Kennedy Magazine - Issue 10 by Chris Kontos

BIANNUAL JOURNAL OF CURIOSITIES

E 3

KNOWLEDGE IN A NEW WORLD 6

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“ E ve r y b o d y go e s t h e w r o n g way, e ve r y t h i n g i s c o nf u s e d , c h a ot i c , d i s o r d e r l y. B u t n o b o d y i s e ve r l o s t o r h u r t , n ot h i n g i s s t o l e n , n o b l o w s a r e e xc h a n ge d . I t i s a k i n d of fe r m e nt w h i c h i s c r e at e d by r e a s o n of t h e fa c t t h at fo r a G r e e k e ve r y e ve nt , n o m at t e r h o w s t a l e , i s a l w ays u n i q u e . H e i s a l w ays d o i n g t h e s a m e t h i n g fo r t h e f i r s t t i m e : h e i s c u r i o u s , av i d l y c u r i o u s , a n d e x p e r i m e nt a l . H e e x p e r i m e nt s fo r t h e s a k e of e x p e r i m e nt i n g , n ot t o e s t a b l i s h a b e t t e r o r m o r e ef f i c i e nt w ay of d o i n g t h i n gs . H e l i k e s t o d o t h i n gs w i t h h i s h a n d s , w i t h h i s w h o l e b o d y, w i t h h i s s o u l , I m i g ht a s w e l l s ay.” Henry Miller

ANNIVERSARY ISSUE 10 9

GREECE

BY CHRIS KONTOS. PG. 14

A PHOTOGRAPHIC ESSAY.

ISLAND LIFE

BY JEAN-PHILIPPE DELHOMME. PG. 46

AN ILLUSTRATIVE STORY.

DAKIS JOANNOU

BY CHRIS KONTOS. PG. 62

DIRECTOR OF DESTE AND ART COLLECTOR.

HYDRA

BY MICHAEL McGREGOR & NATHAN TAYLOR PEMBERTON . PG. 74

AN ILLUSTRATIVE ESSAY.

XENIA PROJECT

BY NIKOS GEORGÒPOULOS & POLLY BROWN. PG. 84

A FICTIONAL STORY.

PATISSION 41

BY CEDRIC BARDAWIL, CHRIS KONTOS & HAYDÉE TOUITOU. PG. 96

A STORY ABOUT A BUILDING WITH HUGO WHEELER, DELIA GONZALEZ & EURYDICE TRICHON

HELLAS

BY GUY YANAI. PG. 126

AN ILLUSTRATIVE STORY.

ELOIZIA

BY CHRIS KONTOS & NADIIA SHAPOVAL. PG. 134

A PHOTOGRAPHIC ESSAY.

LA GLOIRE DE MON PÈRE

BY ATHINA DELYANNIS. PG. 144

A STORY.

AΘHNA

BY INDIA GEORGIADIS DOYLE. PG. 154

AN ESSAY.

RADIO ATHÈNES

BY CHRIS KONTOS. PG. 158

A CONVERSATION WITH HELENA PAPADOPOULOS & ION CONSTAS

SYMI

BY ARTURO BAMBOO. PG. 176

A PHOTOGRAPHIC ESSAY.

GREECE

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BIANNUAL JOURNAL OF CURIOSITIES

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF CHRIS KONTOS CONTRIBUTORS

CEDRIC BARDAWIL JEAN-PHILLIPPE DELHOMME ATHINA DELYANNIS INDIA GEORGIADIS DOYLE NIKOS GEORGOPOULOS MICHAEL MCGREGOR NATHAN TAYLOR PEMBERTON HAYDÃ&#x2030;E TOUITOU GUY YANAI

CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS

POLLY BROWN ARTURO BAMBOO

TEXT EDITING MICHAEL KELLY PUBLICATION DESIGN ATHINA DELYANNIS AFTER ANGELO PANDELIDIS PUBLISHER KENNEDY MAGAZINE PRINTING PAPADOPOULOS SA WITH THANKS TO BOMBAR GENEVA DESTE FOUNDATION KOPRIA STORE MARTINOS ART GALLERY NADIIA SHAPOVAL POLIS IOANNOU TANINI AGAPI MOU 13

It’s yet another stressful week before printing Kennedy. My best friends these days are proton pump inhibitors, red wine, and a noisy fan that makes the Athenian heat more bearable while at the same time its monotonous buzzing attacks my already exhausted senses. Writer’s block. But I’m not even a writer, right? And this is the 10th issue of Kennedy. An anniversary issue. It’s a challenge to come up with something for this, honestly. Not replying to emails for the last few weeks has not really helped. Wine has not done much either. All I have is an upset stomach and nothing to really say that has not been said before in one way or another. It almost feels like that summer back in 2013 when I had to write the intro for our 1st issue. I think it was called “In all honesty”. During all this time I have tried to stand by that statement. I think people have embraced Kennedy over the past 6 years because I have managed to channel in its pages all my anxieties and fears, my happiness, even my own wedding. But it comes at a price. Every single time a new issue is created I have to come up with something that will make you dream, think, and get emotional. I have to dive into my psyche and grab what’s in there. Sometimes I just wish I could write a few words about how amazing the weather and the feta in Greece is and get it over with. I just called my wife in despair and asked her what to do with myself. She advised me to have a lukewarm shower and lie down. I’m stubborn so I’m still here trying to squeeze something out of my brain cells. Maybe I will just talk about feta. A couple of weeks ago some friends were in Athens doing research on the city. They seemed to love feta cheese a lot. I also love feta so I was keen on to take them to a couple of shops that sell good cheese. They ended up buying too much feta and on top of that, a significant amount of Greek yogurt. During my time with these friends, I tried my best to describe what Greece and Athens means to me. I took them to Diporto and we drank Retsina wine, ate beans and fried fish, and talked about Varnalis. Varnalis - a Marxist poet and one of the key figures of mid war literature - wrote one of my favourite poems about Greece called “The Pilgrim”. It summarises in its lines what Greece is to me. A country where the driving forces behind life, sex, and death are more evident than anywhere else on this earth. A land where everything lies bare and unprotected under the unforgiving sun. The smell of thyme on a hot summer day gives more answers about life than any priest or shrink could ever manage to put into words. It’s almost absurd to think that we were eating at the very table Varnalis used to have his humble lunch and washing it down with his favourite Retsina mentioned in “The Pilgrim”. Greece was and is the land of humbleness, of poverty. You cannot dress up Greece as something it’s not. It’s a country dressed in rags. 14

EDITOR’S NOTE

Every time someone has tried to change that, she has looked like a travesty. Unfortunately, Greeks, carried away by the sirens of the west, forgot what it is to be Doric, to be simple without unnecessary ornaments. They have forgotten who they themselves are and that the gods once lived here. And even if the gods still do, they can’t see them or hear them. But they are here. In every gust of wind while driving on the steep country roads of Anafi. In the reflections of the sun on the cerulean waters of Amorgos. On a clear day at the hills of Delphi. Greece is in the gigantic posture of Katsimpalis, the hero of Henry Miller’s “The Colossus of Maroussi”. I have mentioned that novel a lot lately. In fact, it’s the only novel that ever manages to comfort me about the idea of death. When I am trying to answer what makes Greece what it is, I always go back to the words of Miller. “And what is it about Greece that makes you like it so much?” asked someone. I smiled. “The light and the poverty”, I said. “You’re a romantic”, said the man. “Yes”, I said, “I am crazy enough to believe that the happiest man on earth is the man with the fewest needs. And I also believe that if you have light, such as you have here, all ugliness is obliterated. Since I’ve come to your country I know that light is holy: Greece is a holy land to me.” […] “You can say that because you have sufficient…” “I can say that because I’ve been poor all my life,” I retorted. […] “It isn’t money that sustains me – it’s the faith I have in myself, in my own powers.” A lot of people claim that the Greece of Miller, of Craxton, of Patrick Leigh Fermor, or of Gika doesn’t exist anymore. A paradise that is now lost. Maybe in a way that is true. Capitalism and tourism growth have been slowly transforming this poor corner of the earth into an unrecognisable place, leaving little to be discovered and little to be worshipped. But the coal black rocks of Methana will stand still forever, even if we are not here. Our existence holds little significance in the greater scheme of things. This paradise will be reclaimed by its lawful owners, the gods that were here way before us. Until then, I still believe that on this sacred land you can find a piece of paradise. You just need to have some faith. Every time I’m on a flight back to Greece and the plane descends over the Aegean just a bit out of Attica, I find it hard to hold my tears. The sea glows like rivers of gold under the hot sun, among dry pieces of land with coves like lace. It’s a feeling of peace, of coming to terms with everything, even the inevitable end. Chris Kontos 15

G REEC E by chris kontos

Anafi

Antiparos

Piraeus

Mykonos

Anafi

Amorgos

Athens

Anafi

Amorgos

Andros

Spetses

Andros

Diporto, Athens

Hydra

Archeological Museum, Athens

Amorgos

Hydra

Anafi

Amorgos

Piraeus

Andros

j e an ph i l i p p e d e l h o m me island life

3 53

We first went to the island 17 years ago, invited by a friend. I had never been to Greece in fear of tourism, and discovered the most peaceful place, almost forgotten in time. There were old Datsuns in 70s orange and pea green, and one or two of the last donkeys. The light, the sea – I was overwhelmed by all this beauty. Children played late at night on the squares and people spoke softly. In taverns, there were huge tables with entire families. Grand-mothers presided while waiters brought food, as in an emergency. We went on long drives at night on narrow roads, and rarely crossed another car. I read Nikos Kavvadias, “The Shift”, and painted watercolours of landscapes early in the morning before it became too warm, and later at sunset when shadows became longer and colors richer. We then came back every summer. These were pre-Airbnb days. The whole island was not yet available to the world. There were only a few houses to rent – you had to know, or have connections. When people asked where we went in Greece, we did not reply or slightly lied. We were not just protecting the place from invaders, but our time. It seemed there were never enough hours to work, read, and swim. Swimming is an art form. Not because of the way we may improve an effortless crawl, but because simply dipping the head in the sea is more of a spiritual experience than entering a James Turrell room in an art museum. I might sound like a guru or a wellness coach, but watching this endless underwater turquoise while swimming cleans one’s inner space, extends it with light, making room for a new way of seeing. This constant exposure to light in and outside of the water may, after a few days on the island, provoke a specific drunkenness. Inebriation from light might make one feel more perceptive and intelligent, an intelligence mostly outside of language, which blurs daily from the exhaustion experienced during after lunch nap hours. 56

After a few years, we rent a kamara, a one room fisherman house in a remote cove. There is no water, no electricity, and the door opens right on the sea. Water reflexions dance on the curved ceiling. We spend entire days on the little quay above the narrow stretch of sand, as if on a small boat, and no one ever becomes bored. We swim, eat, read, sleep, and repeat. I completed dozens of paintings of the cove over the years. Even before we started renting the kamara, we used to come at sunset and drink ouzo on the quay with our backs against the house. Some watercolours done with ouzo are better, although I would not take this as a rule. Then I brought my oil paints, and painted numerous views of the same house and little church on the other side of the cove, and fishing boats which came from the Peloponese and moored for the night when the weather was fair. It was always funny to open the door in the morning and smell turp from drying paintings and rags.

Early November brings low clouds, plunging the moorlands in fog and mist. The plane cannot land and heads back to Athens. In the last open tavernas, locals happily smoke inside. In deep winter, the sea can become rough and disrupt the ferry service.

The island can be all places at different times. I also painted family and friends when they were reading or taking naps. Every subject was at hand. I painted a fish a neighbour gave us and then cooked it on the grill, and we ate the painting for dinner. When models flew away, I gathered shells, washed out wood, and plastics for still-lifes. Sadly, there is always an amazing supply of them dumped from ships or wherever. One day a monster fish was brought to the shore. It was mainly a head, coloured white, with the teeth of a human, and the bulging round eye of a cow. Google match identified it as a rabbit. Why did I not paint it? Staring at it for too long would be too disturbing, I thought, but I should have. I also missed painting a murena that was killed by another neighbour. I saw the big, snake-like fish contorting on the quay before being offered to us to make a soup. The island is a world. While staying from late April to September last year, I never had the desire to go somewhere else. Driving South transports you to Italy, West to the States, and up North, all the way to the lighthouse, to Ireland or Edward Hopperâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Maine.

Painting from life requires contemplating, not possessing. It is an usage of the world without its property. Painting a portrait is trying to paint a face that always escapes, changes, is there but not there. It is trying to see without being blind by emotion, but if there is no emotion, we might not see at all, or not see what could be painted. It is the same with landscapes. The landscape is there, and not to be possessed. It has to be free of all value, to provoke the emotion that will make it be seen as a possible painting. Who wants to paint real estate? And it has to make me forget myself, and be nothing other than a temporary witness for the time that I am painting it. Each new house added year after year seems a loss. Each new rich personâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s trophy house constructed in the most beautiful and untouched land is an aggression. It is the shock of realising that the poetic model you were painting with a trembling hand was in fact an available call girl. On the other end, when the island gets crowded in August, when on wild beaches the sound of waves is covered by the techno music of a shopping mall, when under straw parasols men flat on mattresses stare at their phones, when girlfriends standing by the rocks make sexy poses for iPad selfies, I often think that it is a pity not to paint them at this moment. Oilpaints 1. Still Life 2. Reading 3. Kamara 4. Lewis & Milena 5. Lighthouse

The island can be all places at different times. 59

D A K I S Words & Pictures Chris Kontos

JOANNOU 65

If you ever happen to be on the island of Hydra during the warm summer months, a common sight at its picturesque port is “Guilty” Mr Joannou’s yacht designed by Jeff Koons and Ivana Porfiri, standing out from the crowd like a colorfoul singularity among the hoard of private boats that swarm the small island like locusts. Almost a modern day landmark for the island, the boat and its owner are parts of the everyday life and identity of Hydra. Since 2008 the DESTE Project Space Slaughterhouse has hosted many renowned international artists like Kara Walker, Maurizio Catellan and Urs Fischer to name a few, and has managed to create an open dialogue between the 66

world of the island and that of the global art world in an effortless way, merging people from different backgrounds. The first time I met Dakis was on a unforgivingly hot day for September, a couple of years ago. He was one of the few people that despite the immense heat attended a small event we put together with my friend Arturo Bamboo on the occasion of our 7th issue. We kept in touch during those two years mainly through Instagram and I was surprised to see how the popular art patron and tycoon is so active on social media. This year, DESTE is hosting Kiki Smith and I met with Mr Joannou a couple of months ago to discuss the past and future of DESTE and its ties with the island.â&#x20AC;¨ 67

I know you have probably been asked this so many times but how did it all start? We had the DESTE Prize, which was established in 1999 and awarded biannually to a young Greek artist. 10 prizes were given out in total, aiming to create a platform that would help showcase the work of contemporary Greek artists, help them flourish and promote their work abroad. In 2017, at the 10th award ceremony, we held an Anniversary Exhibition for the 9 winning artists and in a way that cycle closed.    This was followed by the Equilibrists exhibition, a collaborative project with the New Museum in New York, which involved curators from New Museum trying to identify and highlight young talent in Greece. We did this deliberately during the time of Documenta in order to showcase Greek artists to the public abroad. This turned out to be a very successful experiment, as most of these young Greek artists are now building a career abroad in England, Germany, and the US – they are everywhere. This was much more effective than the DESTE Prize, which was limited to 6 shortlisted artists, with only one of them being awarded the prize. Since Documenta and the Equilibrists, there has been more room for the development of those young artists and it’s truly impressive to see how much they’ve accomplished. In the same context, we find another group of artists in Greece, some of which are older than the Millennials, who, for whatever reason, never managed to go abroad, remarkable as they may be, and who never really got the chance to reach a wider audience.  Why do you think that is?  Quite simply because there is no infrastructure in Greece. This year we had another idea, – an exhibition that will be called “The Same River Twice”.   In our last discussion you said that it is inspired by the aphorism of Heraclitus.    68

Yes, exactly that, from Heraclitus, which was the curators’ idea.    Yes, and it so happened to be a statement by your favourite philosopher.  Yes, indeed. So the curators came to Athens and they spent quite a long time here. We are focusing on Athens, not Greece in general, and we are considering artists with ages ranging from 25 all the way to, say, 75.  The whole age spectrum.  The range has become much wider, yes. The curators made a selection and this is what will be shown this year, which I believe, or rather I hope, will receive the same response as the Equilibrists. Let’s see, we’re still experimenting.   What do you think has changed since the time the Equilibrists was first introduced to this year’s exhibition?  The new artists of Equilibrists have now evolved quite a lot, so their base has broadened, they all have careers now, and their work is what you’d call “noticeable”. It has expanded greatly. Now, if we succeed in bringing forward this new group too, who are not as recognised yet, I think that will be an interesting experiment.  So the challenge with this exhibition is even bigger than what it was with the Equilibrists in a way, isn’t it?  Yes, it is.   It’s like a bet.

