13th International Month of Photography: On Faces

Voula Papaioannou, Martin Kollár, Clement Page, Stepanka Stein & Salim Issa, Simon Norfolk, Yannis Behrakis, George Georgiou, Yiorgos Katsagelos, Charis Kakarouchas, Sylvia Diamantopoulou, Pella Dikonimaki, Anton, Athena Chroni, Chuck Close, Yannis Kostaris, Dina Koumbouli, Pepi Loulakaki, Eleni Maligoura, Karin Borghouts, Stratos Kalafatis, Rob Hornstra, Renja Leino, Thomas Neumann, Arturas Valiauga, Demosthenis Agrafiotis, Elias Bourgiotis, Panayiotis Elias, Christos Koukelis, Alnis Stakle, John Stathatos, ...

13th INTERNATIONAL MONTH OF PHOTOGRAPHY ATHENS, AUTUMN 2006
Opening days from September 18 to October 24, 2006

Theme: On Faces

Download: Catalogue (PDF/3,9 MB)

Download: Exhibition Programme (doc/0,1 MB)

Artistic Director: Stavros Moressopoulos
Organised by the Hellenic Centre for Photography
in collaboration with Benaki Museum
and the support of the Ministry of Culture

Official Opening Ceremony
BENAKI MUSEUM, Piraeus Building
Monday, October 2, 2006


The 13th International Month of Photography in Athens is celebrating its 20th birthday, bringing to the galleries, museums, foundations, cultura l centres and foreign institutes of Athens forty-seven solo and group exhibitions. The photographers are Greek and foreign, of different generations and backgrounds, and present to the city photographs wildly diverging in their approaches.
Every year the International Month of Photography in Athens creates a programme that runs around various drifts: a thematic approach that is usually divided into sub-themes within which the main core of the year's exhibitions fit; a retrospective of an established Greek photographer if not more; a series of carte-blanche exhibitions; group exhibitions of young photographers just out of school, one of which is the "Young Greek Photographers" which has been running since 1987 as well as other group exhibitions. Last but not least, the Month of Photography is accompanied by parallel events such as meetings, discussions, seminars, workshops, etc.

This year's Month of Photography is about people, about those who photograph and about those who are photographed, and how they are "immortalised" on the photographic print. Part of it is a study on this familiar and easily recognisable landscape called the face, which is however so hard to define. A study approached through the deconstruction of the "portrait" in order to recompose it, by magnifying in order to decipher shapes.


The main themes "On Faces" is divided into three sub-themes, or rather approaches:

1. The photographer's ethics
How does the photographer see the social events he/she depicts? Photography, which began as an objective depiction of reality, has had to deal with the falling apart of this myth of objectivity and of the accepted truth, something that has brought about serious questions as to how photographers position themselves ethically before what they see, and as to their use of photography itself.

2. Allegory in photography
By this we mean to show photographic work that is staged, that is carefully composed and where the place of things has been purposefully chosen. In this manner symbols and faces, light and shadows, objects which seem to belong elsewhere somehow begin to talk about a new reality as seen by the artist. A reality that is struggling to be taken as such, a thought that is on the lookout for new companions.

3. Ambiguity in the photographic portrait
Traditional depictions of faces have been replaced by new approaches, approaches that give us an end result somewhat distant from the familiar human form. "Ambiguity" travels between what is and what appears to be, just like we human beings travel between the visible and the invisible.



1. The photographer's ethics
Archivo Fotografico Casasola, From the revolution and beyond (1900-1940)
Yiannis Behrakis, Swimmers
George Georgiou, Between the Lines
Yorgos Katsagelos, Silence
Charis Kakarouchas, Cuban Diary
Simon Norfolk, Et in Arcadia Ego
Voula Papaioannou, A Homage

2. Allegory in photography
Yorgos Chaidopoulos, Santorini's Scarecrows II
Sylvia Diamantopoulou, Under Pressure
Pella Dikonimaki, Efigies
Martin Kollar, Nothing Special
Jens Liebchen, Politics & Art - Art & Politics
Clement Page, Sleepwalker

3. Ambiguity in the photographic portrait
Anton, ImPRESSions
Athina Chroni, People (Stereoscopic Projection)
Chuck Close
Yannis Kostaris, Private Spaces I & II
Dina Koumbouli, Monographs
Pepi Loulakaki, Stage on Fire
Eleni Maligoura, Self-Portrait
Photo Booth: Selfportraits, self-portraits of 30 photographers plus...
Petros Sofikitis, Achania

Thematic Group Exhibitions
Corbis Outline 25
The photographic portrait: from trace to allegory

Projects
European Eyes on Japan/ Japan Today, 8th edition
Karin Borghouts
Stratos Kalafatis, Saga
Eleni Maligoura, Japan Project - Readings II

Changing Faces: WORK
an i(p+r)/n project (International Photography Research Netweork), UK
Rob Hornstra, Roots of the Rúntur
Renja Leino, Absent Minds
Thomas Neumann, The Lithuanian Rocket
Orri, Without Work
Stepanka Stein & Salim Issa, Ordinary Living
Arturas Valiauga, Still Identity

Carte Blanche
Dimosthenis Agrafiotis, (im)mobile domestications
Ilias Bourgiotis, Spectators
Panayiotis Elias, Human Scars
Evi Karagiannidis, En Face
Stelios Kasimatis, Stella
Christos Koukelis, Divine Light
Alnis Stakle, Living Space - Daugavpils
John Stathatos, lithoi
Takis, Hydromagnetic Fields

Group exhibitions
Young Greek Photographers, 15th Edition
29 Students of Athens Superior Fine Arts School
Photograohy Group 18 Ano, Faith
Leica Academy, Imprints
Other events
2nd Panhellenic Encounter of Photography Groups & Clubs

(Other events to be announced)