on plastic sheet, LED TV, thermal tubes, acrylic glass, oil paint on canvas, ink-jet print on Tyvek paper, metal components, HD video (color, sound, 10 minutes 30 seconds). Installation view, Luma Foundation, Zurich. From Manifesta 11. Photo: Flavio Karrer.

Sagri’s confinement served as potent reminder of the risk one takes in political action.

The crystal-image is Deleuze’s characteristically intricate figure for articulating Bergson’s endlessly counterintuitive—yet psychologically compelling—contention that the past literally exists in the present. To oversimplify, imagine a circuit between the past (corresponding to the representation, or what Deleuze calls the “virtual image”) and the present (corresponding to the “actual image,” the percept). The shortest possible version of that circuit between the past and present, the virtual and the actual, the represented and the lived, compresses time into something like a crystal, and the virtual and actual become indistinguishable from each other.

https://www.artforum.com/print/201909/domenick-ammirati-on-the-art-of-georgia-sagri-81067

10/21


11/28/2019

Domenick Ammirati on the art of Georgia Sagri - Artforum International

(For his part, Deleuze cites mirrors to illustrate his theory; I prefer to think of the GIF of two mirror-image Spider-Men accusatorially pointing fingers at each other.) While Deleuze mines cinema to find his Bergsonian exemplar, Sagri locates it in performance, where, it seems fair to say, the virtual and the actual do unite. This intellectual strategy, moving the artisticphilosophical motif from the screen to the physical space of performance, is the predicate of the maneuver in her art around the time of Working the No Work and other pieces of the late 2000s and early 2010s wherein Sagri migrates the loop and the glitch into lived, embodied time. These transpositions reflect Sagri’s sense that our nervous systems have been thoroughly interpenetrated by digital technology, and they form part of an ethically motivated search for a vital counterpart to the measuring and organizing of life according to terms dictated by work.

Georgia Sagri, Working the No Work (Clothing with Hangers), 2012, cotton, plastic, polyester, silk, metal zippers, iron, latex, paint, wood, plaster. Installation view, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. From the 2012 Whitney Biennial. Photo: Paula Court.

Dynamis, her contribution to Documenta 14, is Sagri’s most ambitious and complex project to date, and a milestone in her quest for an anti-utilitarian temporality. The multifaceted piece https://www.artforum.com/print/201909/domenick-ammirati-on-the-art-of-georgia-sagri-81067

11/21


11/28/2019

Domenick Ammirati on the art of Georgia Sagri - Artforum International

evolved over months in workshops involving dozens of participants, thirteen of whom composed a “chorus” with the artist that ultimately performed in two groups for six days in venues 1,500 miles apart. The chorus’s activities centered on two sets of sheet-metal sculptures that Sagri made and apportioned between the exhibition’s two far-flung locales, Athens and Kassel. In Athens, the sculptures were housed in a shabby disused storefront in the anarchist quarter, while in Kassel they occupied a gleaming disused ’60s modernist glass shopping pavilion. They took the form of steamroller-flat, cartoony body parts—heart, brain, ear, breast, genitalia, hand, and foot—rendered in mellow off-primary colors. The action of the piece was itself doubled between a suite of motions the two groups of chorus members would enact at their home bases and in occasional forays into the streets to processionally carry one of the metal organs and plant it in the ground at a particular site, where it would remain for the rest of Documenta’s run.

Sagri migrates the loop and the glitch into lived, embodied time.

The profusion of doublings made Dynamis a dizzyingly intricate artwork, as if it had been plotted on a logarithmic scale. No one could experience the whole thing, not even the artist. This derangement of time and space and deliberate extension of the piece’s parameters beyond any one viewer’s perceptual capacities cleverly negated the “here and now” fundamental to performance discourse (and which Sagri had dismissed in that artforum.com interview), since no one could be there for the work in its entirety. More philosophically, it upended the centrality of the individual subject and the notion of an order of sight—a primacy of viewing position.

https://www.artforum.com/print/201909/domenick-ammirati-on-the-art-of-georgia-sagri-81067

12/21


11/28/2019

Domenick Ammirati on the art of Georgia Sagri - Artforum International

Georgia Sagri, Polytechnic, 1999. Performance view, Athens Polytechnic University, Patission Street, Athens, November 17, 1999. (Duration 7 hours.) Georgia Sagri. Photo: Dimitris Diakoumopoulos.

When I visited the center of operations in Kassel a few days into the work, I found the chorus engaged in meditative movements that at times were so slow as to evoke low-impact yoga, cooling down after exercise, or just relaxing on a sunny summer day. The performers seemed museful but not preoccupied; their choreography—if that is the right word—was languid but definite. I saw rolling motions, stretching, contented gazing. The chorus members would periodically exit the space; during my first visit, on opening day, when a more antic mood prevailed, I found Sagri clad in a blue jumpsuit out front on the sidewalk, jaunting forward, swinging her arms up, and strolling backward, only to start the sequence again. Another woman stepped out of the little building, wrapped her arms around herself, and rolled along the pavilion’s glass wall. It could be hard to distinguish the performers, clad in fashionadjacent, loose-fitting uniformish clothes, from a certain class of exhibition-goer wearing their grand-tour comfort chic. Or, indeed, from oneself. This erasure of the distinction between viewer and performer broke down the analytic mechanism of the critic—of any viewer, really —there to see, understand, and move on. The implied dissolution of the differences among

https://www.artforum.com/print/201909/domenick-ammirati-on-the-art-of-georgia-sagri-81067

13/21


11/28/2019

Domenick Ammirati on the art of Georgia Sagri - Artforum International

social roles and subjectivities was key to the piece. The warm, drowsy spaces of Dynamis’s foci, with an array of seemingly unfussed individuals engaged in lightly physical, holistic practices—if they were engaged with anything physical other than simply being—contributed to the effect. The grand tourist, with some tight hamstrings after a day of festival tromping, might be tempted to stretch, pause, breathe.

Georgia Sagri, Polytechnic, 1999. Performance view, Athens Polytechnic University, Patission Street, Athens, November 17, 1999. (Duration 7 hours.) Georgia Sagri. Photo: Dimitris Diakoumopoulos.

This suasive ambience fostered not just a way to be but also a temporality for being. Dynamis means “power” or “energy” but with an emphasis on potential, something not yet expressed or coming into expression—becoming, as Deleuze would have it. And the temporality being lived in those times of the chorus’s less-dramatic activity was one rooted not in the clock of work but in the human body. The performers’ preparations and routines involved particular, individualized breathing patterns, and a material trace of the project’s diaphragmatic emphasis appeared in yet another portion of Dynamis as a stunning set of sculptures described as “Breathing Scores,” blown-glass vessels hung in series from rails. Their varying lengths,

https://www.artforum.com/print/201909/domenick-ammirati-on-the-art-of-georgia-sagri-81067

14/21


11/28/2019

Domenick Ammirati on the art of Georgia Sagri - Artforum International

coloration, and material qualities—walls thick or thin? Surfaces corrugated or smooth?— created a mesmeric visual cadence. The works are a sensual, concretized commentary on the notion of the score; they also conjure organs, the lungs foremost. Seeing them in situ, you were coaxed to imagine the amount of respiration expended to make each one, resulting in a concentration on your own breathing that, in turn, induced a remarkably physical and meditative experience with a work of static art. Through this corporeal connection, the “Breathing Scores” recall Dynamis’s organ sculptures, the élan vital those representations were intended to convey into the city, and the pacing observed and set by the performers.

Georgia Sagri, Dynamis/Soma in orgasm as brain, as breast, as ear, as hand, as heart, as leg, as sex, 2017. Performance view, Athens, June 7–12, 2017. Georgia Sagri. From Documenta 14. Photo: Petros Chytiris.

In an interview around the time of Dynamis, Sagri declared that the basis of it was the stages of orgasm.4 Hence the titling of the organ sculptures Dynamis/Soma in orgasm as ear, https://www.artforum.com/print/201909/domenick-ammirati-on-the-art-of-georgia-sagri-81067

15/21


11/28/2019

Domenick Ammirati on the art of Georgia Sagri - Artforum International

Dynamis/Soma in orgasm as breast, and so on. This move ties in to Sagri’s recent interest in reproductive labor—her 2018 monograph, Georgia Sagri Georgia Sagri and I, features a conversation on the subject between herself and Silvia Federici. She calls our attention to the pleasure that, under the logic of reproductive labor, is ancillary at best. And she returns us once again to plotting the elapsing of time using a human measure, according to a physiological response common to us all. The interweaving of art and politics in Sagri’s work is difficult to reckon with, in part because a discussion of her as a political agent so readily swamps the art itself. But yes, Sagri was a significant figure in getting Occupy Wall Street off the ground in 2011. The artist told me in conversation that in her view the two modes of activity should not be conflated; when she wants to do art, she does art, and when she wants to do political organizing, she does that. Her work rarely if ever makes direct statements about specific events, though its political valence is undeniable.

Georgia Sagri, Semiotics of the Household, 2018. Performance view, Hester Street, New York, November 3, 2018. (Duration 3 hours.) Georgia Sagri. Photo: Diego Singh.

https://www.artforum.com/print/201909/domenick-ammirati-on-the-art-of-georgia-sagri-81067

16/21


11/28/2019

Domenick Ammirati on the art of Georgia Sagri - Artforum International

Yet a boundary drawn is never quite fixed. In the video documentation of her droll yet intensely poignant Semiotics of the Household, 2018, the artist is seen on a quiet Lower East Side street at sunset removing her possessions one by one from her wheeled carry-on suitcase, right down to her cosmetics and passport, and using them to draw a line across the street before packing them up and repeating the process. Aux barricades indeed; the personal is political, even the toiletries. Sagri’s act temporarily, gently impedes the flow of traffic; a blockage in the system is created—a minor-key reprise of, say, the occupation of a city park. Reaction from drivers is generally patient; even a garbage truck waits unhonking for her to move out of the way. But after an hour, the NYPD arrives and summarily finds a reason to handcuff a woman with a thick accent acting aberrantly in public. While her responses to the police’s queries are mostly smiling and blandly circular, when the cuffs go on she appears to break character for just a moment, declaring to an off-camera friend, “I cannot be arrested,” hinting at the visa troubles she had after Occupy.