It’s a big bet, and it was very difficult for the curators from New Museum to choose from such a wide range of artists. When you have a group of young artists only, the choices are limited within that circle. The main challenge they had with the Equilibrists was of geographical nature, because they had to travel to London, Berlin, Athens, Cyprus, and Thessaloniki to find them, whereas this time they stayed in Athens but they need to find artists of different ages. This is a different kind of challenge. We’ll see how it goes.  So it will be a mixture of the young artists who became known during the previous exhibition and the newly found ones?  I suspect it will only include maybe a couple of artists from the previous exhibition. I don’t think there will be many, because we want new...   … new blood so to say?  New blood, yes. Although some of the ones I saw in the previous exhibition will be included in the new show. At the same time, we are moving forward with Hydra. We’re in our 11th year this year. It is a project that was created from a personal obsession I had with the slaughterhouse there. I was determined to get it and carry out a few projects there.  Your connection to Hydra is something I still know nothing about. How exactly did it all start?  It started quite simply really. We were stranded there once for three days due to bad weather and we were just looking around the area. There was this English agent who said to me “there’s a house for sale around here, it’s really attractive, would you like to go check it out?” So we went and had a look, I decided immediately to acquire it. Now this was back in the 80s. We had only spent three days in Hydra, I mean, we liked Hydra, but we didn’t really have any particular connection there. That was when the whole connection to Hydra started.  Almost out of coincidence?  Yes, out of a pure coincidence. After that, we spent a lot of time in Hydra. 69

It became our second home in a way, we really loved it. I later came up with this crazy idea to take over the abandoned slaughterhouse and organise some sort of artistic activity there. After many years, I finally managed to get the municipality to agree to rent me the space. We basically left it as it was other than a few very basic repairs. Then the idea came up to invite a midcareer artist, with a fairly limited budget, to do a project that would be inspired by Hydra, or the slaughterhouse or whatever the artist wanted.  No limitations then?  No limitations and no directions or guidelines from us at all. We started with Matthew Barney, who proposed to work with Elizabeth Peyton. They came together and did the first project at the Slaughterhouse Project Space. That was followed by Maurizio Cattelan and Doug Aitken. We had an amazing run.   Yes. Was Doug Aitken’s exhibition the third one?  Yes. After that we had Animal Spirits, a selection of artworks from various artists meant to provoke criticism on our current social dilemma, which was followed by exhibitions from Urs Fischer, Pawel Althamer, Paul Chan, Roberto Cuoghi, Kara Walker, and David Shrigley. Kara Walker’s exhibition was quite crucial. It marked the completion of a project, the end of a story that had started with her installation “A Subtlety, or the Marvelous Sugar Baby”. They destroyed it afterwards and she only kept “Figa”, the left hand of the sphinx-like monument, which was configured into the fig sign gesture. She decided to take charge of this herself, so, for her, this was closure to a great project. That’s reflected into the catalogue. In this catalogue, which also includes the Sugar Baby. So technically it’s a catalogue of the complete cycle. Now she has been chosen for Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall showcase in October. I’m also interested in this exchange that is taking place with Paul Chan’s philosophy, from Urs Fischer’s expressionistic and exuberant style, to Kara Walker, who is known for her explorations of the female race and identity, and which are all important. Then it was Shrigley who has this humorous yet sarcastic style, which actually carries deep philosophical content. 70

His work last year was one of the most, how should I put it, not necessarily light, but certainly one of the less deeper ones, with a type of humour somewhat less ... sarcastic? Yes, that is Shrigley, that is what his work is about.   This year is Kiki Smith, our relationship with whom goes way back. She was one of the artists who participated in the 1995 factory exhibition. She was a key part of the collection and was present there herself with Koons, Kippenberger, Kosuth and many other artists, so we have a longtime relationship with her. Much darker this time.  I don’t know. Next year it will be Jeff Koons.  Yes, you mentioned that last time we talked!  Yes, that’s a different side again, and that’s the strategy... well, there’s no strategy really, just an idea, an analogy.  When do you get an idea of what it is you are going to exhibit in Hydra in the summer?  Since I am the one who decides, I just… decide. Or, for example, with Jeff, we were having dinner in New York in November and I said “Jeff, I’m sorry I never asked you for Hydra, but the budget is so low...” And he said “Dakis, I want to do Hydra. So next year then!   Yes, next year. Let’s see what he will do for us. These are the two things I’ve been mainly concerned with in the past few years in the Greek scene – building a platform and voice for artists who work here and continuing with Hydra. Now let me ask you something since we’re talking about Greece, it’s the Greek issue! In recent years, especially due to Documenta, as we talked about earlier, Greece has received a lot of attention in the field of arts, a lot of foreign artists have come to stay here, and a lot of young people have become more inspired

to get involved in the arts. We’re witnessing an interesting turn of events to which I think there are two sides. It’s quite fragmented still in my opinion, as I mentioned to you the last time we spoke. I’d like to know how you see this? What’s your opinion, after all the years, the exhibitions, the prizes? I think it’s very important that there has been such an increase in energy, which was not there before. Now, whether it’s feasible for all this to reach a level of international recognition, for Athens to turn into a centre for the arts in that sense, I’m not sure, as that would require establishing the necessary infrastructure too. Without infrastructure, nothing can be done, nothing is done. If there are no museums, there is no press, no art criticism, how could Athens become a centre? This is the basis, that’s why you see many artists leaving. You do more than your fair share in the field, in [my humble] opinion, but there needs to more done from the government, the ministry of arts etc. Yes, okay agree, but as far as I’m concerned I only do what I’m personally interested in doing. I remember during the inauguration of the very first exhibition, Cultural Geometry, I was approached by a great Greek artist – mind you there were no Greek artists in that show – who spoke to me in a very polite and formal way and said “Mister Joannou, what you are doing is unacceptable in my opinion. You are disregarding Greek art”. And the same has now been heard numerous times in conversations. In many conversations you hear artists complaining about this, there are a lot of them here who still feel that way. Neglected. 71

Yes, well the answer is simple. Each one of us is responsible to ourselves only and for what we do. I responded to that artist by saying “I do not expect you to do anything for me. Why is it you expect me to do something for you?’’ You do what you want and I do what I want. In the end it will be clear. I mean, I hope DESTE has helped the growth of...  … the scene, it’s given it momentum. I don’t know about the scene in general, but it has given wings to some young artists and enabled them to grow. In the beginning of our chat I think we were talking about personal responsibility. That’s what is all about. If someone is not okay with themselves, no matter what they do, they must first feel good with themselves and with what they do; then everything will fall in place. But how do you see the situation evolving? I mean obviously, you can’t foresee the future, but based on your experience thus far, how do you feel about the dynamics at the moment? Not only what’s been initiated by you, but in a more general context. But it is more general, it’s not so much that it started with us, it’s just that the Equilibrists helped a bit. Perhaps half of the artists would have figured it out, would have found their own way, even without our intervention, because I think at the end of the day, talent is what counts. No matter what you do, if you do not have talent… That’s what matters. Talent. That’s where it all starts. If you have talent, that’s it, you’ll make it, one way or another. We just help open up a path for them. We don’t claim anything more than that. One thing I haven’t explored much yet is this booklet with Hans Ulrich. Could you tell me a bit more about that? (Athens Dialogues) It was done with Hans Ulrich and Ari Marcopoulos. Ari was in charge of the 72

photographs. We were with Kara Walker at the time and it was just a small project that we spontaneously decided to turn into this portfolio, which is about ancient civilisation and art today. With artists who’ve done some work here? Not necessarily. Generally speaking, it was with artists invited by Hans Ulrich, including Charles Ray, who sent some amazing video but was unfortunately not here himself, and Jeff Koons, who later gave an interview on this topic too. Karen Marta found a book “Last Year at Marienbad”, do you remember it? Yes, yes, I know it.    We formatted the book after that. I like what they did with the photography of Athens, I had never seen it up close before. How the ancient and the future city meet in the present. Examining Athens, the ancient city, and its contemporary life, is particularly reflected in photographs by Ari Marcopoulos. Athens is always relevant, that’s why I thought we could talk about it. I want to ask you how you see Athens, say, in the past decade, with all the development and changes we’ve been discussing here since we started talking. Yes, as we said, there’s been this whole new energy that’s been created, but no new infrastructure whatsoever. I mean as a place also, a city, not just in terms of art.

It is a magical city. For me, it’s interesting to see it through the eyes of a foreigner, such as Ari. I’ve always been somewhat curious as to how foreigners see it.    Well Ari is a special individual, isn’t he? I mean ever since he came here, everyone knows him and wants to work with him.     It’s also due to his good reputation I presume.   Due to his reputation, yes, but also because of the fact that he is quite involved with everything and seeks to integrate everything, not just what is on, but also beyond the spotlight. He is also a very likeable person. Which I think is what he’s trying to achieve in this book as well, a new perspective, which is exactly what interests me the most, and perhaps what interests most people who are trying to see Athens through a different perspective. But this is Athens, I mean do TV antennas on rooftops spoil it? I think that is exactly what Athens is. Chimneys antennas and polykatoikia (small block of flats). There’s obviously no comparison between those polykatoikia and say, via Nomentana in Rome or London’s council flats. I’d take the polykatoikia a hundred times over those, wouldn’t you? Definitely, yes.     Athens is made up of units, polykatoikia, with 10 – 15 families, where everyone knew everyone else; it was like a neighborhood. Now things are a bit more isolated, you know, distanced, but still, you don’t have anyone trying to blow up these monsters of buildings and bring 3.000 apartments down to dust. That’s it though, isn’t it.   People lead normal lives here.

Is that not what reality is all about?    So it is, and I see the antennas and I think to myself, okay, if I wanted to see roofs and tiles I could go to Rome. Absolutely, and it never bothered me. It is what it is.    I like your point of view.   But that’s how it is. What else is there to say? It can’t be changed now though, can it? Can you imagine Rome’s skyline here in Athens? That wouldn’t make sense. And have all those domes removed for example? That just can’t be. Now that you have mentioned Italy, is Maurizio Cattelan still coming here as often as he used to? Yes, only last year he didn’t. Last year he didn’t? Yes, because he had a show in Singapore. And this is a relationship that has lasted for many years? Many years indeed, and we will do one more project with Maurizio soon. This year Maurizio is bringing Martin Parr. They’ll be working on another photography project about Athens and Hydra. We are very interested in this. We’ve had Martin Parr at Kennedy Magazine before. Ah yes? Yes, an interview on issue 5. Will this happen next year as well? No, this year. Oh, this year. Yes. Yes, yes, with this concept.

That’s what I’m saying. You can’t agree with everyone. He’s been criticised again recently that when you portray reality like that, which is what he’s trying to depict in his work, it’s not a good thing. But that’s what it is though. The reality. That’s where we are at the moment. So what should we do about it? This is what it looks like. That’s the picture. We’ll see, I am sure they will come up with something very exciting. That sounds really nice.   This is the main idea and we always find something to add to it, something always comes up and adds to either Hydra or Athens. That’s truly great news, as Martin Parr is one of my favourite artists. I agree, he’s out of this world! As controversial as he may be. Why controversial? Because, you know, with all the talk about political correctness, many have criticised Martin Parr for his, so called, invasive look, saying he’s vulgar, that his work possesses a leering, mocking tone. I was reading Henri Cartier-Bresson’s criticism of Martin Parr’s work, saying he didn’t consider that true photography. That’s again a whole different point of view, not everyone can get what he does  (It was reported that when Henri Cartier-Bresson saw Parr’s exhibition in 1995 he said “You are from a completely different planet to me.”) I personally photography. 74

don’t

Cartier-Bresson’s

I mean that’s what art criticism has come to lately because of political correctness. There was a statement by Miuccia Prada recently that said “The Age of Political Correctness Will Kill Great Fashion”, but I think it applies to art too! I think she is right. This political correctness attitude is very boring to me and counterproductive. How do you feel about this massive criticism of art lately? I’m not interested in it, I find it annoying. I can’t do anything about it so I just ignore it. I’m not politically correct. I’m not. So there’s nothing more to say about this. Remember that piece from Kiki Smith? The famous “Mother and Child”? Yes, yes. We showed it in 1996 at the school of Fine Arts, kids came to see it, no one complained. We showed it here again in 2004, no complaints either. If I was to put it up today, it would cause chaos. Yes, things have changed a lot since then. Do you think it’ll get better soon? What can I say now? Honestly, I do not think so. Let’s hope it will!

H Y D R A

Illustrations by Michael McGregor . Words by Nathan Taylor Pemberton 77

O U T S I D E R ’ S

N O T E S

Cats It is rumored that Leonard Cohen, allergic and reactive, relegated his to the basement. Unlucky, I think, to be the obligated feline of the island’s most famous resident. On my phone, between solitary shots of sunsets and Greek salad are the cats. Cats in all combinations: solitary, in duos, in complacent packs, mid-stride, perched, purring, paused in my flash. They amble about like winos, junkies, packbackers, bored children waiting for their food and waiting for your attention. Mostly, they lie prone. Every variety of rest. Locked in an eternal yawn, reaching out for absolutely nothing because nothing of value can be offered. These are the most famous residents on the entire island.

Mail You can, if circumstances call for it — that is, desperate options of last resort that require painstanking engagement with automated phone banks routed across the Atlantic and back across it to the customer service hives of India — have mail sent to the island. There are no addresses on Hydra you will be informed. A local witnessing your desperation may offer up their name for your parcel, or, in this case, a credit card to replace the wallet that you left while connecting flights in Lativa. The name of person known to the person ferrying the mail from the port of Piraeus is all that is required to receive mail that has been sent, sorted, shipped, sorted, sent, and sailed across the water from across the ocean from across half of the globe. Is their a name for something sent so directly that only a name is required? Intention? Tasos, Hydra, for the American in your home c/o Chase Bank.

Water There is no better place on the planet to hurl your naked body into than the water of Hydra Harbor at midnight. There is no warmer welcome than the water at the top of the horseshoe entrance to the harbor, away from 78

the dull thud of dated European house music battering against the ancient cliffs. There is no better mixture for non-sexual bodily pleasure than saltwater, stars, ecstasy, and champagne — that is, until, a plastic bag grazes your thigh like a thoughtless jellyfish.

A Confession (An Apology) Moments before returning to Athens on a hydroplaning ferry, in a shroud of diesel fumes, I found the crumpled receipt from Hydra’s only Italian restaurant, or so I was told. It was twice folded, already fading, and entirely unpaid. From the cashless party, with the crying girl, who should have passed on the offer of as second bottle of white wine, who found shelter in your gentle courtyard on the night your credit card machine broke down — an apology, and a promise, to repay the debt onto the next rudderless posse when the cross through the courtyards of our own islands, wherever they may be.

Late-Night TV Offerings of phone sex and cult politics and reruns of American basketball. Commodity signals from the mainland for no audience. Isiah Thomas and his Detroit Pistons bulldozing the Los Angeles Lakers in four at 4 A.M. Cyrillic subtitles enter the locker room, narrating another tale of physical glory. Of course, the official language of champions. Of course. Sweat and champagne soak the screen — look at these ancient gods turning their parthenon into a nightclub. Isiah wraps his arms around a golden trophy and screams. The TV is muted. Here, right now, these orphan images must be the only commodities to travel here not by sea, not like the bottles of ouzo and crates of produce or the fleshy tourists and anonymous mega-billionaires on cartelinspired yachts. Late night TV in Hydra, programming for the mind in the land of no program. Late night TV for my sunburnt shell as I sit empty and alone under a fluorescent bulb. I am perfect now. 79

Martinos Antique and Fine Art Gallery

D ress M iu M iu , S hoes N ine W est / M odel T ilda J onssonn - DM odels / H air C hris by

B airabas , M ake U p by

K ristel T oma - B eehive A rtists A gency / S t yling by

E lina S ygareos

xenia project nikos georgรณpoulos and polly brown 86

Athenian art director Nikos Georgópoulos and photographer Polly Brown travel back in time to create an ambitious fictional image series about the once glorious, now abandoned Xenia Hotels. In the early 50s, after two world wars and one civil war, the Greek state was effectively bankrupt. On that basis, the government decided to initiate the ambitious Xenia project; a nationwide hotel construction programme aimed at creating accommodation infrastructure for the development of a tourist industry to contribute in rebooting the economy. Through out the 1960’s and 70’s the 59 Xenia Hotels that were built thrived. Although widely celebrated for their glorious post-war modernist architecture, they however never had a consistent visual identity. Each hotel used its own typeface, logotype and promotional literature with widely varying aesthetics. By the 2010’s after decades of mismanagement, the Xenia project became inextricably linked to the financial meltdown and fell into administration. Within the Xenia Project, Nikos Georgópoulos attempts to create a cohesive yet fictitious visual identity for the now derelict hotel chain. By using extensive archival referencing and typography through compilation he creates props within a past that never happened. By blurring the boundaries between tourism, graphics, and fiction, the project advocates design as a form of speculative research presented. The accompanying image series by Polly Brown evokes a nostalgia, surreality and attentive concern for detail that meditates on the identifiers of cultural tourism, hotel theory and the dream like escapism of leisure aesthetics.

1 4 PATISSION 98

Pictures by Chris Kontos

there is a street in

Athens

that encompasses

October 28

to celebrate the national anniversary

everything that makes up the modern history of

of liberation.

Greece, that one is Patision street. In it’s 4.5 km of

On November 17th, 1973, the Polytechnic revolt was on the street. On December 18, 1980, the Minion Mall was wrapped in flames.”

length are resting monuments that have witnessed the rise and fall of democracy, the reign of kings, bloodshed, explosions and every other sort of drama the relatively young country that

Greece

has undergone through the last century.

“The landforming of the road began in 1841 and was based on pre-existing rural roads. During King Otto’s reign the road was often honored by the royal couple. In the 1870s, there was a small village named Patisia, that was included in the city of Athens and distinguished in Upper and Lower Patissia. In the 1880s, there walked the horsemen of the newly created, by Efstratios Rallis, “Philippos Company”. On 23rd April 1882 was launched the horsepowered tram from Patission to Syntagma. In the 20th century new neoclassical, art-deco and modernist buildings were built: Livieratos Palace (Patision 55 and Epirus), G. Isaia (Patision 65 and Julianos). In 1903, Panagiotis Koutalianos, in an open-air theater opposite the Archaeological Museum, demonstrated

his

muscular

power

with

various

improvised exercises.

Patission was planted in 1908 with the first official division of the city of Athens - following the study of Athanasios Georgiadis - connecting Patisia with Omonia Square in the center of Athens.Then the first electric trams arrived. In Chaetia (Patision 8), next to Alaska, on Sunday, 20 September 1942, the small πεαν resistance group organized a mass sabotage in the building of the

Greek

Omonoia on Patision on a Acropolis. My favourite Athenian bar Au Revoir designed by Aristomenis Provelegios is on Patision. It’s the bar that most Athenians would choose to make that first date extra special, kissing passionately and shoving hands clumsily in underwear on it’s upper floor tables, feeling it’s the last day on earth, while the night buses drove in front of it’s large window blinding you with their headlights, lighting up the night like a blaze. My favourite department store Minion was on Patision until the flames devoured it in 1980. My favourite museum, ‘’The Archaeological Museum of Athens’’ is on Patision street. In its rooms lies the golden burial mask of Agamemnon, the mythical king that conquered Troy, as well as my favourite statue known as the Artemision Jockey. Maria Callas lived in a house on Patision Street. And last but not least, the Technical University of Athens is situated at the corner of Patision and Stournari Street. A building that was the playground for violent termination of Greece’s most turbulent era after the civil war, the 7 year military junta. When

you drive towards

clear day you can see the

ναζι εσπο organization that recruited

Greece for wehrmacht. During December 1944, the General Security building was blown up in the corner of Stournari and Patission by the forces of ελας. In 1946, after the Occupation, it was renamed

This a story about a building on Patision Street, its people, and its spirits. I decided to use this story as the centrepiece of the 10th issue of Kennedy because it turned out to be the most effortless way to talk about

Athens

and what it really is without

resolving to clichés or any intention to idealise this city and these sacred grounds we walk on every day.

young people from

It’s a story about people and ghosts. About history and present.

It’s

a story that came out of the blue, based on

pretty absurd coincidences that led to the threading of random meetings and acquaintances into an epic storyline that dates back to almost a century ago.

greeted by his dog,

Gigi. While waiting in the I asked casually “who lives upstairs?” Hugo said “oh, it’s Delia with her son Buggy!’’ In a matter of minutes Delia was standing with me and Hugo on hallway

the doorsteps discussing the crazy twist of chance

Part

mysterious

the

story

American

involves

musician,

the

elusive

Su Tissue,

and

a figure

of myth like proportions after she disappeared from the spotlight into nothingness like she never existed.

There are speculations. She was a lawyer California; she was a piano teacher in Boston’s suburbs; she was a housewife. But none of these rumours are backed up by any hard evidence. Her only solo record, Salon De Musique, which sells for 500 euros and I’m happy to own, ignited one of in

to meet there at that moment.

We arranged to meet Delia the next morning. Hugo, Gigi, and I walked around the forlorn buildings of the Polytechnic School and talked about ghosts, living in Athens, and the future of the arts scene in the city. The almost gloomy feeling of the empty classrooms, the eerie silence, and the graffiti on the walls that have with

witnessed so many layers of history made everything stick together in a moment of extreme clarity.

the conversations that led to this story happening

The

next morning the sun gave way to heavy rain.

in the first place. It was a warm evening at the local

met

Delia

favourite skate park/bar

attempts to record we chatted for an hour about

Latraac and an odd looking

Greek

ginger girl was playing music that sounded just right

the

to my ears.

the window.

Sylvester and no wave/disco. I asked for her name. It was Delia Gonzalez, a musician and artist that I have admired for years and apparently has resided in Athens the last couple of years. We chatted about Su Tissue and how to mix records. Back then it did not occur to me the role she would have in this story but in the end everything came together in a definite almost mystical way.

The

second part of the story involves a dog, a

London, and an art gallery. Hugo Wheeler is a young lad from London who is the owner of Hot Wheels Projects, a project space in Athens at Patision 41. When I was putting together the list of people to approach for this issue Hugo was one of the people included. I had been to the gallery twice and I remembered he also lived there. One day around March, I received a phone call from Cedric Bardawil, a friend and Kennedy contributor who lives in London. He said “Chris, my new girlfriend knows this guy that lives in Athens and he has a gallery. Maybe he could be good to include in the new issue.’’ It turned out this guy was Hugo. We decided to both interview Hugo and after a couple of weeks I was at his doorstep at Patision friend in

100

at her flat and after a couple of failed

gods while the rain was falling out of

Right at that moment, with Delia in the Buggy’s voice from the other room interrupting our conversation, I realised everything was meant to be like this. Only like this. I like believing in coincidences. After all, if you believe in them you see them happen. It’s comforting to know life has some plan. It makes me stand braver against the obscurity of death. dark room and

During

our chat,

Delia

mentioned the flamboyant

owner of the building,

Eurydice. Her father built the very house we were at, and she is a writer and lives in Paris. I decided to include Eurydice in the story and my friend, Haydee, met her in Paris a while after. We were planning to also talk with the owners of the kiosk under the house but there was not enough time.

there you go. Instead of a guide that tells you

where to eat and drink in

Athens you The gods

a story of people and gods. lived here.

They

end up with have always

are the very thing that makes this

dry and poor piece of land special. still here only if you believe so.

And they are Like coincidences.

BY CHRIS KONTOS

101

A GHOST STORY A CONVERSATION WITH HUGO WHEELER

A coffee for you? I’m good Chris, thanks. I don’t really drink coffee!

The thing that really interested me when we first met was the story with the ghost. Yeah, ok, I can tell the story with the ghost.

I didn’t know that you don’t drink coffee. No, never.

Yeah, because we talked about that with Delia as well. Really?

I don’t know many people that don’t drink coffee. I just drink beer, that’s it. Have you ever tried coffee? No, nor tea. Really? Never. Wow. I’m impressed. I just stick to beer and water. That’s about it. – Laughter – Oh, and Fanta Blue. I like Fanta Blue as well. Fanta Blue? Yeah, Fanta Blue is great. Wow. The one without the gas? For kids? Yeah, exactly. I have an acquired taste. Wow. Did Delia tell you about Venice at all? I ran into her and Buggy at the airport! Yeah. I heard it was alright. I heard the main section was not that great, but there was some really interesting bits. How come you didn’t come over? Oh god, I was going to, then my accommodation fell through last minute and I had travelled to Italy a few weeks before and I couldn’t really afford to go again… I was going to and then I just didn’t. I will go again in November I think. It was fun at the airport with Buggy, Delia, and my wife. We stayed for a long time, as the flight was delayed like 4 hours. But anyway let’s talk about the ghost now. 102

Yeah, but I want to hear your version. I don’t know Delia’s side so I am actually curious to hear it once you have written it up. You will see it printed in the magazine. Yeah, I don’t want to know until I have read the written account of what she said. Yeah, so it is better that you tell me your version so that it is not going to be biased. Exactly. Ok, so what happened with the ghost was since I also live in the building, and it is kind of funny because the shower has a seethrough window that actually looks into the open stairwell, so theoretically everyone could see me having a shower the whole time… The one that goes to the rooftop? Yeah, the bathroom is just behind that. But along this open space there is the stairwell that goes up the building as well. What happened was I was having a shower and I was looking around and I saw this man, this old man. He was quite moderately contemporary dressed, wearing a fleece. He looked a little bit like Mrs Eurydice’s partner, the landlord, but it just wasn’t, you could tell it just wasn’t him. I saw this man walking up the stairs but for some weird reason I never saw his face, I only saw his back walking up the stairs. Like a figure? Yeah, like a figure walking up the stairs. I was like “hmm, that’s weird”. So I got out of the shower and went up to Delia’s apartment and I said “who’s that guy coming up to your

apartment?” And she said “no one came up to my apartment”. And then I described what I had seen and Buggy said “oh yeah, that guy. He is the ghost.” Oh, Buggy knew already? Yeah, Buggy already knew. It kind of made sense because I never saw his face and whenever someone asked a question about him… – Interrupted by laughter from patrons at the café – Where was I? So it was weird because Delia asked “what does he look like?” and I could give a very clear description of what he looked like, so I wasn’t going mad in my head because maybe sometimes you do that. Yeah, sometimes you can make up pictures in your head. But it was so clear what I had seen and it had been backed up by Buggy saying “oh yeah, the ghost”. This normal thing like “oh yeah, him”. Really casually? Yeah, very casually. And yeah, that’s kind of the ghost, that’s him. There was only one sighting? Yeah, well we have had funny instances of things going missing sometimes or things not being where you put them. For example, we had a bicycle lock once and the lock kept getting undone. Really? Yeah, it kept getting undone. Nothing was taken from inside the house. It was just always undone. You would put it back together and it was always undone. You would come back home and it was always undone. I don’t think I ever talked to Delia about this but I was like “who is doing this?” Delia didn’t know the lock to it. No one knew but myself at that time.

Have you ever felt insecure in any way at the house? No, not at all. Not because of the ghost but for any other reason? No, it is great. We have this great community. I mean we have the security guards downstairs at the kiosk, and we have this little system going where… And the kiosk guy is like a doorman! Yeah, I am really close with the kiosk guys. We Facebook each other all the time. We send each other funny videos on Facebook. What is his name? Sadi. S-a-d-i. There is Beg as well. B-e-g. Sadi and Beg. We are really close and we send each other messages on Facebook. Is it like a concierge? Yeah, kind of. I mean once, my mother was coming to see me and Sadi knew that so he got his brother in London to drop off some clothing for my mother to bring to me in Athens, which I would give to him. So we have this really nice agreement going between us. Ok. I mean they make money at our openings. We don’t really sell alcohol but… They get some beer? Yeah, the bar is open downstairs. So we have this really close relationship with them, which is sweet to have. Yeah, it is good to have a doorman. The previous apartment that I was living in had a shop on the ground floor, which was operated by an old guy selling old ladies clothes, and he was like my doorman. Yeah, exactly. 103

104

He would pick up my mail, you know. Yeah, it’s great. We have a really close relationship and whenever someone is like… That’s a really Athenian thing. You couldn’t really find it somewhere else. Yeah, I feel that. You probably know better than me but I feel that it is. I have never really had that before. I think it is also a reflection of Exarchia and the place we are in as well. I was talking to someone the other day about the multicultural nature of Exarchia and especially Patission, where we are, and this white English dude becoming really good friends with Bangladeshi immigrants – it isn’t that common, which is a really nice thing. And you walk a lot with your dog Gigi? You told me last time that you walk around the Polytechnic school a lot. Yeah, of course. Where we did our walk too. Yeah, of course. But you hadn’t been in the Polytechnic before? Yeah, I go in every day. But do you go in the classrooms like we did last time as well? Oh, no, no, no. I haven’t been back in the classrooms. I haven’t done that. Actually, you know what, Gigi found a way into the big square that we looked at up there. The auditorium square? Yeah, the auditorium square. Gigi found a way in the other day. Ah, so you had a look in there. Yeah, it’s amazing. It feels like a Jodorowsky set. It’s the place we saw through the window but we didn’t go in. I went there and it felt moderately fake because

it is not a very old building. Maybe you know? It is around 100 years old or more… Yeah but I think it was recently redone. You see things like pigeon deterrents on top of these beautiful marble pieces. That is probably a more recent addition. Yeah, there are more recent things. And you see plastic coverings, and garnishing, and things like that around the place. When you are walking around at the school, do you ever feel that this building has a heavy history? History? You can feel it. It has a bit of energy, like I don’t know, kind of heavy. Do you feel that? You do, you do, you really do actually feel it. I mean it’s kind of funny though, I feel like going with Gigi as a foreigner makes it more acceptable in a way. It is a really strange relationship. I am always conscious of being a foreigner moving into a really important part of modern Greek history, that building, and I feel like going in with a local like Gigi kind of helps with that. Yeah, but Gigi is a local? Yeah, that is what I am saying. Gigi is a proper local. Yeah, yeah, she is from Athens! That is where you found her? Yeah, I found her in Kerameikos, tied up outside The Breeder. Outside the gallery? Yeah, yeah, tied up outside for three days. I found her there and after three days no one had taken her so I had to take her in. I took her in firstly with the Breeder boys and we shared her a little bit. We had this shared agreement that was kind of like divorced parents. It was this weird alimony kind of thing. 105

Cool. I don’t know what else. I think maybe that’s enough. Yeah, I think you just want a bit of experience… I mean maybe we could talk a little bit more about that spirit story. I feel like there was this spirit that broke myself and Delia apart. It broke moments of the house apart. I mean there were moments of total randomness and things would go wrong a lot of the time within our personal lives and within our personal relationships. This was right at the beginning when we moved in, it was like the first 6 months, and we have been there 2 years now. I feel like it may have been the spirit coming to terms with these new people moving in. Oh, settling in a bit? Yeah, I feel like it might have been a settling in period, a home coming, or… A welcome. Yeah. Or what do you call it? Gazing? Fazing? What is it called when you start as a new kid and they beat you up and stuff?