Georgia Sagri, Semiotics of the Household, 2018. Performance view, Hester Street, New York, November 3, 2018. (Duration 3 hours.) Georgia Sagri. Photo: Diego Singh.

https://www.artforum.com/print/201909/domenick-ammirati-on-the-art-of-georgia-sagri-81067

17/21


11/28/2019

Domenick Ammirati on the art of Georgia Sagri - Artforum International

In Sagri’s monograph, one writer describes a particular Occupy-related episode, the shortlived occupation of Artists Space, which Sagri led, as “her masterpiece.”5 I’m not sure I disagree, though in what genre? Conflating the action with art does Sagri no service. With a Paolo Virno–esque aptitude for seizing an opportunity, she spearheaded the occupation of the beloved New York nonprofit on October 22, 2011, just a week after the closing of a Christopher D’Arcangelo exhibition. The occupation lasted little more than twenty-four hours; I dropped by early on after receiving a text from a friend telling me what was afoot. It was late in the evening when I arrived. Artists Space, upstairs on Greene Street in SoHo, was dimly lit, one section strewn with sleeping bags, while nearby, in an illuminated circle, a vigorous discussion of principles was taking place in classic OWS style. The activist cohort, numbering maybe twenty-five at that time, maybe more, included no one I recognized from the art world other than Sagri. Pizza had been ordered, and I was hungry, but I refrained from consuming any of the presumably limited supply. Instead I pulled up a folding chair, the kind used for events like the panel discussion that had been taking place when the occupation was declared, and proceeded to nod in and out of wakefulness, space folding pleasurably around me and swallowing me in darkness. When it occasionally spat me up, my snippets of awareness gave me the sense very much of fast-forwarding through a video file, finding that, nope, not much was changing from beginning to end. Always in the center of the frame, though, was Sagri—primus inter pares, it seemed to me, which is perhaps unfair, since she was the only one of the group I knew and had the charisma of the performer. It was the same in the OWS splinter meetings I’d gone to where she was present. Also, she tended to draw attention because she just seemed to have some sense of what the fuck she was talking about, unlike a lot of people who were airlessly theorizing—that is, unlike a lot of the rest of us.

Attempt. Come. did not enact some kind of hieratic sacralization of the space— unless we agree that sacralization involves humor, eros, and song. As I had not brought a sleeping bag, I eventually decided to wrest myself away and catch a cab. In this occupation, I was a civilian, and I had to get on with my life. So, too, did Artists Space, which the next night kicked the occupiers out. It was all a good deal more than the theater that people seemed to read it as. I, for one, found the maneuvering by the Occupy 38 group to be an actually brave leveraging of what was at hand, starting change with ourselves, as we all are https://www.artforum.com/print/201909/domenick-ammirati-on-the-art-of-georgia-sagri-81067

18/21


11/28/2019

Domenick Ammirati on the art of Georgia Sagri - Artforum International

supposed to do but almost never manage. Because we all have to get on with our lives, by and large. In this case, I think “we” all know who “we” are. As with OWS itself, it’s hard to say what effect the quixotic Artists Space occupation had in the short, medium, or long term. But I suspect that it was no help to Sagri’s career.

Georgia Sagri, Attempt. Come., 2016. Performance view, Parko Eleftherias, Athens, September 17, 2016. (Duration 24 hours.) Georgia Sagri. From Documenta 14. Photo: Stathis Mamalakis.

In 2016, Sagri took part in the launch of Documenta 14’s Athenian public programming with

Attempt. Come., a grueling piece that involved the artist’s attempting to dance for twenty-four hours. (She got through twenty, then deliberately quit when a crowd streamed in to see if she would actually last the whole time. A Q&A with those present followed, likely the most grueling aspect of all.) Clad in a white shift like a sacrifice or holy virgin, Sagri sought to overwrite the history of the associatively loaded space Documenta would be using for its public programming: a site that had been used by the junta’s military police as its headquarters, with the torture of political prisoners going on right next door, before being turned into an arts

https://www.artforum.com/print/201909/domenick-ammirati-on-the-art-of-georgia-sagri-81067

19/21


11/28/2019

Domenick Ammirati on the art of Georgia Sagri - Artforum International

center years later. The clip available on Documenta 14’s website shows Sagri paired with a single musician, who is beating on a bass drum strapped to his torso marching-band style. Her dancing is energetic, flirty at times, fun. She adds her own musical embellishment with hissings and monosyllabic exhalations, harking perhaps to the solfège method of syllabizing musical notes, wherein alchemy occurs and sound begins to meld with language—another kind of crystal-image achieved, another boundary crossed. Attempt. Come. did not enact some kind of hieratic sacralization of the space—unless we agree that sacralization involves humor, eros, and song. The poem Sagri wrote to accompany the piece spells it out; its invocation includes lines like “Unrepresented eros hits the drum. And the celebration starts, for joy and grief,” and, “Vibrate with me, so chaos can enter.” It also states, clearly, the artist’s position on definition: “Be the point of no-reference. Constant, and as a state of formation.” The original signification of chaos, recall, was not disorder but rather the undifferentiated field of being that existed prior to creation. Sagri invokes the uninscribed as a way to escape the tyranny of definition. And yet the playful element of her work here noses open the door to let a carnival sense of chaos poke its head in as well.

Domenick Ammirati is a writer and editor based in New York. NOTES 1. Sagri’s first survey exhibition actually occurred in two parts: Georgia Sagri Georgia Sagri at Kunstverein Braunschweig, Germany, December 2, 2017–February 11, 2018, and Georgia Sagri

and I at Frankfurt’s Portikus, April 21–June 17, 2018. 2. Quoted in Mostafa Heddaya, “Occupational Hazards: Manifesta 11 Employs the Working Class,”Artnews, August 3, 2016, www.artnews.com/2016/08/03/occupational-hazardsmanifesta-11-employs-the-working-class/. 3. Georgia Sagri, “Interviews: Georgia Sagri,” by Lauren O’Neill-Butler, artforum.com, June 5, 2017, www.artforum.com/interviews/georgia-sagri-talks-about-her-work-dynamis-in-athensand-kassel-68784. 4. Sagri, “Interviews: Georgia Sagri.” 5. Stephen Squibb, “Alive and by Her Own Law (Clone Readymade Incorporated), Or Georgia Sagri Georgia Sagri,” in Georgia Sagri Georgia Sagri and I (Braunschweig, Germany: https://www.artforum.com/print/201909/domenick-ammirati-on-the-art-of-georgia-sagri-81067

20/21


Georgia Sagri IASI 15 February - 2 May 2020 Mimosa House is currently hosting IASI (“recovery" in Greek) - the ongoing research practice of artist Georgia Sagri (b. 1979, Athens). Expanding on over 10 years of research into self care and recovery, Sagri conducted private one-to-one sessions with participants, based on voice tuning, breathing and movement techniques. The sessions took place on the first floor of Mimosa House using a specially constructed sculptural object, titled "Stage of Recovery". On the basis of these sessions, the artist has produced a series of drawings that she calls ‘visual imprints’ - mapping a sensorial memory of the treatments. As the culmination of the research phase, Sagri performed Breathing 5-1-5 at Mimosa House, presenting one of her breathing techniques, a video of which is currently on view. Sagri’s collaboration with Mimosa House is her first institutional exhibition in the UK, which is also the inauguration of her research practice IASI, and her long-term commitment to working directly with the public. IASI will later develop at two further institutions, Tavros and Hyle in Athens, and De Appel in Amsterdam. Curator, Daria Khan: “Georgia Sagri’s IASI brings a unique and new opportunity to Mimosa House: to explore the impact of artistic practice on the public, as well as to ask wider questions about artist labour, self-care and pathologies of our time. IASI is an experiment in establishing in-depth collaboration with individual members of the audience, through a process of sharing knowledge and bodily practice which have a long lasting effect beyond the exhibition’s timeframe and space.” Artist, Georgia Sagri: [..Some voices, which means some bodies, are under shock; by altering the resonance of the voice, the body starts to vibrate differently, so some of the organs that they are in pain will start to recuperate. The character of one-to-one practice allows experimentation to grow on a stage, the "Stage of Recovery", designed to provide a soft space for the purpose of the research only, where unique sessions take place. The nature of the research itself distinguishes research-creation from more conventional, tried-and-tested methodologies. Moving away from the spectacle and the event-based structure allows me to build upon an ongoing practice, where the word treatment derives. The treatments shape the practice, that is IASI (recovery), through an ongoing creative process. The "Stage of Recovery" will be built in different places where the treatments take place: Mimosa House in London, TAVROS and Ύλη[matter]HYLE in Athens and De Appel in Amsterdam. Each treatment is a private one-to-one encounter that builds the content of the research safeguarding personal anonymity. Putting the treatments on the stage – on what was the topos (site) of the theatre, where the construction of the social definitions took place – I aim through this practice to release social roles and behavioural self-policing. This intimate technique of observation happens with the training of the voice. I am interested, in opposition to psychoanalysis, in how the voice sounds, and not in what it says. With smooth training, I follow and support each participant to tune differently as well as to experience another interiority of their body and through that tuning to become physically stronger and better. Each of the participants learns from their physical state and find movements and perhaps even a new voice that will possibly allow them to self-recover…] 12 Princes Street London W1B 2LL +44 (0) 780 235 1468

info@mimosahouse.co.uk mimosahouse.co.uk


Georgia Sagri was in conversation with institutional allies Daria Khan (Mimosa House), Maria-Thalia Carras (TAVROS) and Monika Szewczyk (De Appel), on Friday 14th February. Georgia Sagri presented Breathing (5-1-5), performance, 30’, on Thursday 5th March at 6.30pm. The documentation of the performance is currently on view at Mimosa House.

Bio: Georgia Sagri (b. 1979, Athens) lives and works in Athens and New York. At the centre of her practice lies an exploration of performance as an ever-evolving field within social and visual life. Much of her work is influenced by her ongoing engagement in political movements and struggles, regarding issues of autonomy, empowerment and self-organisation. Georgia Sagri has exhibited internationally in various solo and group exhibitions: Portikus, Frankfurt/ Main, Germany (2018); Kunstverein Braunschweig, Germany (2017, 2018); Cycladic Museum, Athens Greece (2017); Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw, Poland (2016); Sculpture Center, New York, USA (2016); KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, Germany (2016, 2015); Forde, Geneva, Switzerland (2015); Kunsthalle Basel Switzerland (2014); MoMA PS1, New York, USA (2013); Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw, Poland (2013); Guggenheim Bilbao, Spain (2011); MoMA, New York, USA (2011); Macedonian Museum, Thessaloniki, Greece (2011); The Dakis Joannou Collection, DESTE Foundation, Athens, Greece (2006). Sagri has also participated in documenta 14 (2017), Manifesta 11 (2016), Istanbul; Biennial (2015), Lyon Biennial (2013), Whitney Biennial (2012), Thessaloniki Biennial (2011), and Athens Biennial (2007). In 2014 Sagri initiated Ύλη[matter]HYLE (hyle.gr) a semi-public/semi-private space in the center of Athens, Greece. Her first monograph catalogue was published by Sternberg Press, following her solo exhibitions Georgia Sagri Georgia Sagri at Kunstverein Braunschweig, and Georgia Sagri and I at Portikus. In the summer of 2019 she was offered the Tenure Position in the School of Fine Arts in Athens in order to organise and run the first Performance Art studio.

12 Princes Street London W1B 2LL +44 (0) 780 235 1468

info@mimosahouse.co.uk mimosahouse.co.uk


Georgia Sagri, IASI, 2020, installation view at Mimosa House, London


Georgia Sagri, IASI, 2020, installation view at Mimosa House, London


Georgia Sagri, IASI, 2020, installation view at Mimosa House, London


Georgia Sagri, IASI, 2020, installation view at Mimosa House, London


Georgia Sagri, IASI, 2020, installation view at Mimosa House, London


Georgia Sagri, IASI, 2020, installation view at Mimosa House, London


Georgia Sagri, IASI, 2020, installation view at Mimosa House, London


Georgia Sagri, IASI, 2020, installation view at Mimosa House, London


Georgia Sagri, IASI, 2020, installation view at Mimosa House, London


Lars Friedrich

Kantstrasse 154a

10623 Berlin

mail@larsfriedrich.net

Georgia Sagri Eröffnung 14.09.2018 von 17-21 Uhr

Ausstellung 15.09.- 27.10.2018

Georgia Sagri Household For her exhibition at Lars Friedrich gallery in Berlin, Georgia Sagri invents a social and aesthetic body: an assembly of assemblages and the insides are coming out. The fleshy ripped parts, the touched and informed parts, the messy wet parts that then dry and are cracked and repaired: as these forms collect and assemble, they compose one another, en masse. They are investing in the inside out of forms, onto the negative of the negative and their points of view, looking like from another place, creating an infrastructure from which alternative, embodied organization can be felt. An open apparatus: a set of propositions about the textures and materials of an experimental body. Though cornered and contained, they live together beneath the register of what is properly made. It is a somatic and massified makeup of materials, affects, textures, excesses, abandonments, and multiplicities. An assemblage is a multiplying set of propositions across varying spaces and times: an everywhere irruptable potential to collectively recompose. The assembled body is internally differentiated but indistinct. To assemble is to differentiate. Her sculptures are both touched and a performance of touching. Sagri knelt, squatted, and bent around a bathroom sink, column base, stairs, and cracked street. She filled each surface with paper — wet, squeezed paper — and its chewed pulp absorbed surface: transient, impersonal dirt held wet and encased by contact. That which gathers in cracks and corners, in improper spaces openly abandoned, in the sinks and drains where no sovereign goes, is collected. “What is staying,” writes Sagri, “is the time or the length of a touch.” Touching is one of those blurring modes, collapsing subject and object. But its ethics are complicated, as José Muñoz asks, “What is it to enact a mode of touching that isn’t about mastery, that isn’t about foreclosure, that isn’t about fusing, that isn’t about collapsing things?” Touching both marks and cleans. As a domestic fiction, the household maintains a bodily arrangement, a particular distribution of resources and erotics. Yet what is assembled here under the title of Household breaks down and alters what the house otherwise “keeps.” As a transformational practice, it tends to the debris of domestic edifices. It insists that a political body must emerge from a site as contested and starved as this. There is a legend about the archon; that it weaponizes the archive, holding only what is properly valuable and disappearing the rest. A domesticated archive only produces loss. But something resists that house arrest — maybe some remnants, a crowd of them. They index the contour of dirt, dragging it into their cross-temporal assemblage. A sink’s drain: the persistent absent-presence of maintenance. Sagri’s work tends to the emergence of what evades. This is her sculptures’ fugitive performance. Of the multiple etymologies of anarchy – an- arche, against the law and the people without government – Sagri’s Household inscribes another: “without beginnings.” An an-originary anarche refuses the cold fiction of a single point — a unit, an individual, a time — to arrange refuse into another kind of durational infrastructure. There are so many times here (and there), and in assembling — collectivizing, making a body — they disassemble beneath the order reproductive management. They have already begun, and ended too. In deviating from origin, in gathering a plurality of living alter-times, Household’s body assembles and supports the fleshed materials of another proposal. An-arche-: deregulated maintenance, erotic support, wayward home, lawless archive. 1

2

— Sarah Richter

Muñoz, José, and Samuel Delaney. Queer Commons. 25 Mar. 2013, Ypsilanti, Eastern Michigan University Student Center. Sagri, Georgia. “Spaces of Common. Times of Anarchy.” In the selection of texts Solution 275-294 - Communists Anonymous Paperback – November 30, 2017. Publisher: Sternberg Press (November 30, 2017) 1 2


Lars Friedrich

Kantstrasse 154a

Georgia Sagri And (1), 2018 And (2), 2018 And (3), 2018 And (4), 2018 And (5), 2018 And (6), 2018 And (7), 2018 And (8), 2018 And (9), 2018 acrylic paint, cardboard, wood 190 x 120 x 83 cm unique

Georgia Sagri imprint column (shadow, towards a theory of multiple dimensions), 2018 papier mâché, newspaper, wood 86 x 155 x 24 cm unique

10623 Berlin

Georgia Sagri deep cut, 2018 Laserprint on 3M vinyl-sticker 180 x 90 cm unique

Georgia Sagri imprint stairs, 2018 papier mâché, newspaper, wood 38 x 80 x 48 cm unique

mail@larsfriedrich.net


Lars Friedrich

Georgia Sagri And (10), 2018 And (11), 2018 And (12), 2018 And (13), 2018 And (14), 2018 And (15), 2018 And (16), 2018 And (17), 2018 And (18), 2018 acrylic paint, cardboard, wood 190 x 120 x 83 cm unique

Kantstrasse 154a

10623 Berlin

Georgia Sagri open wound, 2018 Laserprint on 3M vinyl-sticker 200 x 50 cm unique

Georgia Sagri imprint pavement, 2018 papier mâché, newspaper, wood 63 x 137 x 88 cm unique

mail@larsfriedrich.net

Georgia Sagri fresh bruise, 2018 Laserprint on 3M vinyl-sticker 108 x 70 cm unique

Georgia Sagri imprint sink, 2018 papier mâché, newspaper, wood 99 x 122 x 55 cm unique


Georgia Sagri, The Creation of the Wave, Part I erfor an e onvening in eni e e aves of t e s an t e s artine r of San oren o eni e tal

e rrent rate

s


Georgia Sagri, The Creation of the Wave, Part I erfor an e onvening in eni e e aves of t e s an t e s artine r of San oren o eni e tal

e rrent rate

s


Georgia Sagri, The Creation of the Wave, Part I erfor an e onvening in eni e e aves of t e s an t e s artine r of San oren o eni e tal

e rrent rate

s


Georgia Sagri, The Creation of the Wave, Part I erfor an e onvening in eni e e aves of t e s an t e s artine r of San oren o eni e tal

e rrent rate

s


Georgia Sagri, The Creation of the Wave, Part I erfor an e onvening in eni e e aves of t e s an t e s artine r of San oren o eni e tal

e rrent rate

s


Georgia Sagri and I oster


S is lease to anno n e t e e

i ition Georgia Sagri an

Georgia Sagri an is a la list a ers e tive on retros e tive an an e i ition of e i iting an instit tion wit o t onfines For t e first ti e s l t res vi eo wor s an erfor an es fro t e last ten ears of Georgia Sagri s lti is i linar oe vre o e toget er eir is la is treate as a s ore t at e i es on te o ration entr an e it S reens a es lan s a es so n s a es are all art of it as are erfor an es on erts wor s o s an t eir organi ing o es e e i ition egan ring t e onversation etween artist an rator on t e Georgia Sagri Georgia Sagri e i ition at nstverein ra ns weig w ere t e s etr of t e ar ite t re allowe t e wor s to e a o o ate an e ist at ease in t eir o le state o le onve s t e i ea of t e on eive ossi ilities of an o e t s lti le eanings in s a e an ti e s gravit an te erat re i a t n re e ting t e sing lar t e a t of o ling Sagri also re e ts t e ierar ies etween o e t an s e t wit t eir s atial eter inations e w ite e of orti s owever is in an a ig o s state it an e an an is one ts istor an str t re a es it an e i ition s a e er se s s en ing ot er eter inations Georgia Sagri an allows ra s an s n o ations on t is re ises t ro g t e eans of er wor s t o g t e eri ents n Fri a ril t Georgia Sagri an ristina e nert et t e st ents at t e St els le an starte to la t e e i ition s s ore n t is ontin frien s si ians er rot er oet an a tivist an writers are so e of t e referen es of t e artist s o e town t ens w o ring ore affe ts in t e e i ition Georgia Sagri s erfor an es are en ran e in loo w ere re etitions give s a e an ti e for onte lation en e t e e i ition is a tool for ifferent o ies to se orti s as a on ert all an e i ition s a e a e or an an an art s ool