It was weird stuff like the business wasn’t going well, money was going down the drain, like I lost two phones in two weeks. Then I would always fight with Delia about things and there would be these petty little arguments that would come up between us all the time and it just wasn’t the relationship we knew that we had. We had known each other before as well. And you were friends? Yeah, we were friends and we moved in to the house together as friends. I feel like maybe it was this kind of homecoming, this hazing, and also the spirits coming to terms with these new people living in the building. And I feel like now, when we see these spirits, I don’t know what Delia has said, but I feel there is a respectfulness. I don’t really have a problem with spirits as long as they are respectful.

Oh, umm… Hazing, like spirit hazing. I don’t know what it was but it feels like we came to a peace and settled it.

As long as you get along. Yeah, we get along, we say hi, and he brings me milk. As long as there is this respectful nature I don’t really see an issue with it. Everything has a history. I mean this building is coated in history, Mrs Eurydice would probably tell you that as well, and that’s going to happen, but it is strange. I was never religious or spiritual before. I was very much an atheist.

Were you ever spiritual before? Never. I was never ever spiritual at all. I never believed in it either until a series of unfortunate events happened and I couldn’t really…

Yeah, I am like that as well. I am cynical and pragmatic about everything. I was incredibly pragmatic! If it is not real, it can’t be real. I still am to some extent.

Not religious either? Not religious at all. And there was a series of really unfortunate events that happened in my personal life and in my relationship with Delia that couldn’t really be… it needs to be addressed. It really needs to be addressed.

But how do you explain something that is out of your grasp? That is a really good question. I am quite a “let it go” person. If it is going to happen, it is going to happen, and maybe…

It couldn’t be explained any other way? It really couldn’t be explained by anything else. 106

You don’t even try to explain it at all? No.

I know. Every Wednesday in Paris he does tarot readings.

It is what it is. I just live with it. I am very much a person that takes every day as it comes. Like if yesterday was a shit day, maybe today as well, then tomorrow I just need to wake up and start again. I don’t really believe in potions, spirits, and magic, stuff that maybe Delia believes in, but I have a lot of respect for people who do believe in that and I have worked with artists who do believe in that as well, but personally it is not me. A lot of artists channel their spirituality in their art as well. Yeah, that is really true. We worked on a show that was actually specifically all about that called “[esoterics] in the modern day”. I mean there is this post-truth theory that posttruth relates to [esoterics] as well, but maybe it doesn’t. I don’t know, I don’t feel that it is really true but I think some cultural practices are returning to [esoterics] – a dawn of weirdness, a dawn of how everything is uncertain. Jodorowksy was a great [esoteric], mystic guy. Of course he was, but I mean… He still is. Yeah, he still is.

A friend of mine has just travelled there to meet him for a reading. Really? Yeah, yeah, I think Delia has done it. Don’t hold me to that, but I think she might have done it with him as well. But I think there is an era of post-truth, of Trump, where everyone came from the era of Obama where everything was just about ok, just about fine… Now everything is broken. Yeah, now everything is a mess and no one knows what is going to come. I think people turn to these myths as kind of an older version of history or truth. You have been here three years. Do you think Greece is a place of spirituality? Totally. I mean I really appreciate as an artist that I have learnt a lot about the [Pythia] from an artist named Chrysanne Stathacos, who I think is really interesting. I have learnt a lot about Delphi. We did a show about this idea with Matilde Cerruti Quara. I can’t really go into more depth on that. I don’t know more on the subject so I am not really qualified to talk about this. Do you ever feel that this place at some point was inhabited by Gods? Yeah, totally. I mean a lot more than London is, put it that way. – Laughter –

Now he is reading cards, you know? 107

HUGO WHEELER â&#x20AC;&#x201C; HOT WHEELS PROJECTS

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C E D R I C

B A R D A W I L

Let’s start with how you moved to Greece. Sure, so I came here two and half years ago. The year before I’d graduated from Central St Martins doing a course in critical writing and critical theory, it’s called CCC – so I was in London, doing a few small jobs, van jobs, technician jobs, internships, that kind of thing. I decided that London wasn’t the place to move on and grow up: to start the next part of my life I thought it was time to leave. I managed to get a job at The Breeder gallery, so I came to Athens just before documenta and started working for them. It was amazing, I have so much respect for The Breeder – they really helped me find my feet, they introduced me to the scene here. I worked for them on and off for just under two years. After being here for six months I found this amazing apartment, actually Delia Gonzalez upstairs found it. At first, I thought to live in but thought it was too good to live in, so I ended up turning it into this project space. Then we started! The core of the programme is working a lot with the emerging, young Greek scene, which I thought was quite underrepresented in the market in Greece, and also working with international artists who had moved to Greece. I felt as though there wasn’t really anyone mixing them together. I started this with Julia Gardener, who was really important in starting the space, she had moved from London as well. Sounds like an exciting few years! Interesting point about mixing local and international artists. Moving onto Hot Wheels Projects, your space, programme and what you do. Well, most the exhibitions we do are publication based, usually an artist publication. An interesting example could be Valinia Svoronou who we did Art Athina with last year, she made a feminist sci-fi publication: “High Tide Planetary Pull”.

For our first participation of Art Athina, the starting point was to recreate one of the stills from the comic, where the main character, Merce is in a futuristic physiatrists office. We played on this idea in the fair, aiming to create a form of decompression zone as an art fair booth. In general, I’ve found events are a good way to build relationships with artists. We did an event with Jesper List Thomsen, “Speak Through You” in January 2018 and we just did another so, I would have done two events with Jesper before we do a solo show, which we’re planning next year. It’s a way of building and strengthening relationships and realizing how people work. It’s also really important to expand discourse and create a less stagnant programme, by mixing up different modes of artistic production. Has there been one particular show, where you thought: right, this is it, this is why I’m running Hot Wheels Projects. That’s a really good question. We did a really nice show with Vasilis Papageorgiou, in September of last year. He’s active within the emerging scene in Greece and also runs his own space here called Enterprise Projects. It brought in a lot of locals, because Vasilis is an Athenian through and through. We had a lot of interesting people from different scenes, it was good to expand our reach beyond the art scene. Also, there was good press: Flash Art wrote a nice piece on him, which was our first important feature. It was not exactly a review of the show: it was in their New Waves section and started from the show going into a more expansive piece on interesting emerging artists.

That’s a difficult thing to do. Art institutions in London try to do this with their concept of lates but 109

I feel these are designed for a different audience to the gallery or museum programme. From what I hear, the ICA was there in the 1980s: the place to discover new music, contemporary art, interdisciplinary performance, that’s not the case anymore. I feel it’s different in Athens, maybe because it’s much smaller. This reminds me of an interesting thing we did with a Polish-based DIY record label called Richard Harris, we turned this entire building into this enormous rave, a club scene for the night. That brought in a completely different crowd and was interesting to do. It was called “Roses”. How would you describe the contemporary art scene in Athens? On an international level people think it’s exciting, but I feel they don’t quite know what’s going on, as though there’s some myth. That’s what I’m trying to do with my programme, help an international audience see what’s really happening in Greece, I can’t do that alone but I want to add some clarity. Documenta two years ago must have helped get it on the map. Well documenta helped highlight the scene but at the time we were all wondering: what’s going to happen post-documenta? Did they take the right approach? There were fundamental issues of them using space that perhaps shouldn’t have been used to some extent, for example the Athens School of Fine Arts, which created a big upheaval – because they couldn’t have their degree show there that year. Oh wow! However, they did give quite a lot back, there were active studio visits and crits with artists from documenta coming to the school of fine arts. World class curators doing lectures, 110

giving symposiums, which was amazing! That is. Anything else to note? This was all quite a while ago now and I think it’s time to move the conversation on. Right, back to your programme: what’s the balance of local and international artists? So far it’s been a 60 - 40 mix of working with local artists - international artists. I find it’s really important to work with international artists as it can enhance local artists’ practice and help their work be seen abroad. The programme becomes more continental, the work is seen by a greater audience. So, in a sense you’re working with local artists first. Our approach has always been to work with local scene first, by local scene, it’s quite broad: I find it’s important to identify with people who have moved here, people who are actively working within the community.

So our first show was with Lukas Panek, a German artist who opened a project space here and involved himself in the scene. Another is Jesper List Thomsen who we spoke about earlier – he moved here at the same time. How do you see things moving forward? Well this brings me onto my next point about the gallery remodeling, we feel there’s a gap here for a young commercial gallery. The programme will start to represent artists, selling their work with hope to do international art fairs and bring these artists to these places. Our name will change from Hot Wheels Projects to H.W.P.

I get teargassed twice a week living here, there are riots and Molotovs thrown outside my front door. The riots are usually on Fridays and Saturdays, however once during an opening on a Thursday one kicked off, we had the windows open and all this teargas came in the building during the opening. That must have been a scene! Yeah, though you get used to it. Other spots: I like the bar MatchPoint, which is just around the corner. Also, Marni street with an Afghan and Syrian community, amazing food there.

Exciting! Why don’t we end with the bigger picture: life in Athens. I mean, my life is incredibly different to how it was in London. I picked up a stray dog, Gigi after being here for 2 months – she followed me, becoming the gallery dog and I could never actually leave this place because I love this dog so much. I’d probably have to work a 9 to 5 elsewhere, I work a lot longer than that now trying to set up this space but I don’t have an office job, I don’t have a commute - there’s a quality of life you can have here, a space to breathe that would be hard to find elsewhere. I have this beautiful apartment with 5m ceilings, neo classical features, it’s 160 square meters and it’s moderately cheap. Any local spots you’re into? I go to this nightclub every Saturday called Rebound, it’s been going since the 60s or 70s – there’s a man on the door who checks you out, sees if you’re cool enough to enter, and once you’re in they play this crazy new wave / goth music. It’s incredibly unique! Also, my neighborhood, I’m opposite the Polytechnic, this university / anarchist stronghold. 111

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D ELIA GON Z ALE Z

words by chris kontos 114

I think everyone that comes here comes with an idea that the weather is amazing all the time. Well that’s the funny thing, that’s why I came to Athens. Because it was winter, it was December 2016, and I had moved to New York for three years and I was just like, I couldn’t deal with being in New York, so I thought I’d move back to Germany. It’s so much easier being a mom in Germany than being a mom in the US. Especially in Berlin, where everyone has a stroller. And that’s amazing, because it’s the best place to live with kids, because all my friends have kids. So I was going to move to Berlin, and then a friend of mine was in Athens doing a project for Documenta and she said ‘Delia, no don’t go to Berlin, it’s too cold. Come to Athens, it’s going to be warmer and it’s going to be nicer.’ So that was it, the weather? Well, I was going to be in a show here in 2008, and I didn’t come because I was pregnant and I couldn’t come. Then when I was in New York I was teaching and I couldn’t work so I thought ok I’m just going to come to Athens and work on my film. Then I get here, and it was like the coldest winter. It snowed. And everyone was like ‘oh, it hasn’t snowed in like ten years…’ But now you’re here, so it might as well snow. At least in New York you have heat inside your apartment, but here you have no heat so it’s actually kind of worse. We have no heating. So how do you cope? I wear a fur coat. This really old 70s fur coat. It’s a bit classy to work in a fur coat in winter. Maybe. I don’t know. The weather is never right. Winter is miserable and summer is miserable because it’s too hot. It’s only right about 4 months of the year. You told me that you come from Miami so you’re

used to really good weather. Yeah the nice thing about Miami is that – I love it. Can we just do this all about weather? Cities and weather. I have a lot of cities on my phone with the weather. But with Miami, it rains every day in the summer, like thunderstorms, and then it’s dry again. It’s tropical. Have you been? No. The only thing I know about Miami is like Art Basel and Miami Vice. I was in Miami Vice. Really? I was an extra when I was a really young teenager. You can see me for like half a second. My next door neighbour was in a punk rock band and came over to borrow something and she said her band was playing in Miami Vice, did I want to be in it. Her name is Tanya Lasagne. How did you find this place in Athens? I got an apartment on Ipirou Street, and I had always seen it in the sun. Then the day it came to give a cash down payment for the apartment it was raining, and it looked horrible. And all of a sudden I looked inside the room and it was raining inside and there was mould. I called my Greek friend, I was talking about what’s going on, and she says she’ll come look at it the next day. So the next day, I’m crossing the road at Patission and there’s a huge “for rent” sign outside of this building. When I moved to Athens I was doing location scouting and knew that there was all these neoclassical buildings. But I didn’t want to live on Patission because it’s such a horrible street. Because of the violence? No I don’t care about the riots. It’s just sometimes it’s a bit depressing. It’s super transient. It’s not a neighbourhood here. And when you walk out of the door you’re on stage. You’re like on Broadway. 115

I can’t walk down the street with my curlers on or whatever. And then when you have the big riots in November and December, in the days before, the energy is so bad. It seeps into the building. Anyway, I thought let’s try it. My son said “mom don’t call the guy now it’s siesta time”. I called him anyway, and then he answered and hung up on me. Then my friend called in Greek and made an appointment for the next day. So we go to see it, and I started taking pictures of the apartment like crazy, and I don’t know why, but I started sending these pictures to Hugo.

We are still getting the magazines for the sex shop. That’s crazy, you could do a collection around that. I know, I know, and we throw them out all the time. But going back to Eurydice. So, her grandfather built this building. This room is where she used to do her homework when she was a child. She loves to talk to my son about this. So her grandfather built the building in 1903, and he was the person who did all the different stuccos for everyone in Athens. Cafe Mikel downstairs, you have all these different stucco designs.

You knew Hugo already? Yeah, because I was in a group show at the Breeder, and he was working at the Breeder. And then coincidentally right after that I had a sublet on Mavromichali and so did Hugo. So we just totally became friends. So I don’t know why it was this weird intuitive thing. Then we went upstairs and Katerina, my friend, said I’d be so stupid not to take the apartment. So I basically took it because of Katerina. But I knew Hugo wanted to open up the gallery, and this was the perfect place. Eurydice owns the building and she’s like this super eccentric woman, she’s gorgeous. She lives in Paris but she’s actually Hungarian, Jewish, Greek. And her grandfather – anyway, she used to be a curator at Centre Pompidou, and she taught at the Sorbonne. And she’s also a painter, a writer, a poet and also an amazing artist. She’s everything. She’s a diva, she’s always fantastically dressed. She has this reddish tinted hair. She wears red lipstick and she always has these big glasses, and she’s like super, super elegant. So her grandfather – wait, I don’t want to forget what I was going to tell you before. So, she basically rented the apartment to me and Hugo, she only rents to artists. She always wanted to open up a gallery. There was also a sex shop here on the ground floor.

In cafe Mikel? It was a showroom, but they’ve left all the samples on the ceiling.

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So they were all living here as a family? It was one big house. Here it looks like it was always the kitchen because of the big marble sink. I’m really curious about what year they turned it into the apartments. Because I think before they turned it into apartments it was an embassy. And then it was a sex shop. But when it was a sex shop… But the sex shop was only the ground floor? I don’t know. I think it might have been downstairs, but anyhow she had no idea that they were opening that up. But then she arrived and… but this building is crazy, so many people seemed to have lived here. There’s a plant shop in Exarchia [Kopria], and I bought some plants from there and they were delivering them at night. And the Vassilis, who owns the plant store, is like “oh, we used to live here”. With the guy with the wines? It was so random, but it was a super coincidence.

They told me that in my living room they had divided it into bedrooms. Also because there’s this other time – someone told me it was a magic building. Because the building is smaller than any other building on Patission, and there’s no number. And to this day when I look up to find my building, I always look at another one a few doors down to a building that has green shutters. I always miss my building. You can’t even see it. Because the kiosk is there as well. Do you like the big hotel on the corner? The old hotel that they renovated. Agropol? The one with the roof. It’s one of the most amazing buildings in Athens. It was one of the most prestigious hotels, more than the Grand Bretagne or anything. It was like a Belle Époque kind of vibe. It closed down more than 30 or 40 years ago. It looked really charming in a way, I was always taking pictures of it. Then they started renovations. It was like that for 5 or 6 years. Maybe they did a good job. I don’t know how it looked inside before, because everything was looted. When a building is out of use, people loot everything. It’s really Patission’s vibe. I’m always looking at that roof. They were going to try and do the Art Athina there I think. Hugo told me that he’s seen a ghost here. Yes, and my son has seen ghosts too. But the weird thing is though… I am the kind of person… I see ghosts. But I have had kind of series of really bad dreams at night, like nightmares. But do you get a good energy from this place? No, no, no. If I had a bad energy I could not be here. I know when I walk into an apartment whether I can live in a place. So I guess when you walked in

here you felt something right? Well, I was forced to take it. Laughs. But you know what, this is like my favourite apartment that I have ever lived in. You know in a time of Airbnb it’s a privilege to have a place like this. Because everyone is being moved out of their apartments because the people want to put it on Airbnb. But you have an owner who would never put this on Airbnb. The whole Airbnb thing is really weird to me. Well I guess some people make a lot of money from Airbnb. But they shouldn’t. But Airbnb’s are pretty cheap here – But all the apartments are Airbnb, so if you want to live permanently, you can’t. No, no, no. Exactly, exactly. That funny thing is happening. 117

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But the point is that the Airbnbers aren’t really making that much money. And then they’re kicking people out. It’s the same thing that happened in Berlin. There’s no middle ground really. It’s either people who buy a lot of buildings and get a shit ton of money from it or people trying to make a bit of money from it. But there’s no middle ground. When I first moved to Berlin in 2004 and I left in 2013… When I first moved you could get an apartment in a day. Then in 2012 I had to move out of my apartment in Berlin and find another one, and I couldn’t. There were no apartments in Berlin. Like in Neukölln, I remember seeing an apartment that was like a 15 minute walk from the U-Bahn and there were people waiting in line. Every German bought an apartment in Berlin. Everyone in Europe bought an apartment in Berlin. It’s different in Greece because it’s in an economic crisis. Still. But Berlin has always been bankrupt. It’s a bankrupt city. And now the same thing is happening here. It’s sad. It’s sad for everyone. It’s not sad for the people making money but they’re just greedy. I just don’t understand this greed. Every city I’ve ever moved to has been gentrified. When I was younger I never thought Athens would be gentrified, but it is now. And really violently I think. Because it got gentrified during the crisis. I think that is when it happens. I feel a bit guilty, because I’m a foreigner and I’m here. But also I’m an artist and artists have always moved to cheap cities throughout history. That’s how it works. It just happens that I was born at a time when the gentrifiers followed the artists around.

But you stayed here, you didn’t come and leave. And my son has Greek citizenship. But you like Athens? Yeah I came here just after Christmas. And for the first two weeks I thought “what am I doing here?” It was super cold. And I thought it was the ugliest place I’d been to in my life. Honestly? The drive from the airport – and I thought ‘what the fuck am I doing here? Why did I come here? Am I crazy?’ And then my first two weeks being here, I was exhausted. And I spent two weeks indoors reading books. But then some friends were in town, and we started going out. And I just fell in love with Athens. There was this one day when I went to Piraeus. That’s where I come from. It’s amazing. So we were in Piraeus and then we went to the beach and to the sea. It was an ugly patch of sea. We were hanging out looking at the water, and I had this super euphoric feeling. I felt that I can’t leave Athens. I have to stay here. And then I just kept getting shows here, and my visa was about to run out. You felt you had to be here? There was something about the minerals, the energy. Already the energy in Athens is so crazy and all over the place. Don’t you think it’s a little bit dark sometimes? It’s crazy, it’s so dark. I feel like the house is haunted, and it adapts to your mood and what’s going on outside. With the riots or the angry protestors, the house absorbs all this stuff. It’s recycling the energy. And I feel like that is the energy of Athens. It’s in total fluctuation at all times. For a while it was kind of like Athens was a bad lover. You know, you go somewhere, you meet someone.

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And you’re like, this is the best person in the world. I’m going to marry this person. But then 3 months go by and you feel like “who’s this stranger?” I got a five year residency to stay here, and I was living in Keramikos and I remember looking at the window and thinking “what am I doing here? What came over me?” But now, adapting to the energy, I feel ok with it. I’ve really been trying to figure out what is Athens? Why are Athenians the way they are? I think it’s the history. Yeah throughout history all of the scientists, all the doctors, all the philosophers – everyone had to leave. During all these times of crises, people would leave. 700, 800 hundred years ago, everyone left Greece. And now everyone has left again. It’s been going on for hundreds and hundreds of years. I went to the Onassis Library and they gave me this tour and this guy made this huge map of Greece. By the way, it’s raining again. His name was Rigas Velestinlis. Ah, that’s the one of the people that paved the way for Greek revolution. He was arrested and killed in 1978. Ah, you’re talking about the Karta. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, that’s what she was talking about. Like all throughout history, this thing had happened where everyone had left. For me I can really relate to this because my parents are from Cuba, and the same thing happened in Cuba. It’s just like, as soon as Castro came in, all the intellectuals, all the bourgeois. My dad was a military person so he left. I mean he got kicked out immediately. But this has been happening here also. Right, right, right. So when everyone leaves, how can you rebuild a country? When this

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woman showed me this map I’d been thinking about this stuff as well. I’ll tell you a secret about Greece. I think that Greeks have a lack of ambition about achieving things, in a way. Why? Maybe because of the weather. I’m sorry but as a Cuban I’m going to 100% disagree with you. I don’t know, I haven’t pinned it down. I’m just trying to find a reason. The reason I disagree with the weather is because Cubans are the best business people. And then they went to Miami and they built a whole entire city. So for me it can’t be the heat. Tell me what you think. Ok. For me, all the people that want to be successful cannot because there hasn’t been the opportunity here. A couple of things went wrong here. Ok, people aren’t going to like this… but, the Byzantine period, the art is awful. Orthodox Christianity really fucked everything up. I agree with that. Before you had… The other thing is, I’ve been thinking about the Gods and that. I had this experience last night, where I won something because I had a psychic revelation and got the answer. And I was saying this to a guy and he was like, “oh you believe in that stuff?” And I was like, “you don’t?” And then I asked the guy’s girlfriend, “come on you’ve had this psychic experience?” and she said “no, never”. I know that there was magic in Athens. There were spells in Ancient Greece. But all of that stuff got cut out. I think that the church has a lot to do with it.

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Doric means simple. Doric columns had nothing on them. And Greece is like Doric. And then there are all these feelings and energy that arise from that. But then, I feel like there’s a lack of spirituality because you have the evil eye and all these secret prayers. There’s this thing. But when you try to talk to Greeks about magic, I’ve not been able to find anything, annnyything. Enters Hugo to take his bin bags. Thinking about music. One thing I don’t know about you, did you start from the music or from art? Because I’ve listened to your music for years. And I played one of your tracks, from Black Leotard Front, at a party. But then I knew about your art. And I didn’t know what came first. I think it all kind of started, professionally, with me doing performance art. I was in a dance company. Everything started anyhow as a fluke. There is an artist who reminds me of you. She only did one thing in the early 80s – Justine and the Victorian Punks. You need to check her out. She was doing installations in windows in shops. She was part of a group of artists and they made only one single in the early 80s. It was a cover of an Italian song by Lucio Battisti, Ancora Tu. An amazing record, really amazing. There’s a famous saxophonist playing on that record, Peter Gordon….. he also records with DFA. So here while you’ve been in Athens you’ve been pretty much working on your artwork non-stop? Yeah, I do everything here. I made a film here. I’ve just recorded a record here, in my apartment. The latest one I’m going to record next week in New York. But um, I just recorded a record in my living room. I think Hugo told me that Dakis has bought some work from you?

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Yeah he bought some work of mine like 10 years ago, but I just met him recently. Dakis was sending me Instagram messages all the time, and he still sends me smileys on Instagram. Hugo was saying that you didn’t know I was living upstairs. I didn’t. I might stop the recording now. But the only thing we didn’t resolve is why Greeks leave… Oh I didn’t finish answering that! Um, honestly I feel I have to change the way I think to really figure it out. Because I feel like it’s the place that everyone stole from. Took a little bit and left. Yeah, exactly. Like the Italians came, and took a little bit. And then the Ottoman Empire. All these people coming here, and taking. So they would leave these people totally defenceless. And then all the people who wanted to be successful left. I think it might have something to do with the energy of the sea. Really? It’s too intense? Yeah, I think so. If you think about the Book of Revelation, that was in Patmos. As a child, I was so obsessed with this book. And how did an island induce such a crazy, psychedelic book, right? So there’s something. When I decided to stay here it was about the euphoric feeling I had. Do you know Xeno and Oaklander? They’re from New York but she’s from Norway. She’s married to the guy from the Tom Tom Club. They were touring and Liz told me that her husband is dying to move to Athens because he had the exact same thing. So you get this call from this Siren or something. That’s really what I feel happened to me. It’s a bit of fate? Maybe. Maybe it’s just coincidences. Coincidences are really supernatural.

It’s only people who are open to coincidences who experience the coincidences. I want to go back to one last thing. Because we tried to explain what’s going on here in Greece and we ended up talking about premonition, and then fate, and then coincidence. I think it really ties into the story. But before we end I want to say one more thing. Greece is the birthplace of the Gods. And this is what everyone forgets and puts it away to the side. But if you’re on a rock in the Aegean alone, you can talk with them. Honestly. You can feel them around you. They spoke to me in Piraeus. I know people will say I’m crazy for believing that. No, you’re not. I’m totally convinced that Christianity killed the Gods, but the Gods are still alive. That’s what I’m talking about. They do exist and they’re there. Everyone is forgetting. The Greeks don’t realise the strength that they have. They have the language. There’s something magic about the language. They amputated the Gods, but they are the Gods. All the men act like Zeus, and all the women act like Kira. Now turn off the tape recorder.

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Eurydice Trichon

BY HAYDEE TOUITOU

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« I

have curly hair and glasses

she said on the

phone to make sure we would find each other in the

Paris. I. » Indeed, it was easy to recognize one another as two curly-haired writers. Eurydice came bearing a gift, a short story she had published in 2008 called La Pietà. She tells me: café we planned on meeting one afternoon in

« So

answer was

the beginning

then

Greek,

was writing a lot in

French,

and

was being translated by someone else into my own language, which was a very bizarre

experience.

It’s funny you should mention that right away, I really wanted to ask you that question. How do you choose if you write in Greek or French?

Polytechnic School on Patision Street. This street starts from Central Athens, from Omonia Square, a very popular, essential square in Athens. My house is on 41 Patision Street and the Polytechnic School is on number 42. I can show you a few photographs. It is a rather small house, two stories high, that was built by my grand father. He was an exceptional man. Maybe the genius in the family. He was born in Northern Greece in 1858, which was still part of the Ottoman Empire. He then went on to study in what was called Constantinople at the time. His brother studied decoration, which was very important at the time. Around the same time, Athens was still under modern construction, and my grand father went there to continue his studies at

Polytechnic School. At the time, the Fine Arts He noticed a very small piece of land in front of the school, and because it didn’t cost much, he was able to buy it and build the house. the

section was part of it.

When I

Greek it went along with Returning as a concept. And

started writing in

a desire of returning.

also a publisher who wanted me to write a longer text. So, I went to Hydra which was my favorite island at the time and in fifteen days

wrote

Promenade Σόλωνος).

Solon Street (Περίπατος στην οδό Solon street is in Athens, and I would always found myself there, in the publishers neighborhood, with the bookstores… That is when I realized I needed to get back to my own language, because I felt too much like a francophone. Which I still do. When you have two languages it’s like having none. on

Isn’t

there something very liberating not to

write in your own language?

Very liberating indeed! But it is also false somehow. What I write in French or Greek are very different things. Poetry for instance, I enjoy rather writing poetry in French. I found myself in the rather strange position of asking you questions about a house in Athens I have never seen. Can you tell me in which neighborhood is it situated? The

house is right across the street from the

Is this house where you personally grew up? Not

at all!

was born in another house, build also

by my grand father. In a very pretty part of

Athens. This is where I lived until I was seventeen. Wait, let me find you the pictures I was telling you about. Here is the house! As you can see it is a small house, but it is rather deep. That is why it was so cheap to buy the land, since the facade wouldn’t be so important. There is some sort of coffee place, on the first floor Hugo’s gallery and then Delia on the top floor. I am so happy to have them. They are so charming. Really charming. Has the neighborhood changed a lot? Let me tell you the whole reason I decided to write about the house. Because I have a book about the house coming out. In Athens, there are a few free newspapers which are particularly interesting. At some point, one of those free press newspapers was called « Patission is alive » meaning Patission Street is alive. I felt a calling so I got in touch with them. I mean what a title! 125

Minas Milsanis, Eurydiceâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s grandfather surrounded by artisans

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I suggested to write the story of the house on Patission 41 over several episodes that would be published in the several issues of that newspaper. In the end, after he saw the result, they turned it down. Maybe he thought it was too literary, too close to literature. So he renounced it, but I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t. So

you kept on writing and those short stories

became the chapters of your book?

Yes

exactly.

thought the short story style would be

appropriate to tell the story of the house.

Some

texts

are rather compact, others very narrative and one is like an instant picture.

For instance, I tell the story of

how during the occupation, my dad was selling lemonade on a bench outside of the house. In

Athens, the famine One day someone walked in and asked my father for money. He said he used was terrible, and a lot of people died.

to be a photographer for a nightclub my father used to go to before the war.

Because he was what we called a The Greeks know how to have fun! He left his Leica as a guarantee and my father gave him the money. That is one the scenes of the book. play boy.

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All colored pencil on hot pressed paper. All 2019. All done specifically for the 10th Anniversary edition of Kennedy Magazine. 1. Tits & Beach in Greece 2. Donkey in Hydra 3. Woman in Greece 4. Greek Soldier 5. Socrates 6. Greek Man 7. Ouzo 128

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ELOIZIA

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Earrings, Top CĂŠline

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Earrings CĂŠline

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Dress CĂŠline

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Dress Issey Miyake, Earrings CĂŠline

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LA GLOIRE DE MON PÈRE BY ATHINA DELYANNIS

My father used to live a lot of lives. We were often losing his tracks as he was crossing from a dimension to another. My father used to leave a lot of traces behind him. Small pebbles to always find his way back home. To us. Scribbled words, numbers, names, recipes, lists of things to do, plans, lists, sketches and scribbles of any kind as blueprints or layered schemes. He would never forget birthdays and name days. I can still hear his voice echoing like a volcano from his home office where his daily routine was kicking off. “Hronia polla kai kala myala!”. He was one of these people who are at home everywhere. The kind that softly reach other people’s heart without giving too much of a try. I always envied him for that. Everything important in our lives was happening at table. The present and the past where crossing each other in a succession of meals. Every taste took us somewhere we once belonged. Cooking, eating, sharing, drinking, laughing through the other side of the night. My father had lot of notes on graph sheets of paper. He always wrote in capitals, in a kind of very structured way. The memory of him holding his long-lost Montblanc fountain pen faints along with his turquoise inked words. Still life but very alive recollection of his right hand grabbing the pen as I do now, between the middle and the index fingers while explaining to me the way he is going to build his next project.

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There was no kind of engineering that he could not ace. He could borrow his soul to any raw material in order to compose with its will and create life out of it. He could master all the elements but would only live in the wind. I see myself in summer as in winter trying to warm myself in the blue Mini Moke he bought himself. There were not enough scarves and pullovers in the world or in my mother’s bag to get the job done as the car was moving forward in storms and winds. Child visions. Apocalyptic child visions of impending death marked by the unleashed laughter of my father. The irresistible laughter of Gilles. My father had a lot of these little things that made life pretty more interesting than it already is. To put his socks on, which he wore upside down to avoid being disturbed by the seam, he used to perform a ritual following a very solemn ceremony of which he alone had the secret as he folded them in a way they were spreaded on his feet while pulled. An economy of gestures more complicated than anything else in the world. The child in him, the one that never left, was born in France from Greek parents from Anatolia and Mani. Their names were Panagiota and Plato. They should be written down so none of them cease to exist. My father grew up in Bourgogne. Black sheep of his hamlet where he used to mess around and play Cowboys and Indians. His love of the wild begun there, in the earthy paths of these lands. Treehouses, bows and arrows, endless fights with gipsy kids, disgusting raw cooked turkey smell on a stick haunting him forever. My father knew all the plants, their science and their secrets, their poisons and their remedies. He knew how to hunt and how to fish. He could kill and give life.