Georgia Sagri and I,floor lan


Georgia Sagri, Georgia Sagri and I, 2018, installation view, Portikus


Georgia Sagri Georgia Sagri and I, 2018, installation view, Portikus


Georgia Sagri Georgia Sagri and I, 2018, erformance, Portikus


Georgia Sagri Georgia Sagri and I, 2018, o ening, Portikus


Georgia Sagri,

o ed

S r ri e, S ea

S r ri e, 2018, erformance, mily

arvey Foundation,

ew or


GEORGIA SAGRI oster


GEORGIA SAGRI GEORGIA SAGRI

6

6

11 12 6

10

6

9 8 7

×

13 5 4 2

3

3

14

1

The exhibition GEORGIA SAGRI GEORGIA SAGRI goes beyond a display of the artist’s works (b. 1979, Athens, Greece). The sculptures exist for the duration of the exhibition as guests, independent units within the building, without simply adjusting to the space. The exhibition consists of seven large sculptures from the last eight years of Georgia Sagri’s multidisciplinary practice. Some are manifested or announced with the dispersed looking like outdoor signs, destabilizing the sense of reading not only as knowledge, but also as declaration. Thus, the installation draws on the movements posited in the floor plan of the 1808 neoclassical Villa Salve Hospes: the structure of the characteristically Palladian architectural spaces allows for unobstructed sight lines. Upon entering the building, the visitor is afforded a view of the garden and the side wings; the rotunda suggests circular movement; and the lines of sight emphasize the proportional symmetry of the building’s left and right wings. This harmoniously designed spatial structure is put into question in Sagri’s sculptures, which appear doubled. Some of the works are placed along the vertical axis (Working the No Work, 2012), while others are positioned directly across from each other (Documentary of Behavioural Currencies, 2016). A few are placed on the interior and exterior (Dynamis, 2017), continuing the consistency of Sagri’s work, that contemplates strategies regarding blurring dichotomies. Sagri also describes her sculptures as “modules”. For her “module” conveys the idea of the conceived possibilities of an object’s multiple meanings in space and space’s impact on an object. In rejecting the singular, she as well rejects the hierarchies between objects and their spatial determinations. The sculptures themselves become sites, allowing visitors

15

to consider them, their perception, and their existence. In response to the question of what constitutes the attributes of and relations between things and spaces, Sagri uses sculptural material, its inherent information, and sculptural form to create a quasi-materialized thought experiment. Thought experiments are a means of grappling with propositions, arguing in favor of or against them. Georgia Sagri thus approaches the question of privacy and publicness, for example, as a matter of interiority and exteriority by reflecting these situations in the sculptural form of a wall and its spaces in between (Snout is Wall and Wall is Snout, 2014). Sagri’s ongoing engagement with the medium of performance allows mimesis, i.e., how the body of one approaches another different to it, by the act of doubling rather than using language. The sculptures displayed at the Kunstverein Braunschweig may also claim performance as a medium through allowing multiple perceptions of viewership. While retaining their freedom to exist autonomously, they invite the viewers’ movements and decisions of how the sculptures could be viewed. The sculptures are their own interior and exterior spaces creating complete situations through their materiality and form. The idea determines the organization that Georgia Sagri’s sculptures always require for the works to become self-sustained material and formal coding. The Logo (Loquimini, 2017) emerged as the exhibition’s communication device. It appears on the building’s exterior, on street advertisements, and in the press. It consists of suggested movements, collaged from strips of a Greek daily newspaper’s report on the September 2017 German elections. Time—contemporaneity—and movement come together as four dimensions, suggested in the strips of newspaper and reflected in the dynamics of the works at the Villa Salve Hospes.


Georgia Sagri, STAGED, 2015/2017, eo

ig , me a ic ar , ri o ra

are

a er, 101 x 136 x 1 cm


Georgia Sagri, S

2017, 00 x 260 cm


Georgia Sagri, S , 201 /2017, i e ri , oo , 77 x 3 x 5 cm Georgia Sagri, G 2012/2017, i e ri , oo , 125 x 50 cm Georgia Sagri, D 2016, i e ri , me a ic ar , oo , x 5 x 2 cm Georgia Sagri, ra are o ogra ic a er i am oo rame

, A , 2015, a er ri

, o


Georgia Sagri, G

S

G S , 2016 i eo, 11 26 e i eo e ic a rea ego ia io mee i g i e a i e a 11 ro c io eam ere are re e e i re a e o i e ec a ro er , e ro e o e ar i a e re o i i i ie e a i er or Georgia Sagri, T , 2013/2017, i e ri o a er, oo , 120 x x 5 cm

e


Georgia Sagri,

D

, 2012/2017, i

e

ri

o

i

ic er, oo , 320 x 1 0 x 230 cm


Georgia Sagri, re e a io , i e

, 2012/2017, i e ri o re e a io 320 x 1 0 x 230 cm

i

ic er, oo , i eo


Georgia Sagri S o

a e, 201 ,

S , 201 , o o a a er o a er a , a ai , me a , 50 x 00 cm , ri o a ric, coa oo , 150 x 0 cm, o o S a i ama a i


Georgia Sagri , 2012/2017, i e ri o i ic er, oo , i eo re e a io , i e , i e re e a io 320 x 1 0 x 230 cm D , 2016, i eo 10 32 , ai e oo , acr ic o a ic ee , a , ai , o ogra ic ri o a er, 320 x 1 0 x 230 cm D , 2017, a mi m, a er, ario me a ic ar , 00 x 250 cm


Georgia Sagri D ai , D

, 2016, i eo 10 32 , ai e oo , acr ic o o ogra ic ri o a er, 320 x 1 0 x 230 cm , 200 /2012, cra c i o o er, 6 5 x 50 cm

a ic

ee , a

,


Georgia Sagri, D , 200 /2017, i oor, ac er ai , o er oi re e a io , er orma ce D rame o , 200 , i e ri o a ric, 76,2 76,2 cm A G T T G E , 200 /2017, ac er o i , 71 366 cm


Georgia Sagri, D D

, 200 /2017, i oor, ac er ai , o er oi re e a io , er orma ce rame o , 200 , i e ri o a ric, 76,2 76,2 cm


Georgia Sagri, Do Jaguar, 2009/2017, vinyl floor, lacquer paint, power point presentation, performance In 2009 in New York, for one month, for eight hours per day, the sequence of a 25 mins power point presentation was activated continuously during the gallery’s working hours. The power point presentation on the wall narrates the sets of actions that are taking place. Important here is that the painted circle is perceived as if it is rotating. The female body becomes a focus point to look at the movements of labour from the ford era, the gestures of reproductive labour and the over promotion of a fantasy of immaterial labour depicted on apple advertisements in 2009 with the sound as a captivated jaguar. The traces of labour become later the painting which then returns to situate the score for the variation of the same act that took place only for one day but continues to be present as an installation at Kunstverein Braunschweig.


Georgia Sagri, my first science fiction book, Religion, 2015, 3D-Video (47'12"), 3D glasses, sound, vinyl floor, wall paint, LED lights, plaster, painted wood


Georgia Sagri, my first science fiction book, Religion, 2015, 3D-Video (47'12"), 3D glasses, sound, vinyl floor, wall paint, LED lights, plaster, painted wood Each one of the musicians depicted on the video comes from different religions and they play together their individual and one prayer on repeat for a gathering of eight hours. Simultaneously, fragments of religious movements that were gathered prior to the making of the piece, are embodied as a unified sound, as how they are perceived from the rest of the galaxy. Similarly the film is edited in 3D to maintain the here and now of that moment, the installation and sculptures created of the coming together of those agents, as well as its editing continues the character of a lost and found record of that encounter.


Georgia Sagri, http://exhibita.ch, 2015/2017, bamboo, fabric, rope, C-/laser print on transparent photographic paper As one of the oldest materials to build architectures with, the bamboo is a materialization of the design of a web site in the physical space. The photos supported by the structure visualize the process of the making of a new language that could be also described on how to translate words that couldn’t be translated from one language to another.


Georgia Sagri, Dynamis / invitation, 2017, c-print on paper, 210 Ă— 297 millimeters, documenta 14, Athens & Kassel


Georgia Sagri, Dynamis / Soma in orgasm; as leg, as hand, as brain, as ear, as heart, as breast, as sex, 2017, aluminum, acrylic spraypaint, various metallic parts, 400 Ă— 260 cm, documenta 14, Tositsa 5, Athens


Georgia Sagri, Dynamis / Soma in orgasm; as leg, as hand, as brain, as ear, as heart, as breast, as sex, 2017, aluminum, acrylic spraypaint, various metallic parts, 400 Ă— 260 cm, documenta 14, Glass Pavilion Kassel


Georgia Sagri, Dynamis / Soma in orgasm as ear, Freedom Park, Athens 2017, aluminum, acrylic spraypaint, various metallic parts, 400 Ă— 260 cm, documenta 14, Athens


Georgia Sagri, Dynamis / Soma in orgasm as breast, Omonia square, Athens 2017, aluminum, acrylic spraypaint, various metallic parts, 400 Ă— 260 cm, documenta 14, Athens


Georgia Sagri, Dynamis / Breathing scores (detail), 2017, hand-blown glass, steel, dimensions variable, documenta 14, Tositsa 5, Athens


Georgia Sagri, Dynamis / Breathing scores (installation view), 2017, hand-blown glass, steel, dimensions variable, documenta 14, Tositsa 5, Athens


Georgia Sagri, Dynamis / map, 2017, c-print on paper, 297 x 420millimeters, documenta 14, Athens & Kassel


Georgia Sagri, Dynamis / Soma in orgasm as brain (performance view towards the old parliament), Athens, 2017, aluminum, acrylic spraypaint, various metallic parts, 400 Ă— 260 cm, documenta 14, Athens Georgia Sagri, Dynamis, twenty-eight sculptures and ten breathing scores for Athens and Kassel, aluminum, spray-paint, blown glass and various materials; and a six days performance simultaneous and continuously in Tositsa 5, Athens and Kassel


Georgia Sagri, Dynamis / Soma in orgasm as ear (performance view towards and inside Konings Gallery), Kassel, 2017, aluminum, acrylic spraypaint, various metallic parts, 400 Ă— 260 cm, documenta 14, Kassel Georgia Sagri, Dynamis, twenty-eight sculptures and ten breathing scores for Athens and Kassel, aluminum, spray-paint, blown glass and various materials; and a six days performance simultaneous and continuously in Tositsa 5, Athens and Glass Pavillion, Kassel and public spaces.


Georgia Sagri, Dynamis / Soma in orgasm as sex, Friedrichplatz, 2017, aluminum, acrylic spraypaint, various metallic parts, 400 Ă— 260 cm, documenta 14, Kassel Georgia Sagri, Dynamis, twenty-eight sculptures and ten breathing scores for Athens and Kassel, aluminum, spray-paint, blown glass and various materials; and a six days performance simultaneous and continuously in Tositsa 5, Athens and Glass Pavillion, Kassel and public spaces.