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Because the air he was breathing was from Mani, he taught me to love and respect arms. Never point, not even in children’s games. Mani. Our sacred land. As long as I remember, we used to visit every available tower house every year in our hometown, desperately trying to find the right place to unfold our vagabond roots. As long as I remember, my father always wanted to own a place there. Ironic, as he finally does now. I am sure he would laugh at this one. He had the most terrible black humor. I don’t know all his adventures since the wind and my mother were his only allies. Le vent et Joelle. Both of them never tried to hold him back when he opened his sails. My father had many roles in parallel universes. Commando soldier when he parachuted himself in Colmar’s main street and then spent some months in prison. Royalist when the ex-King of Greece used to send us family greetings cards every year. Compagnon du Devoir when he learned everything he did about cooking. Freemason, when his endless curiosity could not be shut down. My father’s heart was open to the world. He loved and he never felt sorry about it. He knew how to forgive but he could never forget. My father built lives in many places. Djibouti, where his brother Dimitri was stationed for the French army. Ibiza, reason why he kept the habit of getting his shirts cut and stitched by my mother in the summer so that the air could pass through. Africa, Venezuela, Lebanon, Syria… He knew how to speak six languages and his bursts of laughter full of joy could resonate infinitely in each one of them. And Mykonos. Mykonos, where he met my mother. Mykonos, where he decided she was the one. Where I learned to walk and lose myself in its tortuous streets where the finishing line always welcomes you with a blast of salty air.

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Mykonos before now. Before its foolishness, before Super Paradize. Mykonos, when Paranga was a desert where I was escaping from my parents’ sight to order as many orange juices I could drink. We will never return there as our island is forever gone.

My father was married twice, father four times before me. My mother inspired him to be the best version of himself. They never got married. Their pledge of love, a Lalaounis ring he wore on his little finger.

My father soon missed the country he had never truly known. My grandfather, after a short stay in Athens under the military junta, and being a witness to a murder, had never wanted to return to his homeland. Gilles, after having frequented the Parisian nights and having hit on the most beautiful girls of the city, moved to Belgium. In Brussel, he met his brotherin-arms Manolis Ambatzidis. Greek like him, they fought a merciless war to get the girls. When my father decided to leave Belgium for Greece, Manolis the philosopher from Thessaloniki ignites and joins the country.

After my birth, my father lost his best friend. He took the first plane back to Greece to honour Vasilis. While losing a friend, he was being offered the most precious family a man can have. Marios. My “Nonos” always singing courageous uncle, my godfather and his mother, Kyra Matina. The wisest and most hardworking grandmother earth could create. Gilles helped him keeping the family taverna. He, in his very own way, managed to get Mario to work again after his brother’s loss. The taverna still exists in Kifissia. To Koutouki tou Kanousi serves the best osobouko as it is still my father’s recipe. It serves the best Retsina as it still holds Mario’s tears.

I see pictures with people I don’t know. Some of them I know where famous back then. Places that don’t exist anymore. I often wonder what happens to these souls when these places cease to exist. What happens to the cities we once loved and felt connected to. I often wonder if our younger selves stand still, like wandering particles in many different realities.

My father was many things and mostly creative. He could smoke salmon, which he did after building his own smoker, he could make sausages, carve vegetables, sculpt rock, wood, sugar, ice and create so many things. My father never stopped working and learning. This was the way he knew how to communicate his love and offer his time. I grew up with many brothers and in exchange for their help and hard work, my father was offering his knowledge, experience, a bed to sleep, food to eat and his daily temper.

In Mykonos, my father opened the first French Croissanterie in Greece. Manolis settled in Rhodes and opened Xenomania, a tavern on the hills of Lindos. A whimsical place that welcomed the Pink Floyds, Vivienne Westwood, a collection of old Volvos and Manolis, riding his horses naked. He too belonged to the wind. You could hear my father from far away. His keys were ringing at his waist. Fashionwise, he was going through different phases, but I still see him lacing his white boxing boots. White. He was almost always dressed in white when he was not wearing his favorite birth suit. Freedom in the gestures. White. His matte skin of a metic came out all the more. 152

Gilles was a descendant of Mavromichalis warriors. Fallen prince, he had built himself a life of adventures. We have always lived well beyond our means because the essential was in the present moment. Dad always carried a knife on him. My children’s games were huts, endless sessions of archery, knife throwing. My favorite birthday gift: a crossbow. At Iasona’s baptism, he shot himself in the finger. He didn’t want to go to the hospital as he was having too much fun. My father was not a tender one.

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He did not fall into sentimentalism because revealing himself was too painful for him. When he was about to get angry, he rubbed his thumb with his index finger and middle finger to tell me that his hand was itching and that it was about to take off. I watched my steps. He had this aura of innate authority in him without too much effort. I have never been punished. His voice was enough of a warning. It’s been almost 10 years since he is gone. I say gone because I cannot imagine that death could have grasped him. See, he truly lived in the wind. I know that his love of life, of women, of good food and good wine, brought him in exotic destinations where he is having a good time. Away from the shelter of the present world, of that time to which his kind no longer belong anymore. My father has played us and from time to time he arises in dreams to tell us to keep his secrets. In Agapi’s dream, he trusted her not to reveal his exact location. And I think I saw him in Tokyo some weeks ago between Shibuya and Nakameguro stations, but I didn’t want to annoy him as he was kept by his thoughts behind his round glasses. I recognized him immediately as the wind was playing with his hair in the enclosed wagon. My father. I will try to content myself meeting him underwater since I belong to the sea. I see you every summer when I dive to fish ursins. Every year, I go deeper. Every year, I buy another plyer since I don’t take enough care of it as you once showed me and they all rust. I see you in the Greek deep, where you taught me how to plunge and hold my breath. In the Greek deep, where you taught me how to empty my lungs and let myself sink into the bottom of the sea. Down there, where the thoughts are clear and reality makes everything possible, I look at the earth upside down. You are smiling to me behind your diving mask. Small bubbles find their way somehow around your face. Signing the divers’ ok sign with your fingers as I still have this knife you gave me. I take it with me every summer. Around my thigh I attach it. Around the other one, the net lets out black tips that scratch my skin me as they live their last moments. August on the wane destroys and burns everything in its path. Soon, September will give birth again. Nothing can happen to me as I keep you in there forever. You and the wind.

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Αθηνα

by India

Doyle

The Athenians in Athens watch. Life is designed around it. The creation of the modern city makes it so. Balconies stacked on balconies make way for a multitude of strange lives observed. You watch the neighbours watch TV in the dark, as the glare of the screen shines through un-shuttered living room. You watch the woman, dressed in a peach nightgown, take laps on a plant-less fifth floor terrace during winter. You watch her daughter sweep her terrace, still plant-less after Easter. Downstairs, you watch the cats by the bins. You watch them watching you. You watch the fruit appear in the laiki, and the courgette flowers vibrating in piles. You watch the men in cafes in starched shirts and aviators, chairs turned out to face the street. You watch them flipping komboloi. You watch them smoking cigarettes. And you get a coffee, and you watch some more. By my logic if you are to make like the locals do, you shouldn’t walk in Athens at all. You should sit. And slowly you’ll feel it’s unsettled, disruptive, odd rhythm reveal itself, and maybe, if you’re lucky, you’ll get it. Left open, the unguided eye is rarely disappointed. Athens is a city that demands to be looked at, to be studied. And people duly come. History is here.

Photos by Chris Kontos

History is sprouting through the marble roads of olive boards and evil eye bracelets, history is excavated, history is in glass cages. History is on the hill. The spirit of ancient Athens has long sunk under fedoras and sunburn, but the power of the place remains, ungraspable and everywhere. Perhaps this is why people have always tried to leave their mark on Athens. Even when Ancient Athens was just Athens, the city was racked by the desire to claim her, to own her. Pericles died before losing her to the Spartans, but the invasion impulse is reincarnated in the contemporary age, lighter on the armies and naval fleets. People don’t just take pictures, they write on her, they paint on her, they open restaurants and bars. Those who stay here make a life, and those passing through make a memory. None capture the hopelessness of trying to imaginatively own Athens as powerfully as Byron. Having audaciously etched his name at Poseidon’s temple, the romantic Brit found he could only conclude: ’Athens holds my heart and soul: Can I cease to love thee? No !’. Today more than ever, people still like to mould Athens to their will. They look, they like. It is hard to shape something though, that is always on the move. Change creates new aesthetics, and some transitions are more obvious than others.

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The wave of urbanisation post 1950s saw the city’s population almost double within 30 years. And the rippling chalky beach of polykatoikias that stretch up the hills and down to the Aegean are testament to the aesthetics of rapid reaction. Now, speed is directing the city to change its image again. And while you have a city built on the intricacies of observation, on hidden secrets, on whispers that lead to discoveries, there is a tidal force that is pushing from the other direction. For all it’s good, the Instagram age has created an aesthetic expectation that is borderless. Globalisation has brought with it a standardisation, and in an era where people travel more than ever before, it seems that they are often on the look out for the same thing – discovery must feel safe, picturesque and composed. The desire for ‘local’ and for ‘authenticity’ served within the borders of a tiny frame. The demand for the perfectly composed threatens to override the ancient city, filtering over the nuances of the landscape which make the city what it is. Can you ask for a city to be left alone? No. Like an organism a city needs to be lived in, to be nurtured in order to grow. But tourism and the demands it puts on this place can often feel dictatorial rather than a conversation. In Outline, set in Athens, the author Rachel Cusk notes “the pretence of desire, wherein someone feigned the need to possess her wholly when in fact what he wanted was to use her temporarily.” Athens is rippling and ephemeral, it can never be possessed. Rather than catering for the transient, temporary use, the city forges an identity on its own enigma. Athenians are paving the way. Offering the unknown, the great discovery. (Take that, Byron.) 158

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I’m one of those people that hates art openings but Radio Athènes is a visual culture space that has managed to get me out of my flat on many occasions on a Thursday evening to catch one of its shows over a glass of wine and mingling in (as far as my social awkwardness allows me) with the young art crowds of Athens. I met with its charismatic director Helena Papadopoulos and her partner and founder Ion Constas who live just above the project space in a typical Athenian 1920’s apartment, to discuss over a cup of tea the importance of leisure, summer plans and the future of Athens.

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Christos Kontos: So let’s talk about recreation! Helena Papadopoulos: Recreation. Great! CK: Tell me, what’s your view on recreation? Because I’ve been looking for that in people and I feel they don’t engage in much recreational activity... I personally like it. How do you define recreation? HP: It’s impossible… well, first of all it’s an everyday thing. Ion Constas: Recreation is when... CK: Okay, so first of all, I used quite an old-fashioned term, [just for emphasis] to make conversation. IC: No, that’s a good word though, really good. Recreation is… happens… exists... it’s accomplished when, during our presence in a non-artificial / non-technological environment, some preferably pleasant, successful, and satisfying [activity] takes place. CK: So it has to do with the creation then, let’s say. HP: Yes. IC: Absolutely. And if the conditions are also... not just creation theoretically, but also visually, practically, specifically aligned with some work that keeps moving on, that is what makes it become even better. CK: In your case you travel constantly. Is there always a purpose to your trips? IC: Pretty much always. Yes, it’s always about something. CK: Even your recent trip to Achladi? IC: To Achladi! No, you caught us in the act there, but then again we did have a purpose in a way, we wanted to visit some friends who live in the countryside and have... CK: How is the village of Achladi? Is it nice? IC: It’s not that great really. Nonetheless, it’s just like those typical Greek… HP: It’s a provincial town. It is close to Pelasgia. CK: Anyway, it’s on the beach of Phthiotida. Close to Stylida. IC: Exactly, right after Stylida. It’s not very nice there, you know, but it’s okay. HP: We also went to visit some other friends whose house is on a 200 acres property in Pelasgia, and they really work on it, they’re amazing. CK: Agriculturally you mean? HP: Agriculturally, yes. CK: So they have their own produce? 162

HP: Yes. CK: And did they give you anything? HP: Olive oil. IC: It’s a small production, nothing big, but it’s totally organic, so, you know... CK: Oh nice! HP: Olive oil and bitter orange jam. CK: Nice. Was the oil good? HP: We haven’t tried it yet, as we are still going through another bottle given to us by one of my mom’s girlfriends. CK: Where is that bottle from? HP: I don’t know. IC: That’s a good question, we don’t know but it’s really tasty. HP: It’s amazing. IC: We can get you some to try. CK: When you go to Andros though you relax, you don’t have any work to do or anything? HP: No, actually every day we work on something. IC: On the contrary. CK: When you are in Andros? HP: It’s the perfect setting. IC: That’s why it’s absolutely essential that we have... CK: Internet connection. IC: Yes, and a fast one at that. If something is wrong with that connection, we don’t go, no way, absolutely not. She knows because sometimes something does happen. HP: In any case it’s not good, I think it’s important to have... to say I’m off for a week. CK: Okay, yes, both negative and positive. Entirely «off». How about you Ion? Can you do that? Can you «switch off»? IC: Yes, but not for long. HP: But you know what I think? That every day needs to be pleasant, so in that sense... CK: For me, it’s become sort of a disease you see. That’s why I’m asking you to tell me how you feel about this. I mean, I feel like if I don’t succeed in reaching a creative goal that I’ve set every two days, something is not right. HP: Yes, of course. CK: Is that not a bit OCD though? I mean I feel like I constantly have to... HP: Be doing something. CK: Yes, something new.

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HP: Or that your current project hasn’t developed enough. IC: Or how specific this goal really is? Or perhaps that I will cook this dish, the recipe I had as a target. If this is part of the goal, it is more open, it is not so... do you understand what I mean? CK: Yes, yes, I understand. HP: Or are you talking about projects only? CK: For me, if I don’t constantly set new goals I feel inadequate, so to say, I feel that something is wrong. HP: Yes, well I think that may have to do with the nature of our work, which is quite open in a way. I mean it’s not like you have to go to a certain place every day to do... CK: I don’t know, it’s not something we’ve talked about, ever. How about you, besides Radio Athènes, what other activities are you currently involved with? HP: In my case, it’s always around art, texts, editing, reviews, curating. CK: So you keep doing what you’ve always been doing, on top of this? HP: Exactly. CK: What about you Ion? IC: Well my main job for a long time now has been to run a representation office for products in the ferrous and non-ferrous metals industries. CK: Okay, this is irrelevant to our conversation but I never knew that. IC: That is my real job. CK: What I would like to know is how you ended up in Athens? Because I know you’ve been traveling for years to different cities, which we’ll talk about later. HP: That’s a very good question. CK: This is one of the most important questions I’ve been meaning to ask you. IC: Helena will answer this. HP: Look, I’ll tell you. I remember that ever since I was little I always wanted to leave Athens because I really wanted to see new things and be in different places. CK: You felt that it was a place that had nothing more to offer you, in other words, a place that had a beginning and an end. a somewhat small city, so you had to explore other places? 164

HP: Yes, and especially for what I do I think it’s necessary to travel and see things and hear things, but I remember at some point, when was that? In 2010? 2011? I am not sure. I was going to L.A. and I was on the airplane, and I really like being in the US, New York and L.A., but there was a tiny little voice inside me that was telling me “I want to go home”. It was very strange. CK: Where were you living then? HP: I was living in Berlin, so maybe Berlin made me want to return to Athens. CK: But why? HP: When I first went to Berlin as a visitor, it gave me the impression that it is a very open place, that it is international, but when you live there you understand it is actually very closed and not at all international. CK: But instead, very «German»? HP: Very German, yes, which has a lot of advantages but also some disadvantages. It also has something heavy, you know, it has a heavy energy, which is exactly the opposite of what you feel in New York. I don’t know whether it has anything to do with the architecture or its history that sucks all that energy from you? There is so much history there. CK: It has a heavy atmosphere, yes. HP: And so Ion started coming to Athens more often for work, it was necessary for him to be here, and I too started coming again, gradually, and the climate suddenly seemed amazing to me, whereas when you live here you kind of get used to it, it doesn’t feel as special. CK: Yes, but when you are coming from somewhere else... HP: And then I started doing some projects and it just happened in the most ideal kind of way, very organically I mean. It was like having completed a cycle. CK: How many years did that cycle abroad last? HP: When I finished school I went to London to study for several years, then I came back here and I was an independent curator. I wrote a lot, as an art critic. Then there was a period when I was going back and forth to New York – 3 months there, 2 months in Athens. CK: So there was a lot of back and forth during the New York period then? HP: Yes, and then Ion was here in the meantime. CK: How did that contrast work back then?

HP: I liked that very much. Also, this was one of the reasons why I never lost touch with what was happening here, I always knew what was going on. And then Ion came to New York so we lived there for 3 years. CK: Where did you live in New York? HP: In the beginning we lived on 80 Greene Street in SoHo because we found a loft through a friend who was showing with Postmasters Gallery that was on the 1st floor- at the time most of the galleries were there, but gradually they relocated to Chelsea. The first three to set up shop there were Matthew Marks, Pat Hearn and, I don’t remember the other one, Paul Morris I think? As SoHo became increasingly touristic, all the boutiques came round and... CK: And where did the galleries go? HP: The galleries all left-gradually, they went to Chelsea, but then on our street there was 303, David Zwirner, Barbara Gladstone, a bit further down Paula Cooper, American Fine Arts… CK: Everything! HP: We were just there. CK: In the centre. So it was also very exciting to live there. HP: It was an amazing period, simply amazing. CK: What year was that? HP: It was from 1993, when I started going back and forth, to 1999, when we decided to stay there more permanently, and then until 2003 I think, when we left for good and moved to Berlin. CK: Did you change neighbourhood along with the galleries? HP: Of course, because Helmut Lang came to our building at some point and turned the ground floor into his flagship store and then he took the space that was on the first floor, where Postmasters gallery was and turned it into their office. And after three years, after all that had happened, our own landlord said “guys, I’m going to double your rent!” You know… in like a week! CK: After all the success in the neighbourhood. HP: As you understand that was very hard and we left. Meanwhile, we had rented a studio space at that time in Chinatown because, okay, we had the place on Greene Street, which was also a loft, but we wanted a space only for work. So we ended up moving there, which was difficult because it was a former sweatshop.

We had of course renovated it and everything, but it had no view and there were still other sweatshops around. It was not an ideal place for one to sleep in. CK: Yes, yes. HP: We lived there for 1 year, which was supposed to be an interim phase, then we moved to a very strange but beautiful house on a very nice street, on Bleecker, but on the east side, Bleecker and Elizabeth Street. We were still in the heart of everything, but it was much nicer and relieving and simply amazing. CK: Weird but nice. HP: And Chinatown, at the time we were there, no one really lived there, I mean the Lower East Side hadn’t yet started to become... CK: Hip and crazy like now. HP: There was a bar, the Good World Bar, where we went. We also had two dogs at the time, so it was the only place that let us take the dogs. This and La Poème which was another incredible restaurant owned by a French lady, Agathe Snow’s mom. CK: Ok, Agathe Snow. HP: They also let us take the dogs there. CK: Those places were places where you could find people like yourselves, where you could meet up with likeminded people, to sync. HP: Yes, yes, they were very nice places. IC: Which was a big deal for people with dogs back then in New York. Regulations were very strict in most restaurants. HP: Now, it’s become a little stiff... And then there was nothing, we were living in a building that looked terrible, didn’t it? A former sweatshop. We were on the second floor, there was us, a photographer, ASFOUR, don’t know if you’ve heard about these designers ? CK: No, but they were creative people. HP: Yes, yes, and a stylist. Basically we were the only ones living on that block, it was mostly Chinese shops and sweatshops and Latino delis. It was a great experience, very creative, and I remember it as one of the best times of my life. CK: Helena, you mentioned earlier the increase in your rent in SoHo. This is something that is happening in Athens at the moment, where we both now reside, it took several years but it’s happening. 165

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How do you see this with regards to the city you are currently in? HP: I find it tragic, obviously, because as you know, and as those who read the papers and talk to their friends also know, this happened mainly because large companies have been buying buildings. CK: Hedge funds. HP: Yes, and they turn them into apartments either to be sold to the Chinese so they can get a visa or so they can become Airbnbs. CK: Isn’t Airbnb involved as well? HP: Of course, I think it’s a combination of the two. CK: As permanent residents of Athens, how do you think this should be regulated? HP: It should be controlled. I understand there are those on the other hand who have suffered all these years and may have a small apartment and say “ok, this is now a way for me to have some income”. You can’t tell them “no, don’t do it”, especially when in some cases it’s their only way to survive, but when there are companies or investors that have 15 such apartments there should be some form of control. The whole idea of Airbnb is based on this alternative sharing economy, otherwise these Airbnbs would fall under the hotel regime and they’d have to pay the respective taxes etc. and it wouldn’t work like that, no one would have the incentive to do it, so it’s really a matter for the State. CK: Isn’t it interesting how all these alternative platforms like Airbnb and Uber have ended up being giants of capitalism? HP: Absolutely, yes. CK: What is your comment on this? HP: My comment is that in the end, there is no, it’s like we say, no way out, that capitalism has this... CK: It transforms everything. Don’t we also work in a way thinking that we are doing something that can often oppose many aspects of our times or parts of the times that have to do with the economy, with capitalism… but we too are somehow part of this. It’s the same with them in a way, they too probably started a business based on some ideals that ended up being one of the largest companies in the world. HP: No, I don’t agree with this because then it’s like saying that everything falls under the same category and that’s not true. I think with what we do at least, if I can say that, by “we”

I mean what you’re doing, this project… CK: Yes, I meant in terms of creation. HP: I think it is very different, and the fact that we continue doing something without being interested in getting the largest possible audience, or compromise our work by making it digestible this is somehow against the grain. CK: Yes, it is. I wanted to bring you to a point where you would say this because I totally agree. I just started out with an opposing argument to see how we could support this as an opinion. HP: Yes, and it has to do with many things. I mean because there is also a misunderstanding, a misconception regarding political positions. The fact that art may be of interest to you is considered elitist by many, so it enters into this... CK: That it’s a luxury. HP: That it’s a luxury so... IC: [It’s addressed] to a very specific and elite audience. CK: Is your radio audience, or the one reading Kennedy, or those going to an exhibition really the «Elite» in the end? HP: I don’t know what this word means. CK: Because I can’t even define what elite is in order to answer that. HP: Exactly, this is the first question. If you want to say that people who are open and interested in aesthetic ideas, philosophical ideas are, say, the elite… IC: So be... HP: So be... CK: So be it. HP: So be it, and of course in the world of magazines, art, fashion, and music, there are again those institutions that are primarily interested to appeal to a mass audience. CK: Mainstream. HP: Mainstream. CK: Doesn’t everyone want to cross over to mainstream at some point or another? That is, I often feel that companies that have started with very pure motivations... HP: Such as? CK: Or even artists and clothing companies that are in a way more independent, have ended up... HP: Unfortunately, those who try not to be mainstream close down. CK: Magazines especially, quite often. IC: This is a very interesting point. 167

We recently invited a publisher to make a presentation, he runs a relatively small publishing house. CK: Was it Fitzcarraldo? HP: Fitzcarraldo yes. IC: It’s a small publishing house and very much focused on new writers. Jacques Testard, the publisher, at some point said “I do not want my books to be in just in galleries and museums anymore, I want them to go mainstream, I want them to be everywhere!” CK: What Ion says makes sense. HP: Look, mainstream in the case of books is totally different. CK: It’s not really mainstream. HP: Of course he wants to be mainstream, and of course Kennedy also wants to be mainstream. IC: With a sense of humour... HP: With a sense of humour, yes, because when you see his books you will understand that he too holds a very specific stance, he is addressing an audience that will understand and appreciate... CK: From the cover to the contents. HP: Exactly, because what other publishers do is put something on the cover that will be either provocative or very appealing, while Fitzcarraldo opts for a classic, quiet approach. Perhaps it would be good if mainstream publishers could follow this idea. CK: To appreciate this. However, what Ion said earlier was funny because on the first issue of Kennedy we had an interview with Whit Stillman, a well known, independent director, who told me in the interview that yes, everything we were doing was fine, but he would like more people to see it and he would like to make more money out of what he did. HP: We all want this, but the thing is that he does not change his writing in order to achieve that. CK: No, no, he doesn’t want to compromise, but he’d still like to get a piece of the pie. That’s what I wanted to say, just like our publisher said... IC: The thing is always this... HP: To do it without... CK: What are you willing to give up in order to be able to get that piece? That’s the real question. A lot of times, if you are not willing to give up anything then it’s not possible, you can’t… HP: Or you can... 168

CK: I always thought the secret is to have another profession and combine that with something more creative, so you don’t have to stress over making a living from your creative identity. I don’t know how you see this as an opinion, but I always thought it was the key to success, a small compromise. HP: If you can do it, I don’t know, I think it’s quite difficult. CK: Well for you at least it’s true. HP: Yes. CK: For me too it is somewhat true, because I don’t make money from the magazine, otherwise I’d probably also not be able to do it. HP: Yes, but you, in your job... IC: It’s just that, your job. CK: Yes, it also happens to be a creative job. IC: Creative and very much related to the arts, while mine is totally different. HP: But still, with what you do, I presume, I guess, all the editorials and your work for fashion magazines, you don’t just try to do something that will be likeable and stop yourself from doing what you want. It’s hard to run away from yourself. CK: Yes, yes, something easy to digest. That’s true. Just now when we were talking about Athens and New York, I actually think the city that’s taken the lead in this whole real estate situation is London, a city I I’ve lived in. HP: Yes. CK: London has become a city with empty buildings in its centre and beyond the centre. Empty buildings, huge buildings with luxurious apartments, which are waiting for someone to live in them, when in fact no one ever will. Someone told me that London is turning into a vacant city and on some level I think he is absolutely right. Just now, we were also talking about rents in Athens being doubled while many Chinese investors are buying out entire areas. Do you believe that Athens could have the future of a big city like London or New York and become a city that will have no inhabitants? Where there will be no creative web, it won’t have anything because everything will be sold out? HP: I don’t know. However, now that you said that about London, the situation I think is... how should I put it? It’s tragic. When you see the same coffeeshop in every neighborhood, I mean everything has become so corporate. CK: Yes, and that’s everywhere. HP: The city is getting uglier.

In the end it becomes boring. Here, the landscape is still very different, I don’t think we can ever compare Athens to those metropoles. CK: Do you think that would never work? HP: Athens is too different to New York or London. If we could liken it to something it would be a city in Spain or Portugal because... CK: We’re closer? A bit smaller even. HP: Yes, and there’s also a completely different lifestyle here. Unless the whole city centre becomes one big hotel… CK: Which is indeed... HP: Happening. Athens is full of restaurants and bars that are made to last a maximum of 2 – 3 years. CK: To be fair, there are some good places opening up too. HP: Yes, definitely. CK: As city centre residents, like me, how do you see this whole transformation? HP: It is not pleasant for us at all, because just a few years ago the street looked entirely different. Radio Athènes had different kinds of neighbours. There was Heteroclito and us and there was a great balance, a great axis. Now others have come. CK: The axis has shifted. HP: Yes. CK: Some aliens have intruded. HP: Exactly, and there are too many people you know especially mass tourism. IC: The problem is always the same. As you said so yourself earlier, I mean okay, there’s been some movement which helps the economy and a lot of people are getting jobs and everything, no doubt about that, but the problem is that there is always this hysterical need to make more and more profit, there is no limit. Not one restaurant, but 30 restaurants. The same thing happened in Gazi, as it did in Psirri, which were both amazing districts. CK: Now it’s happening in the centre area too, it’s the city centre’s turn. HP: If there is no planning... IC: At this point, what the authorities do is crucial because otherwise the situation will become uncontrollable. HP: Yes, of course. CK: Yes, but the authorities are focused on “growth above all”,

so they will give hundreds of licenses. HP: That’s the problem. IC: That’s exactly what it is. And in the end what happens? Whole neighbourhoods are transformed, destroyed. HP: Would you like a strawberry from the organic shop in our neighbourhood? See, for example, when that organic shop opened I was so glad and I’m always happy to go there. CK: Are you talking about 4 Seasons? Where you met my wife yesterday? HP: Yes. I mean there are places that are really nice. CK: I think there are both good and bad things opening. IC: For sure. HP: Yes, yes. CK: And I think those of us living in the centre are quite privileged. HP: I like the centre, and that’s why I get nervous when I see things happening that destroy the existing beauty, especially when I know there could be a balance. CK: Won’t that all be filtered over time though? HP: Laissez-faire you mean? IC: Yes. HP: I don’t think so. IC: We’ve all seen what laissez-faire leads to. It’s exactly what’s been going on here. HP: Things won’t work out on their own. IC: It’s “casino capitalism” guys. Well you know how this usually ends... CK: I was reading in the news today that our government has now put in effect a revised Shoreline Use Law, whereby everyone will have the right to do whatever they want on the beaches. IC: Wow. CK: How do you see this? Not as Greeks, but more from the perspective of residents of Greece. HP: How should we see it? When the islands we loved as kids are now being spoiled. Every year the situation gets worse. I mean, take Mykonos for example, which you have to admit is a unique place in terms of energy and beauty. How can they go and put beach beds in Panormos, a Natura protected area, all the way to the water? 169

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The municipality prosecutes them one day and the beds get put back out again the next morning. I mean the level of corruption. IC: It’s not only the beds, it’s whole constructions too. HP: Constructions on water even. CK: Hasn’t Andros maintained a better standard as an island on matters like these? HP: Yes, because it’s very inhospitable. IC: And so it’s been saved. CK: How have the people managed to... I mean, let me just ask this, why Andros? Isn’t it because of how people are in Andros? IC: Yes, because they are bad-tempered and grumpy. CK: How have they managed to oppose though? HP: No, there’s been some “development” there too, like in Piso Gialia, which was a fantastic beach that has become cramped with unsightly beach beds again. They’ve turned the beach into a big bar. Who wants to listen to loud music at the beach? CK: What do you think, Ion? IC: Even Andros, an island that is not susceptible to the damage seen in Mykonos… CK: [Those levels of ] tourists. IC: It is not as touristic, but even this island has suffered terrible damage as a result of uncontrolled touristic activity, and by that I don’t mean the touristic activity of foreigners or Greeks. HP: Yes, of course. IC: And it’s just a big island, there’s a lot of space and people are just scattered throughout. It’s not like Mykonos where everyone seems to be on top of each other. HP: You’ve done this story about Andros so you know it well. CK: Yes, yes. I’ve been there twice on a photography project. HP: That’s great, you should come sometime. CK: I would like it very much. HP: Let’s set it up. IC: But you know, Hydra is in fact the only place that has some better form of infrastructure. CK: Because the regulations there are really strict. HP: Couldn’t the rest of the country be like that? The islands? IC: It could be like that anywhere. CK: You have a special relationship with Hydra don’t you? HP: Yes, we’ve been going there for many years. IC: It’s an example of what can be done if there are rules.