Georgia Sagri, Antigone Model-Coda, 2016, performance.


Georgia Sagri, Antigone Model-Coda, 2016, performance.


Georgia Sagri, Antigone Model-Coda, 2016, performance.


Georgia Sagri, Antigone Model-Coda, 2016, performance.


Georgia Sagri, Antigone Model-Coda, 2016, performance.


!

! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

Georgia Sagri, Attempt. Come., 2016, flyer, Excercises of Freedom, Documenta 14: Public Programs , September 2016, Courtesy the artist!

!


!

! !

Georgia Sagri, Attempt. Come., 2016, performance, duration: 20h, Excercises of Freedom, Documenta 14: Public Programs , September 2016, Courtesy the artist, photo by Stathis Mamalakis !

!


!

! ! ! !

Georgia Sagri, Attempt. Come., 2016, performance, duration: 20h, Excercises of Freedom, Documenta 14: Public Programs , September 2016, Courtesy the artist, photo by Stathis Mamalakis


!

! !

Georgia Sagri, Attempt. Come., 2016, performance, duration: 20h, Excercises of Freedom, Documenta 14: Public Programs , September 2016, Courtesy the artist, photo by Stathis Mamalakis !


!

! ! ! !

Georgia Sagri, Attempt. Come., 2016, performance, duration: 20h, Excercises of Freedom, Documenta 14: Public Programs , September 2016, Courtesy the artist, photo by Stathis Mamalakis


!

! ! !

Georgia Sagri, Attempt. Come., 2016, performance, duration: 20h, Excercises of Freedom, Documenta 14: Public Programs , September 2016, Courtesy the artist, photo by Stathis Mamalakis !

!


!

! !

Georgia Sagri, Attempt. Come., 2016, performance, duration: 20h, Excercises of Freedom, Documenta 14: Public Programs , September 2016, Courtesy the artist, photo by Stathis Mamalakis !


! ! !

Georgia Sagri, Attempt. Come., 2016, performance, duration: 20h, Excercises of Freedom, Documenta 14: Public Programs , September 2016, Courtesy the artist, photo by Stathis Mamalakis !

!


Georgia Sagri, Documentary of Behavioural Currencies, installation view, Manifesta 11, Bank Julius Baer, 2016; photo: Flavio Karrer


Georgia Sagri, Documentary of Behavioural Currencies, installation view, Manifesta 11, Bank Julius Baer, 2016; photo: Flavio Karrer


Georgia Sagri, Documentary of Behavioural Currencies, installation view, Manifesta 11, Bank Julius Baer, 2016; photo: Flavio Karrer


Georgia Sagri, Documentary of Behavioural Currencies, installation view, Manifesta 11, Luma Foundation, 2016; photo: Flavio Karrer


Georgia Sagri, Documentary of Behavioural Currencies, installation view, Manifesta 11, Luma Foundation, 2016; photo: Flavio Karrer


Georgia Sagri, Documentary of Behavioural Currencies, installation view, Manifesta 11, Luma Foundation, 2016; photo: Flavio Karrer


Georgia Sagri, Documentary of Behavioural Currencies, installation view, Manifesta 11, Luma Foundation, 2016; photo: Flavio Karrer


Georgia Sagri, Documentary of Behavioural Currencies, installation view, Upstate, 2016; photo: Flavio Karrer


Georgia Sagri, Documentary of Behavioural Currencies, installation view, Upstate, 2016; photo: Flavio Karrer


Georgia Sagri, Documentary of Behavioural Currencies, installation view, Upstate, 2016; photo: Flavio Karrer


Georgia Sagri, Documentary of Behavioural Currencies, installation view, Upstate, 2016; photo: Flavio Karrer


Georgia Sagri, Documentary of Behavioural Currencies, installation view, Upstate, 2016; photo: Flavio Karrer


Georgia Sagri Commas, 2016, Installation view Part of the exhibition Bread and Roses, Museum of Modern Art Warsaw Courtesy the artist


Georgia Sagri Commas, 2016, Installation view Part of the exhibition Bread and Roses, Museum of Modern Art Warsaw Courtesy the artist


!

! !

! Georgia Sagri Commas, 2016, Installation view, Vinyl cut!text mounted on glass, ! Part of the exhibition Bread and Roses, Museum of Modern Art Warsaw Courtesy the artist

!

!


Commas Ancient scrolls were written without word spaces. The readers mumbled the words as they read, to form the phrases, to pick out the text’s rhythm and to bring aloud its meaning. One continuous line without spaces was broken depending on the surface where the text was written. Perhaps this material limitation was the only enclosure of the text, because all the rest, through the reader’s voice, was left open, and the text was an invitation for interpretation, the creation of new words and contemplation. Single and fast reading was regarded as disrespect. Reading aloud and many times meant an offering – the offering of time to thought. Persuasive speech was still more important than the written language, holding such a level of admiration that oratory was praised as a high form of art. With the rise of drama around the 5th century BC, playwrights such as Euripides and Aristophanes started marking their texts, in order to reassure and control every pause, breath and expression that was to happen according to instructions for the actors on stage. It was Aristophanes of Byzantium, a devoted librarian and the head of the Library of Alexandria, in the 3rd century BC, who invented a system of single dots to mark the texts and preserve their meaning. A dot in the middle of the line signified the shortest pause, called the comma. For an intermediate pause, known as the colon, the dot was at the bottom of the line, and the period was the longest pause, represented with a dot at the top. But it was much later, and only when Christianity had conquered and destroyed paganism, that the conviction of an origin of a text appeared, and the preservation of a singular meaning became divine devotion so prominent with its peak moment portrayed by the first printed Bible by Johannes Gutenberg. From then on, the book became the characteristic symbol of Christianity and formed the church’s identity. The sign comma (,) looks like a tiny hook, an almost attempt to make a circle, and the first glimpse of a new moon. A comma is the mark indicating a small breath, a short pause between parts of a sentence, as in setting off a word, phrase or clause, especially when such a division notes the order of a sequential list of elements. During a talk, it is used even more frequently, in order for the speech to be comprehended to an audience. The comma is used to separate items in a list, to mark thousands of numerals, to separate types of information in bibliographic and other data. In music, it is used to point out the change of a minute interval or the difference of pitch. Its origin is Greek, from the word koptein, which means cut, and the komma and kommati, which mean a piece cut off and short clause. In Greek, comma also means political party. It is strange that comma, the punctuation mark, has exactly the same letters and spelling with the word for political party. Perhaps the origin of the word, which means to split and to separate, is what a political party does to the society. Comma comes along with the idea of the totality of the human species called “society”, and the common view that a part of the society can separate to construct a comma under one ideology. With the growth of new technological tools to write and communicate, the expansion of language seems to become an unknown plateau similar to the first time a book was


printed. The use of image texts, emoticons, to express feelings, and the overuse of photos, moving images and videos to document situations rather than to describe them with words, saturates the ways readers receive and distribute information and meaning. In ancient times, the Agora was the space of persuasion, negotiation and political analysis. Now parliaments locate where political representatives make decisions for the future of millions of people around the world. Political language tries, with no success, to imitate the density of the individuals' temporalities formed by these new technological tools, the language created and the social and political formations that constantly develop. Negotiations can happen from places existing far away from each other, and actions can be coordinated by and become possible for people who have never met and will never meet in person. Decisions from one place in the world to another can be actualized even faster than a decision in a parliament from only one part of the society. The speed and the exchange of the millions of people is more significant and effective than the one tempo imposed from their representatives. When each and every one is the representative of her/his decision, it seems that we are again, like in ancient times, more committed to the reader. Individual interpretation is more important than the written language, and the author is not even considered. Control of the text’s meaning and its preservation is lost. This mass of thought is written without spaces, as one single line, and it moves without pause – its only limitation the surfaces that captivates and the financial, security regulations that demand to control it. What is crucial then is that we – users, readers, distributors and exchangers – need to realize that this is our own ongoing social praxis. Commas, political parties, that don’t have any meaning to hold and to communicate are useless. But the languages deriving from the plurality of thought and the expressions of each and every one of us create new forms of politics that must be explored, set free and to become true. The period (.) is easy to master. It is the punctuation at the end of the sentence. It shows that a sentence is finished. For the sentence to be a sentence it must have at least one complete clause, with a verb and a subject. It is a full stop glyph, a punctuation mark at the end of a sentence. It is a dot on the baseline. Georgia Sagri, Athens, 2016

Georgia Sagri Commas, 2016, text Part of the exhibition Bread and Roses, Museum of Modern Art Warsaw Courtesy the artist


Georgia Sagri, Sunday Stroll, 2016

The long corridor is filled with small objects painted on a similar color as the surface of the walls, at its end, a sign in a typical poster-sized format, is displayed and it is lightened with LED lights. The poster presents a text written by the artist. The corridor leads to a room that are installed five pedestals where seven overhead projectors are placed and small objects similarly treated as the ones at the corridor surround them. The overhead projectors present recent news (in particular the Sunday before the piece is exhibited) gathered by the artist. By the placement of the objects it is not clear if the space suggests a past presentation or lecture or if the images projected are historical documents or facts of the present. This ambiguity of time is the core subject of the installation. During the performance the objects remain as they are. The installation and the performance coexist, as if the performance is the document of the past historical events that the artist is imitating in front of the viewer calling for empathy by her reanimating the displayed images of the projected news through her voice, sound and movement.


Georgia Sagri Sunday Stroll, 2016, installation view, The Eccentrics, SculptureCenter, 2016 Installation. Glass, paper, plastic, wood, aluminum, Taos taupe flat finish paint, eight overhead projectors on eco-lock non-slip rug, five painted wooden pedestals. Interior: 182.5 x 208 inches (463.6 x 528.3 cm). Courtesy the artist. Photo: Kyle Knodell


Georgia Sagri Sunday Stroll, 2016, installation view, The Eccentrics, SculptureCenter, 2016 Installation. Glass, paper, plastic, wood, aluminum, Taos taupe flat finish paint, eight overhead projectors on eco-lock non-slip rug, five painted wooden pedestals. Courtesy the artist. Photo: Kyle Knodell


Georgia Sagri Sunday Stroll, 2016, installation view, The Eccentrics, SculptureCenter, 2016 Installation. Glass, paper, plastic, wood, aluminum, Taos taupe flat finish paint, eight overhead projectors on eco-lock non-slip rug, five painted wooden pedestals. Corridor: 36 x 196 inches (91.4 x 497.8 cm). Courtesy the artist. Photo: Kyle Knodell


Georgia Sagri Sunday Stroll Undone and Redone, February 2, 2016, part of The Eccentrics Performance Program, SculptureCenter, 2016. Courtesy the artist. Photo: Ivana Larrosa


Georgia Sagri Sunday Stroll Undone and Redone, February 2, 2016, part of The Eccentrics Performance Program, SculptureCenter, 2016. Courtesy the artist. Photo: Ivana Larrosa


Georgia Sagri Sunday Stroll Undone and Redone, February 2, 2016, part of The Eccentrics Performance Program, SculptureCenter, 2016. Courtesy the artist. Photo: Ivana Larrosa


Georgia Sagri Sunday Stroll Undone and Redone, February 2, 2016, part of The Eccentrics Performance Program, SculptureCenter, 2016. Courtesy the artist. Photo: Ivana Larrosa


Georgia Sagri Sunday Stroll Undone and Redone, February 2, 2016, part of The Eccentrics Performance Program, SculptureCenter, 2016. Courtesy the artist. Photo: Ivana Larrosa


Georgia Sagri Sunday Stroll Undone and Redone, February 2, 2016, part of The Eccentrics Performance Program, SculptureCenter, 2016. Courtesy the artist. Photo: Ivana Larrosa


Georgia Sagri Sunday Stroll Undone and Redone, February 2, 2016, part of The Eccentrics Performance Program, SculptureCenter, 2016. Courtesy the artist. Photo: Ivana Larrosa


Lars Friedrich

KantstraĂ&#x;e 154a

10623 Berlin

Georgia Sagri Business Meeting With Dry Ear, 2015 Video, vinyl, glass, silicon, aluminum, plexy-glass, zipper

Placeholder, Shark behind the cloud, lines & various pro-active forms, (insitu), 2015 Vinyl dimensions variable

mail@larsfriedrich.net


Lars Friedrich

KantstraĂ&#x;e 154a

Georgia Sagri Placeholder/ Chicken (insitu), 2015 Vinyl 15 x 20 inches

Placeholder /Your Perspectives Mine, 2015 Glass, silicon, plexy-glass, zipper 9 x 132 inches

10623 Berlin

mail@larsfriedrich.net


Lars Friedrich

KantstraĂ&#x;e 154a

Georgia Sagri Placeholder /Your Perspectives Mine, 2015 Glass, silicon, plexy-glass, zipper 9 x 132 inches

10623 Berlin

mail@larsfriedrich.net


Lars Friedrich

KantstraĂ&#x;e 154a

Georgia Sagri Mistake, mistake, 2013-2015 2013-2015 Pencil on paper mounted on cardboard 34 x 16 inches

10623 Berlin

mail@larsfriedrich.net


Georgia Sagri, my first science fiction book, Religion, 2015

“Mono no aware, literally "the pathos of things", and also translated as "an empathy toward things", or "a sensitivity to ephemera", is a Japanese term for the awareness of impermanence or transience of things, and both a transient gentle sadness (or wistfulness) at their passing as well as a longer, deeper gentle sadness about this state being the reality of life. The phrase is derived from the Japanese word mono, which means "thing", and aware, which was a Heian period expression of measured surprise, translating roughly as "pathos", "poignancy", "deep feeling", "sensitivity", or "awareness". Thus, mono no aware has frequently been translated as "the 'ahh-ness' of things", life, and love. The awareness of the transience of all things heightens appreciation of their beauty, and evokes a gentle sadness at their passing. Its scope was not only limited to Japanese literature, but rather became associated with Japanese cultural tradition in general. Her artistic practice encompasses installations, videos and self-enacted performances that evolve into a communal shared experience. In Istanbul, she presents my first science fiction book, Religion, a multifarious installation combining different media that suggests a new egalitarian way to exist in the world. In particular, Sagri questions our understanding of religion as institutional protocol - including our recent faith in the potentialities of the cyberspace. In order to imagine how religion can be liberated from its etiquettes and totalities of representation, she brings people from all religions together and they sing in unison. Together, their voices merge and became sounds one never heard, sacred and yet otherworldly – almost a music from the stars. The science fiction book consists of the comments of the viewers watching the performance online; the film is made in 3D; and the sculptures are fragments of movements. Is it possible to go up against the protocols and to reveal the call for absolute love from all of the religions?� Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev


Lars Friedrich

Kantstraße 154a

10623 Berlin

mail@larsfriedrich.net

Georgia Sagri , 2015 3D video (47‘12‘‘) 3D glasses, sound, clay, sand, gypsum, print on fabric, linoleum, LED lights, vinyls (“SPYRAL”, “RING”, “ARROW” and “FLASH & HYMN”)


Lars Friedrich

Kantstraße 154a

10623 Berlin

mail@larsfriedrich.net

Georgia Sagri , 2015 3D video (47‘12‘‘) 3D glasses, sound, clay, sand, gypsum, print on fabric, linoleum, LED lights, vinyls (“SPYRAL”, “RING”, “ARROW” and “FLASH & HYMN”)


Lars Friedrich

Kantstraße 154a

10623 Berlin

mail@larsfriedrich.net

Georgia Sagri , 2015 3D video (47‘12‘‘) 3D glasses, sound, clay, sand, gypsum, print on fabric, linoleum, LED lights, vinyls (“SPYRAL”, “RING”, “ARROW” and “FLASH & HYMN”)


Lars Friedrich

Kantstraße 154a

10623 Berlin

mail@larsfriedrich.net

Georgia Sagri , 2015 3D video (47‘12‘‘) 3D glasses, sound, clay, sand, gypsum, print on fabric, linoleum, LED lights, vinyls (“SPYRAL”, “RING”, “ARROW” and “FLASH & HYMN”)


Lars Friedrich

Kantstraße 154a

10623 Berlin

mail@larsfriedrich.net

Georgia Sagri , 2015 3D video (47‘12‘‘) 3D glasses, sound, clay, sand, gypsum, print on fabric, linoleum, LED lights, vinyls (“SPYRAL”, “RING”, “ARROW” and “FLASH & HYMN”)


Lars Friedrich

KantstraĂ&#x;e 154a

10623 Berlin

mail@larsfriedrich.net

Georgia Sagri , 2015 music composition, website & livestream, installation, 8h performance with Julie Besandilov (kubut), Evren Can -


Georgia Sagri, Daily Bread, 2015

Daily Bread is an installation of seven sculptures by artist Georgia Sagri, composed by the use of materials, such as earth gathered from different locations of new york city, water, fruits, vegetables and meats cooked in particular manners; resembling various offering traditions often seen around the globe. Installed in a circle the works are placed on pedestals each one of them facing a webcam, suggesting that they are not there for the purpose of the show but for the transmission of their elements. For the ongoing transmission of the seven sculptures a web site is built named www.dailybread.nyc. The site allows the free, open access and viewing of the changes occurring on the elements of the works (decomposition) and the per- formative states taking place in the physical space of the exhibition. The artist works on the states of time and process traced on objects, we could call it the objects’ performance that it is not activated by human but the physical forces that the objects are contempt to be ex- posed, allowing for their destruction and disappearance.


Georgia Sagri, Daily Bread, 2015, card-postal, 10.2 x 15.3 cm.

[...In some places it is an offense to tip or bargain but when you enter a temple you leave behind all the coins you have in your pockets. If you had to tip or bargain perhaps you wouldn’t have coins in your pockets so you weren’t able to leave them in the temple. Is the one action connected to the other? Is this creating another idea about economy? Sometimes people if they don’t have coins they leave behind whatever they have in their hands; half eaten sandwiches, semi consumed beverages, paper foils and they light incense to give food to the winds. What kind of sentiment makes someone to even want to feed the winds? Is it a sentiment of acceptance for all those unknown elements, messages, particles, cells and dusts, that cannot be seen or prove their existence by been seen? Is the lighting of a candle the determination of something told? Is the light of a candle the visual proof of a message being heard? What are the similarities between the offer and the waste? What do we offer and what do we waste? Is the repression of temporalities that make visible an unknown that cannot been seen and cannot been named the state of a society that understands life only as constant naming, frame, control, knowing and beginning? How do we understand death? Do we struggle for representation or existence? How can we live without wanting to exist? How can we live without the feeling of being able to live? In some places it is more important to dress your dead relatives than those who are alive...] Georgia Sagri


Lars Friedrich

KantstraĂ&#x;e 154a

Georgia Sagri Daily Bread, 2015 3 D sketch, dimensions variable

10623 Berlin

mail@larsfriedrich.net


Lars Friedrich

KantstraĂ&#x;e 154a

Georgia Sagri Daily Bread, 2015 http://dailybread.nyc, livestream, 3.8-3.22.2015

10623 Berlin

mail@larsfriedrich.net


Lars Friedrich

Georgia Sagri Daily Bread, 2015 Installation view

KantstraĂ&#x;e 154a

10623 Berlin

mail@larsfriedrich.net


Lars Friedrich

KantstraĂ&#x;e 154a

10623 Berlin

Georgia Sagri Daily Bread, (THURSDAY), 2015 wood, acrylic glass, metal, paper, clay, thread, candles, ginger and cloves 60x18x19.5 inches

mail@larsfriedrich.net


Lars Friedrich

KantstraĂ&#x;e 154a

Georgia Sagri Daily Bread, (SATURDAY), 2015 60x18x19.5 inches

10623 Berlin

mail@larsfriedrich.net


Lars Friedrich

KantstraĂ&#x;e 154a

10623 Berlin

Georgia Sagri Daily Bread, performance, 2015 music composition for suling, rebab, voice and electronics, accompanied by Hunter Hunt Hendrix 3.22.2015

mail@larsfriedrich.net


Lars Friedrich

KantstraĂ&#x;e 154a

10623 Berlin

Georgia Sagri Exhibita.ch/EAT THE TOOL, 2015 bamboos (1..23), fabric, rope, print on transparent phootographic paper http://exhibita.ch

mail@larsfriedrich.net


Lars Friedrich

KantstraĂ&#x;e 154a

10623 Berlin

Georgia Sagri Exhibita.ch/EAT THE TOOL, 2015 bamboos (1..23), fabric, rope, print on transparent phootographic paper http://exhibita.ch

mail@larsfriedrich.net


Lars Friedrich

KantstraĂ&#x;e 154a

10623 Berlin

Georgia Sagri Exhibita.ch/EAT THE TOOL, 2015 bamboos (1..23), fabric, rope, print on transparent phootographic paper http://exhibita.ch

mail@larsfriedrich.net


Lars Friedrich

Georgia Sagri Exhibita.ch/EAT THE TOOL, 2015 Manifesto, 2015 Inkjet print, 2 x 42 x 29,7 cm http://exhibita.ch