CK: Hydra, in general, is not one of those islands that... someone who’s not from Greece would be totally fascinated by it, perhaps more than by any other place, because there is, in my opinion, a strong Greek element to it that you don’t find elsewhere. HP: Yes. CK: What is this Greek element for you? I mean what is it about a place like Hydra that makes it so appealing to people? Is it the beautiful houses? HP: The beautiful houses are definitely one of the main reasons, especially since in many islands they’re being demolished. CK: Isn’t it history as well? I mean it’s a place where Craxton could have been painting something or Cohen could have been making music. it’s a place that has been an attraction pole [especially in terms of artistic creation]. HP: More international you mean. Okay, I think you can find this in other islands too, it’s just that Hydra has been preserved as it was. IC: And it’s also its size. HP: Its size, yes. IC: Very contained. CK: The fact that it has no cars. HP: It has no cars, no bicycles, no motorbikes. IC: No apartment buildings either. I mean how many islands are there with no apartment buildings at all? CK: Shall we talk about apartment blocks a bit? IC: Yes. CK: How do you feel about the apartment blocks in Athens? HP: Look, I’m not one of those people who say “ok, we should embrace this kind of architecture”. Unfortunately, every time I see them, even though I should have gotten used to them by now, it’s always like a stabbing in my heart. CK: But could Athens be different? HP: Of course it could be different. We have seen pictures of the past, I mean they have demolished all those gorgeous buildings. How were the people of the past making... CK: But isn’t that an essential part of the city’s image? HP: Yes, of course, of anarchy too, and the fact that, when was this? In the 60s? CK: Antiparochi! [Selling building rights to constructors in exchange for apartments]. 171

HP: Yes, all those laws that have always been passed or modified to suit the voters’ needs. A well-known fact. IC: A few days ago, we were going somewhere, I can’t remember where, and at some point my attention was caught by this horrendous building. It was honestly the epitome of… the absolute lack of form, of planning or structure. It’s as if the contractor had no clue what to do with that building whatsoever. It was this square thing, the most basic type, with a balcony just glued on it. What were they thinking?! HP: I see there are different artists coming to Athens... CK: Yes, that’s interesting. What’s [their] opinion on this? HP: To live here... CK: What do all these people say about this? HP: And they see some of those buildings or floors that to me look... CK: Do you mean the mosaic tile terrazzo floors? HP: No, not those classic ones with mosaics. I was referring to the black marble type from the 70s. CK: Those are horrendous. HP: Yes, and they get all excited and say “I went to this apartment and the whole flooring was marble!” CK: So they think of it as exotic. IC: Marble floors! CK: So, okay, someone who is not from here may see it from a completely different perspective. IC: They sure do, absolutely. HP: But those who are from here and have chosen it, who actually like it. I mean it’s also... CK: So basically all these foreigners that come to Athens. What do you think they find in Athens? What is it that appeals to them here? HP: Better weather, better food. IC: Anarchy. HP: Anarchy, and everything’s cheaper. CK: Do you think they like the anarchy then? HP: Incredibly. IC: It’s liberating. If you live somewhere where everything’s a bit more... CK: Regulated. IC: You come here and you feel like “I can just do what I want here!” HP: Yes, yes. CK: So this is the story they tell to «sell» Athens to foreigners. 172

IC: Sure. CK: That makes Athens look so appealing to people. HP: I think so too, yes. CK: Most of whom are from the art scene, like 90% or so. IC: Exactly. HP: And most of whom also travel very often for work, so this is only one of their bases. IC: Those coming from the arts, so basically most of them, don’t really have any actual relationship with the city. CK: You’ve been in touch with several artists here. How do you see all this migration that’s been taking place in Athens over the past 4 – 5 years from all over the world? HP: I look at it as a good thing and try to focus only on the positive. I mean how can I not? We ourselves have lived parts of our lives like nomads. We’ve lived in so many different cities. The difference is that when someone moves from Greece to London, Paris, or New York, they have to embrace the language and that particular culture, it’s not like going to a place that is somehow exotic, but for most artists who come from European cities, Athens is an exotic place, it’s like us going to Cairo for example. CK: Yes, yes. HP: Something like that I guess. CK: Something in the Middle East. HP: Yes, I mean I don’t think they really come here to keep up with what’s happening in museums, what’s happening in the world, whereas when we travel to other cities, we mainly do so because we’re attracted by all the things we can’t find here. CK: The cultural elements that we lack here. HP: Yes, namely, bookstores, shows, museums, galleries, lectures, or people in general who come and go, people you meet... Not that those things are not happening here, but I mean isn’t that our main motivation usually? CK: Do you think the foreigners who have come here will stay or leave? HP: It depends on whether they will find somewhere to... CK: Because there’s also the issue of work. HP: Exactly. Look, it’s like I said, for most of those who are artists, especially if they already have some connections, if they have a career, it’s very convenient to be here and to be working from here while they can have exhibitions elsewhere

and have an income from elsewhere. CK: Which basically allows them to keep doing this. HP: I think most of them also like that in Greece having an X amount of money allows you to have a much more enjoyable time living here rather than if you are in London, where, for example, you may only go out to eat once a week. CK: Helena, when you started Radio Athènes, did you have any idea back then as to how the scene in Athens would evolve? HP: No, of course not. CK: What year did you start? HP: That was in 2015 so quite recently really. CK: It hasn’t been long, but a lot has happened over these past 4 years. HP: Yes, yes, the picture has changed quite dramatically. CK: So when you started, you too didn’t imagine this boom would somehow take place in Athens. HP: No I didn’t imagine it would happen. I mean, I imagined there would be something around tourism and all. On the other hand, while many things have changed, the image of the city and this whole new energy that now exists... the fact of the matter remains that we are still very much stagnant when it comes to… CK: The things we do. HP: Institutions. Things that can create a legacy and a continuity. I mean most things are still a matter of private initiative, there is no way for things to move. You know, the education sector, the sector of...

CK: Hasn’t it always been a case of private initiative though in Greece? HP: Yes. CK: That’s the truth now, isn’t it? HP: Yes, but the state should be more active. CK: How did you decide to start Radio Athènes? HP: Look, I’ve always been involved in contemporary art. CK: I know, but then you’ve come back here and... HP: Yes, I was an independent curator. I wrote, then we started a space in Berlin that began as a project space, then it turned into something more serious, it turned into a gallery, then there were 2 galleries.

Then I came here and created a project space in Andreas’s building, then our two galleries merged and at some point, when we decided we wouldn’t continue as a gallery any longer, I thought that what Athens needed at the time was a medium-sized non-profit space that would do what an ICA (Institute for Contemporary Art) does: present exhibitions, lectures, talks, screenings, build a library collection etc. Of course we did all that on a small scale. CK: Compact size. HP: Compact size, yes. Although the programme is quite ambitious, I mean, we have worked with contemporary artists with significant exhibition histories, and we have also shown historical as well as emerging artists. CK: Young too. HP: Both young and well established. CK: And with good collaborations too. And you appear to do things all the time. HP: Exactly, and we have done so with a minimal budget, so basically our ambition is to be able to secure a budget that will allow us to plan ahead to know we have this much money for that period of time, that much money for the next, and then of course you always do some fundraising to support some projects. Because right now, apart from the core support of Outset which has been very important for us from the beginning, for everything we do, we must find a way to finance it and so far we have, but we are also thinking of getting a bigger space, and this has always been... CK: A bigger space but always in the context of what you’ve been doing, not something else? HP: Yes, the same concept in a bigger space. Our audience is growing and so far we have said “okay, we can collaborate with others, there is no reason to do everything in our HQ”, and that’s also nice, because you collaborate with and meet new people, and basically start all these new discussions. However, we would like to be able to be open every day let’s say. We are also thinking about a new program for autumn, which will be a series of seminars that we’d like to hold annually. It would be great to be able to do that in our own bigger space. CK: Yes, yes. So something bigger that could hold all your new activity under its roof. HP: Yes, exactly. CK: Would you ever go back to the gallery model again? 173

HP: Highly unlikely. I’m so happy with this and it’s like I’ve always wanted to do this. I mean there weren’t any great differences between the Berlin gallery, the Athens gallery and Radio Athènes. We still held talks and ambitious exhibitions without making any choices based on how easy it would be to sell the works. There was always an international conversation, we always had a small library and books, we did readings. CK: So it was the same thing more or less. HP: And now, while I enjoy this of course, I still follow the art market and I’m highly interested in it. I also think galleries are very important formations, but I like this model so much more, also because you become more open. CK: It’s a hub. HP: Yes, and you have conversations with more artists, you are not obliged to show these particular 10 that you represent, for example, even though all the people we’ve worked with are now like members of an ever growing family. CK: Even in our case, whenever we come to Radio Athènes for example, whenever you have something and we come, we meet people, which is really good I think. HP: Yes, it is. CK: Usually at art openings I never meet any people, I don’t know… I don’t like the people, I feel a bit awkward myself, or my own issues I guess. HP: That’s true, and I’m glad you mentioned it. CK: It works on a more humane level, I think. HP: Yes, yes. CK: Was that the intention? HP: Of course, absolutely, because the whole idea is to turn it into a bridge between people and different situations, and I’m delighted you say that because it’s happened with artists as well. Many projects have been conceived and created because of this. For example, there was this German curator that we had invited who met Petros Touloudis and he invited her to do an exhibition in Tinos. IC: Many such cases. HP: Or Eleni Bagaki who’s had 2 – 3 art residencies with the help of... IC: 2 – 3? HP: 4. IC: 13 now! HP: With the help of... CK: Eleni is very good. IC: But that’s how it started. 174

HP: One thing leads to the next. CK: I think Radio Athènes has no fake seriousness, no vanity, and that’s what makes all the difference. HP: Yes. CK: Which is something we see quite a lot in art, and in spaces that deal with it. HP: I’m glad you say that. CK: It’s this family atmosphere, I think, that has turned this into something different for me. It’s one of the few places I visit in Athens, I mean, amongst those that have to do with art. HP: Yes, and for me this is crucial. CK: This starts from you I believe, and who you are as individuals, your personalities. HP: Yes, definitely. This is very important for me too, to have an intimacy in what you do, even if you are a larger establishment. It has to do with the approach, the choice of both projects and artists. This is crucial, and basically it’s that, none of us, who are let’s say members of the great Radio Athènes family, all the artists, the guests, even the audience, we are all serious about our work, but there’s no fake seriousness, no conceited sense of significance. I mean nobody takes themselves too seriously, we take the work seriously. CK: Yes, that’s the secret. HP: It is crucial for me, because especially in our field, the fact that there is nothing like a central institution like you know, a museum or something, has brought about a lot of project spaces, which is… IC: But it can often turn into a vanity project, you know, or people do it to show off or support their friends only. CK: Meaningless. HP: I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, but... CK: Do you ever feel lonely in Athens? And I don’t mean loneliness in the sense of “who are we going to go out with?”, but I have been experiencing some form of loneliness in Athens for years now. HP: Yes, of course. CK: I’d probably call it creative loneliness at times. Do you still experience that now? IC: What is happening is very important. You have to keep creating the circumstances yourself. CK: Or to travel.

HP: Yes. IC: Yes, inevitably, this is what you do, and when you are here you have to create some sort of situation yourself. CK: I was saying to Athina recently that I often feel – and this was a bad thought – that my life here often just goes by without me realising it. I mean, whole days could be passing by without me realising it at all. Why? Because Athens is a bit like a trap, it’s a very easy city in a way, the weather is good, you can go out on a nice stroll, but all that time somehow just passes by. I know I shouldn’t be saying that, but it feels like an unnecessary waste. Isn’t that somehow relevant to what’ve been discussing? I mean all this convenience, the good weather, all those things that somehow act as a distraction, a replacement for the things we are really looking for. HP: I don’t know about that, I think whichever city you may have as a base, there will be days when you will feel somewhat trapped in your environment. CK: That happens everywhere. HP: It happens everywhere and of course when someone visits a country or a city for 5 days, 2 weeks, they are... CK: More alert. HP: Yes, exactly, more alert, so you do more things. IC: What was the word you used earlier to talk about holidays? CK: Recreation? IC: Yes, perhaps Athens gives us this feeling that it is a good place for recreational activity. HP: Yes. CK: Yes. You can have a tasty meal under the sun. What about you? What do you do in Athens? What does your day-to-day life look like? Besides work that is, how do you spend your day here? IC: At work. HP: Yes, at work. CK: I mean, will you eat at a restaurant? Or you know, things that fit into your everyday routine. Will you get a glass of wine downstairs? HP: Yes, of course. CK: What is it that you like? What is it that you usually do here? That’s what I mean. HP: Except for... CK: Heteroclito. HP: OK, there are many places, I mean, that’s not difficult to

find in Athens. CK: I would like to know which places you like most, because in this issue we talk a lot about Athens in general. You could say it has a focus on Athens this time, without trying to advertise it or anything, just because… HP: Look, we actually change from time to time. When Nolan first opened we went there often. Now we’ve stopped going, unless there’s a reason. CK: Because I also have a hard time sometimes, that’s why I’m asking. IC: I think that’s been made clear. HP: Where do we go. CK: I mean, I can’t easily find places to use as a regular hangout spot in Athens. IC: At the moment, there’s something new opening every day. CK: But what I see is that, in the end, none of that covers my needs. IC: I can’t keep up with all that is happening at the moment, all that is opening. HP: Okay, there are of course those “classic” places you go to once in a while. CK: What about the taverns though, because Athens is the city of taverns after all. IC: Especially during summer, when the weather is good, definitely. HP: But I wouldn’t say there’s a place I’m extremely fond of. CK: Yes, I feel the same. HP: Like a “Oh, how I wish I could go there” kind of thing. IC: Sometimes something comes up and stirs the waters a bit, but after a while you feel like “ok, I’ve had enough now”. HP: We do have our favourites from time to time. CK: In the end, yes, I do the same thing. IC: We were going to Moshos at some point, when it was still quite new. HP: A tavern in Tavros, we loved that place. IC: Which is really nice. CK: A fish tavern? HP: Yes, they have both fish and meat. There’s this friend of mine who’s really funny and I think it was just as we had first returned to Athens and we were going out to some places together and she told me “I’ll take you to some places that only truck drivers go.” 175

CK: These places are interesting too. HP: Yeah. She goes to Diporto and it’s fun, I used to go to Diporto all the time, but now I just can’t bring myself to go there. CK: I go there once or twice a month for sure. I also go with all the foreigners who come here. HP: Well when you have someone from out of town everything is different, isn’t it? CK: Yes, you see Athens from a different point of view. HP: Yes, always. IC: But the tavern we were talking about earlier, at some point it became famous and it started losing its initial charm. HP: Now we try to go further away. IC: Tons of people go there now. HP: We like going to Corinth to some incredible places that Ion has discovered. CK: You’ll tell me about it after I switch off the recording. HP: Definitely after, otherwise they will get spoiled too. IC: I had some guests yesterday and I took them there. CK: To Corinth? IC: Opposite Corinth. CK: Isthmia? Where? You have to tell me about it. IC: Okay, I heard about it from a plant manager during a business visit, I asked them “where should I take my guests for lunch?” and they told me to go there. That was years ago, but it’s become well-known now. HP: It’s become quite popular now too, especially during the weekend. CK: Still good though, yes? IC: If you avoid weekends it’s fine, it’s by the sea. CK: Have you noticed the sun has finally come out? HP: Yeah see? CK: That’s nice, [we got carried away] with conversation. IC: A place that I go to and it is not busy at all is a restaurant at Kesariani, which is purely a family restaurant and is called… HP: Oinothira. IC: The food there is great and everyone is truly nice. If you go on a Sunday especially, all the families of the area are there, you see generations of family members, first, second, third generation. Dads with their children, grandmothers and grandfathers, and there’s something very special about this 176

place that makes it so beautiful. CK: Now that we are talking about food, it’s not very common in Athens to invite people over for dinner. I don’t know why? Perhaps it’s not in our culture as much, and I often miss this kind of exchange. Let’s have dinner today at my place, or tomorrow? We’ve started doing this a little more lately, with you guys and a couple of other people. Do you enjoy this? HP: I like it very much, we do it a lot. Even without having your cooking skills. CK: Well, we never really think of it like that. HP: We often just say “guys, why don’t you come over for dinner?” And then we cook all together for example. CK: It’s a way to communicate. HP: For us, it is the most beautiful way [to connect] and we did it everywhere. We did it in Berlin, we did it in New York, and here of course, we do it all the time. CK: People here don’t do it as much I think. HP: Really? CK: Yes, I mean in Greece it’s not so common to have... IC: We do it very often, especially in the winter, because by the time the weather is good enough to go out no one wants to come to your house anyway, even if you tell them to come they probably won’t, as they prefer to go out, to sit outside. You must have a garden or a huge veranda or something. But in the winter it’s fine. It’s also convenient for us, the windows are closed, there’s no noise. HP: That’s why if we create a new Radio Athènes in a larger space, there will definitely be a kitchen in the showroom, no question about it. CK: That sounds really interesting. HP: Yes, absolutely. CK: So there you have it, the idea of a symposium fitting in. HP: Yes, yes, yes, it is the most beautiful way to meet.

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