KantstraĂ&#x;e 154a

10623 Berlin

mail@larsfriedrich.net


Lars Friedrich

Georgia Sagri Exhibita.ch/EAT THE TOOL, 2015 World, 2015 laser prints mounted on bamboo http://exhibita.ch

KantstraĂ&#x;e 154a

10623 Berlin

mail@larsfriedrich.net


Lars Friedrich

Kantstraße 154a

Georgia Sagri Exhibita.ch/EAT THE TOOL, 2015 N 46°12’14.252” E 6°8’9.785”, 2015 wood, sand, computer, webcam, plexiglass http://exhibita.ch

10623 Berlin

mail@larsfriedrich.net


Lars Friedrich

KantstraĂ&#x;e 154a

Georgia Sagri Exhibita.ch/EAT THE TOOL, 2015 http://exhibita.ch

10623 Berlin

mail@larsfriedrich.net


Lars Friedrich

KantstraĂ&#x;e 154a

Georgia Sagri Exhibita.ch/EAT THE TOOL, 2015 http://exhibita.ch

10623 Berlin

mail@larsfriedrich.net


Lars Friedrich

KantstraĂ&#x;e 154a

Georgia Sagri Exhibita.ch/EAT THE TOOL, 2015 http://exhibita.ch

10623 Berlin

mail@larsfriedrich.net


Lars Friedrich

KantstraĂ&#x;e 154a

Georgia Sagri , 2010–2014 Inkjet prints on paper, wooden sticks Installation view Swiss Art Awards, 2014

10623 Berlin

mail@larsfriedrich.net


Lars Friedrich

KantstraĂ&#x;e 154a

Georgia Sagri , 2010–2014 Inkjet prints on paper, wooden sticks Installation view Swiss Art Awards, 2014

10623 Berlin

mail@larsfriedrich.net


Lars Friedrich

Georgia Sagri Sick Building, 2014 Inkjet print 29,7 x 42 cm

KantstraĂ&#x;e 154a

10623 Berlin

mail@larsfriedrich.net


Georgia Sagri, Mona Lisa Effect, 2014. At the top of the stairs leading up to the Oberlichtsaal, a video playing on a flat screen serves as introduction, tutorial and manual to the exhibition. It has been produced as a sort of trailer, suggesting a range of possible actions that visitors will be able to perform or see once they enter the show. A large wall divides the main gallery into two halves, with a gap at the right-hand end to allow visitors to proceed through the exhibition. The wall facing the arriving visitor is covered with wallpaper bearing a brickwork pattern. This fake brick wall evokes an outdoor space: a wall separates a building from the outside, thus establishing a boundary between the contained interior and the nominally public exterior. The red brick connotes factories of the early industrial era, as well as the simplest weapon used in city riots – the brick – or a place to post and spray-paint political messages. Looming over the pristine neoclassical gallery, the wall also alludes to the crudest forms of oppression, such as imprisonment and execution. Sagri has left the narrow end of her wall open, exposing its inner construction and hence the artificiality of the structure. The rear of the wall is plastered and remains white, thus creating a regular gallery space on this side of the wall. White wall labels sparsely distributed in the galleries are placed at the height normally reserved for labels in a museum and imitate their design. We might imagine strolling through the gallery, looking at paintings or drawings, and then checking the title and date of the work, and the name of the artist. Here, however, the labels refer to things far away from the gallery space. Each label carries a name (of a person or collective body), date and a QR code – a type of barcode that can be read by software available as a free download for most mobile phones. By scanning the code, visitors instantly reach the content stored on the corresponding website. The show thus extends into several other settings and narrations. These range from video works commissioned by Sagri from fellow artists to pieces of music, essays and the websites of specific organizations (such as the artists’ collective CAGE and Embros, the occupied theatre in Athens that has played an important role as a venue for self-organized political and artistic activities in Athens during the recent economic crisis). In the second gallery, a custom-made machine displays a panorama of a large photograph printed on PVC, continuously scrolling in one direction. The picture was taken in Exarcheia, a district of Athens considered an anarchist home base, on the site where a policeman shot 15-year-old student Alexis Grigoropoulos on the night of December 6, 2008. The riots that followed turned into a general protest against the systemic failure of the state, with its endemic social injustice and escalating poverty. It was the beginning of a confrontation between the


government and the people that is still on-going today, and which addresses various concerns, takes different forms and involves a growing number of strategies of self-organization. Sagri’s panorama shows a wall covered with graffiti slogans that can be ascribed to several politically active dissident groups, along with two memorial plaques – one presented by the State and a smaller one installed by Grigoropoulos’s family and friends. In the third gallery, a small Plexiglas box features a single coin – an American quarter that was placed on a train track and flattened to a thin, oval shape, similar to a guitar pick, with the face of George Washington strangely disfigured, and the words “liberty” and “in God we trust” barely legible. This violent transformation – from money to matter – seems to point to the possibility of larger-scale change and raises the hope that the current order of things is perhaps not as immutable as it appears. Adam Szymczyk


Lars Friedrich

KantstraĂ&#x;e 154a

Georgia Sagri Installation view Mona Lisa Effect, 2014

10623 Berlin

mail@larsfriedrich.net


Lars Friedrich

Georgia Sagri Mona Lisa Effect, 2014 Video, 6min

KantstraĂ&#x;e 154a

10623 Berlin

mail@larsfriedrich.net


Lars Friedrich

Georgia Sagri Mona Lisa Effect, 2014 Video, 6min

KantstraĂ&#x;e 154a

10623 Berlin

mail@larsfriedrich.net


Lars Friedrich

Georgia Sagri Mona Lisa Effect, 2014 Video, 6min

KantstraĂ&#x;e 154a

10623 Berlin

mail@larsfriedrich.net


Lars Friedrich

KantstraĂ&#x;e 154a

Georgia Sagri

Snout is Wall and Wall is Snout, 2014 Photo Wallpaper on plaster wall, metal 450 x 900 cm

10623 Berlin

mail@larsfriedrich.net


Lars Friedrich

KantstraĂ&#x;e 154a

Georgia Sagri Copypaste, 2014 Overall (print on fabric), coat hooks 150 x 90 cm

10623 Berlin

mail@larsfriedrich.net


Lars Friedrich

KantstraĂ&#x;e 154a

Georgia Sagri Copypaste, 2014 Overall (print on fabric), coat hooks 150 x 90 cm

10623 Berlin

mail@larsfriedrich.net


Lars Friedrich

KantstraĂ&#x;e 154a

Georgia Sagri

Snout is Wall and Wall is Snout, 2014 Photo Wallpaper on plaster wall, metal 450 x 900 cm Copypaste, 2014 Overall (print on fabric), coat hooks 150 x 90 cm

10623 Berlin

mail@larsfriedrich.net


Lars Friedrich

KantstraĂ&#x;e 154a

Georgia Sagri Bye Bye Head, 2014 Mask (print on fabric), ballons, helium, string Variable dimensions

10623 Berlin

mail@larsfriedrich.net


Lars Friedrich

KantstraĂ&#x;e 154a

10623 Berlin

Georgia Sagri Embros, 2011 ongoing A buildung occupation in Athens QR-Code 6 x 18 cm

Cage 2011 ongoing An initiative of artists in New York Exhibiotn: Mona Lisa Effect, 2014, Kunsthalle Basel, Basel, curated by Adam Szymczyk QR-Code 6 x 18 cm

mail@larsfriedrich.net


Lars Friedrich

KantstraĂ&#x;e 154a

Georgia Sagri Panorama Mesologiou str., Exarcheia, 2014 Custom made rolling machine, print on PVC 250 x 500 x 400 cm Variable dimensions

10623 Berlin

mail@larsfriedrich.net


Lars Friedrich

KantstraĂ&#x;e 154a

Georgia Sagri Flattened Economy, 2014

10623 Berlin

mail@larsfriedrich.net


Lars Friedrich

KantstraĂ&#x;e 154a

Georgia Sagri Flattened Economy, 2014

10623 Berlin

mail@larsfriedrich.net


Lars Friedrich

KantstraĂ&#x;e 154a

10623 Berlin

Georgia Sagri Mona Lisa Effect, 2014 14 posters (Edition 1/7 and 2/7) were distributed throughout the city of Basel

mail@larsfriedrich.net


Lars Friedrich

Georgia Sagri Mona Lisa Effect, 2014

KantstraĂ&#x;e 154a

10623 Berlin

mail@larsfriedrich.net


Lars Friedrich

Georgia Sagri Mona Lisa Effect, 2014

KantstraĂ&#x;e 154a

10623 Berlin

mail@larsfriedrich.net


Lars Friedrich

KantstraĂ&#x;e 154a

Georgia Sagri In 4000 technology (...), 2014 color plot on paper each 115 x 90 cm Edition of 7

10623 Berlin

mail@larsfriedrich.net


Lars Friedrich

KantstraĂ&#x;e 154a

Georgia Sagri April 15th 1993 they are thinking (...), 2014 color plot on paper each 115 x 90 cm Edition of 7

10623 Berlin

mail@larsfriedrich.net


Lars Friedrich

KantstraĂ&#x;e 154a

Georgia Sagri 2079 I thought of you (...), 2014 color plot on paper each 115 x 90 cm Edition of 7

10623 Berlin

mail@larsfriedrich.net


Georgia Sagri, The barricades of 2011 [!], 2014, Edition of 7, color plot on paper, 115 x 90 cm.


Georgia Sagri, In the evening of 1548 [!], 2014, Edition of 7, color plot on paper, 115 x 90 cm.


Georgia Sagri, In 300 B.C. they spent time [!], 2014, Edition of 7, color plot on paper, 115 x 90 cm.


Georgia Sagri, 50 A.C. inside the house [!], 2014, Edition of 7,color plot on paper, 115 x 90 cm.


Lars Friedrich

KantstraĂ&#x;e 154a

10623 Berlin

Georgia Sagri Tsa!, 2014 Performance and Installation performance script, Snout is Wall and Wall is Snout, Copypaste, Bye Bye Head 13/4-8/6/2014

mail@larsfriedrich.net


Lars Friedrich

KantstraĂ&#x;e 154a

10623 Berlin

Georgia Sagri Tsa!, 2014 Performance and Installation performance script, Snout is Wall and Wall is Snout, Copypaste, Bye Bye Head 13/4-8/6/2014

mail@larsfriedrich.net


Lars Friedrich

KantstraĂ&#x;e 154a

10623 Berlin

Georgia Sagri Tsa!, 2014 Performance and Installation performance script, Snout is Wall and Wall is Snout, Copypaste, Bye Bye Head 13/4-8/6/2014

mail@larsfriedrich.net


Lars Friedrich

Kantstraße 154a

Georgia Sagri Long Live the Lions Wolves, 2014, Kitchen, NY Athens Toy, 2014, powerpoint presentation, Video HD, 10‘ Square, 2008, concrete, 250x250x30cm Long Live the Lions Wolves, 2014, performance, 30‘

10623 Berlin

mail@larsfriedrich.net


Lars Friedrich

Kantstraße 154a

Georgia Sagri Long Live the Lions Wolves, 2014, Kitchen, NY Athens Toy, 2014, powerpoint presentation, Video HD, 10‘ Square, 2008, concrete, 250x250x30cm Long Live the Lions Wolves, 2014, performance, 30‘

10623 Berlin

mail@larsfriedrich.net


Lars Friedrich

Kantstraße 154a

Georgia Sagri Long Live the Lions Wolves, 2014, Kitchen, NY Athens Toy, 2014, powerpoint presentation, Video HD, 10‘ Square, 2008, concrete, 250x250x30cm Long Live the Lions Wolves, 2014, performance, 30‘

10623 Berlin

mail@larsfriedrich.net


Lars Friedrich

KantstraĂ&#x;e 154a

10623 Berlin

mail@larsfriedrich.net

Georgia Sagri Williamsburg, 2013 Steel,OSB, styrofoam insulation, mini marble chips, red step stones, pea pebbles, halogen work lights, seeds, eggplant, leopard‘s bane, rosemary, salvia, creeping phlox Performances: Sunday, May 12, 4:30pm / Sunday, July 21, 4pm / Sunday, August 4, 4pm / Sunday, August 18, 4pm


Lars Friedrich

KantstraĂ&#x;e 154a

10623 Berlin

Georgia Sagri Williamsburg, 2013 Steel,OSB, styrofoam insulation, mini marble chips, red step stones, pea pebbles, halogen work lights, potato seeds, eggplant, leopard‘s bane, rosemary, salvia, creeping phlox Performances: Sunday, May 12, 4:30pm / Sunday, July 21, 4pm / Sunday, August 4, 4pm / Sunday, August 18, 4pm

mail@larsfriedrich.net


Lars Friedrich

KantstraĂ&#x;e 154a

10623 Berlin

mail@larsfriedrich.net

Georgia Sagri Williamsburg, 2013 Steel,OSB, styrofoam insulation, mini marble chips, red step stones, pea pebbles, halogen work lights, portable lights, bane, rosemary, salvia, creeping phlox Performances: Sunday, May 12, 4:30pm / Sunday, July 21, 4pm / Sunday, August 4, 4pm / Sunday, August 18, 4pm


Lars Friedrich

KantstraĂ&#x;e 154a

10623 Berlin

Georgia Sagri Williamsburg, 2013 Steel,OSB, styrofoam insulation, mini marble chips, red step stones, pea pebbles, halogen work lights, potato seeds, eggplant, leopard‘s bane, rosemary, salvia, creeping phlox Performances: Sunday, May 12, 4:30pm / Sunday, July 21, 4pm / Sunday, August 4, 4pm / Sunday, August 18, 4pm

mail@larsfriedrich.net


Lars Friedrich

Georgia Sagri Antigone Model (poster), 2010 dimensions variable

KantstraĂ&#x;e 154a

10623 Berlin

mail@larsfriedrich.net


Lars Friedrich

KantstraĂ&#x;e 154a

Georgia Sagri Antigone Model, 2010-2013 Steel (180 x 180 x 150 cm), computer, speakers, performance: 6h

10623 Berlin

mail@larsfriedrich.net


Lars Friedrich

KantstraĂ&#x;e 154a

10623 Berlin

Georgia Sagri Video Bag / The New School for Social Research, 2013 58 x 39 x 8 in / 147 x 99 x 20 cm

Video Bag / TROMI (horrors), 2013 Portable DVD player, DVD (TROMI, 2012, 8 min, 56 sec), headphones, two bags on doorknob 23 x 15 x 10 in / 58 x 38 x 25 cm

mail@larsfriedrich.net


Lars Friedrich

KantstraĂ&#x;e 154a

10623 Berlin

Georgia Sagri Video Bag / TROMI (horrors), 2013 Portable DVD player, DVD (TROMI, 2012, 8 min, 56 sec), headphones, two bags on doorknob 23 x 15 x 10 in / 58 x 38 x 25 cm , 2013 Portable DVD player, DVD (Do You Think I Am Human, 2013, 33 sec), backpack, paint 14 x 15 x 11 in / 35 x 38 x 27 cm

mail@larsfriedrich.net


Lars Friedrich

KantstraĂ&#x;e 154a

Georgia Sagri March (Yellow), 2013 yellow vinyl adhered to wall, unique 146 x 155.13 inches

10623 Berlin

mail@larsfriedrich.net


Lars Friedrich

KantstraĂ&#x;e 154a

Georgia Sagri , 2012 Print on fabric (unique), 100% cotton, plastic, metal, wood, plaster 168 x 96 x 17 inches

10623 Berlin

mail@larsfriedrich.net


Lars Friedrich

KantstraĂ&#x;e 154a

10623 Berlin

Georgia Sagri , 2012 Skirt On Ceramic Vessel Coat Hanger Print on fabric (unique), 100% cotton, plastic, metal, wood, plaster 16 x 11 x 10 inches

mail@larsfriedrich.net


Lars Friedrich

KantstraĂ&#x;e 154a

10623 Berlin

Georgia Sagri , 2012 Print on fabric (unique), 100% cotton, cardboard 55 x 10 x 5 inches

mail@larsfriedrich.net


Lars Friedrich

KantstraĂ&#x;e 154a

Georgia Sagri , 2012 Jacket On Wooden Dolphin Clothes Hanger Print on fabric (unique), 100% cotton, metal zipper, wood, brown latex paint 33 x 10 x 10 inches

10623 Berlin

mail@larsfriedrich.net


Lars Friedrich

KantstraĂ&#x;e 154a

10623 Berlin

Georgia Sagri , 2012

Suburban Home Door Iron Gate Door Cardboard, staples, wood, screws, acrylic paint 96 x 63 x 23 inches

Numbness Pain inkjet on vinyl sticker, projected video Subtitles, projected slides 96 x 105 inches

mail@larsfriedrich.net


Lars Friedrich

KantstraĂ&#x;e 154a

10623 Berlin

Georgia Sagri , 2012

Deadlines Inkjet on vinyl Sticker 105 x 424 inches

mail@larsfriedrich.net


Lars Friedrich

KantstraĂ&#x;e 154a

10623 Berlin

Georgia Sagri , 2012 Print on fabric (unique), polyester 15 x 3 x .5 inches each Digital print on silk, cardboard, glue 5 x 8.5 x 1 inch

mail@larsfriedrich.net


Lars Friedrich

KantstraĂ&#x;e 154a

10623 Berlin

Georgia Sagri , 2012

Deadlines Inkjet on vinyl Sticker 105 x 424 inches

62 x 32 x 21 inches Print on fabric (unique), 100% cotton, plastic, metal, wood, plaster 168 x 96 x 17 inches

mail@larsfriedrich.net


Lars Friedrich

KantstraĂ&#x;e 154a

10623 Berlin

Georgia Sagri , 2012

mail@larsfriedrich.net


Lars Friedrich

KantstraĂ&#x;e 154a

10623 Berlin

Georgia Sagri , 2012

mail@larsfriedrich.net


Lars Friedrich

KantstraĂ&#x;e 154a

10623 Berlin

Georgia Sagri , 2012

mail@larsfriedrich.net


Lars Friedrich

KantstraĂ&#x;e 154a

10623 Berlin

Georgia Sagri , 2012

mail@larsfriedrich.net


Lars Friedrich

KantstraĂ&#x;e 154a

10623 Berlin

Georgia Sagri , 2012

mail@larsfriedrich.net


Lars Friedrich

KantstraĂ&#x;e 154a

Georgia Sagri Performance, 2012 Table, 3 Bottles, 3 Glasses, script, cork

10623 Berlin

mail@larsfriedrich.net


Lars Friedrich

KantstraĂ&#x;e 154a

Georgia Sagri Performance, 2012 Table, 3 Bottles, 3 Glasses, script, cork

10623 Berlin

mail@larsfriedrich.net


Lars Friedrich

KantstraĂ&#x;e 154a

10623 Berlin

Georgia Sagri Live Portfolio 2007-2011, 2011 live mix-tape of performance pieces from 2007-2011, live streaming, code ouji demonstration

mail@larsfriedrich.net


Lars Friedrich

KantstraĂ&#x;e 154a

10623 Berlin

Georgia Sagri Live Portfolio 2007-2011, 2011 live mix-tape of performance pieces from 2007-2011, live streaming, code ouji demonstration

mail@larsfriedrich.net


Lars Friedrich

KantstraĂ&#x;e 154a

10623 Berlin

Georgia Sagri Live Portfolio 2007-2011, 2011 live mix-tape of performance pieces from 2007-2011, live streaming, code ouji demonstration

mail@larsfriedrich.net


Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.