Socratis socratous portfolio detailed by The Breeder

THE BREEDER

SOCRATIS SOCRATOUS PORTFOLIO

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

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THE BREEDER Socratis Socratous Casts of an island 2016 | Point Centre for Contemporary Art Nicosia, Cyprus Exhibited for the first time at Point Centre, Nicosia, in the exhibition Casts of an Island, Socratous' sand casts are created by casting fine sand in moulds and heating it up on high temperatures. The result is an unfamiliar material, light as plastic and fragile as glass, the hues, textures and forms of it are determined by the artist. The objects are rendered in the colour of the old buildings erected in both the north and the south of Nicosia, which is the colour of Cyprus in the summer, when the soil is dry and the fields turn yellow. The shapes of these sculptures are reminiscent of industrial machinery, engines, pipes and tools, Mycenaean pottery, of medieval bastions, of the Great Mosque of Samarra, and of the tower of Gonbad-e Qabus. Sometimes, where the edges split off, they assume jagged shapes dictated by contingencies, like islands, mountains, and broken things. Among the images consulted by Socratous during the making of these works there is satellite footage of a sandstorm covering the entire Middle-East, from Egypt, to Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Syria, to the southern border of Turkey. In this photo, Cyprus is almost invisible, cloaked by a thick ochre plume of sand—to gauge the shape and position of the island one should have in mind an exact representation of its map, from having seen it too many times. To locate the island on the map, to ask "where is Cyprus?” means to raise another question: on which criteria can we base a clear distinction between Europe and the Middle-East? In a paper republished in 2006 in Global Media Journal, Yiannis Papadakis noted how, after the Republic of Cyprus joined the European Union in 2004 "the Dead Zone became the easternmost border of the EU, a problematic boundary that has not allowed the EU to precisely delimit itself in the East "1. That of precise territorial delimitations seems to be one of the motives that haunts Socratous’ practice. At once a Cypriot, an Athenian, and a European citizen from the Middle-East, his artistic practice cannot but return where the borders are not understood. Hence the obsession for the red palm weevil, for the cobras, for the refugees, and for the parrots that escaped their cages to find a new home in the National Garden of Athens. Contended as they are between East and West, between sand beaches and the hectic premises of a metal foundry, it would be pointless to ask "where do these works belong?" They materialise a mental place in a cast of sand. -extract from Michelangelo Corsaro’s exhibition text for “Casts of an Island” at Point Centre for Contemporary Art, Nicosia

1 Yiannis Papadakis. Nicosia after 1960: A river, a bridge and a dead zone. Global Media

Journal, Mediterranean Edition, 1(1). (2006). p.13

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

Socratis Socratous, Casts of an Island, 2016, installation view

Socratis Socratous, Casts of an Island, 2016 (detail)

Socratis Socratous, Casts of an Island, 2016, installation view

Socratis Socratous, Casts of an Island, 2016 (detail)

Socratis Socratous, Casts of an Island, 2016, installation view

Socratis Socratous, Casts of an Island, 2016, installation view (detail)

Socratis Socratous, Casts of an Island, 2016 (detail)

Socratis Socratous, Casts of an Island, 2016, installation view

Socratis Socratous, Casts of an Island, 2016, installation view (detail)

Socratis Socratous, Casts of an Island, 2016 (detail)

THE BREEDER Socratis Socratous Exhibition at Saint Séverin Gallery 2015 Paris, France In the summer of 2015, Socratis Socratous presents his work in Paris at a project curated by Centre Pompidou curator Sophie Duplaix: the works are set up on the front window of Saint Séverin Gallery. A few months after the attack at the offices of the newspaper Charlie Hebdo (January 2015) and about four months before the large-scale terrorist attacks in central neighbourhoods of Paris (November 2015), Socratous presents his work, using debris from recent conflicts. Metal objects are stacked in the gallery’s front window, creating the sense of a landscape made of now useless pieces of metal, the remnants of explosions somewhere in the Middle East. This scenery of metal could be identified as natural: a small lake surrounded by streams and an infertile forest expanding around, void of leaves and flora due to destruction. At the same time, however, this landscape could also be seen as urban, since some of the objects pop up like factory chimneys, or even volcanic, where, due to the red and black hues, it looks like iron being mixed with fire. In this chaos of rocks, metal pieces, bullet shells and small fragments, everything is crammed and reminding of warfare. Socratous presents a sculptural installation, a work which uses as primal matter objects and materials found in grounds of conflict, explosions and riots, as well as inside public buildings which have been looted in countries like Syria, Libya and Greece. Thus, this body of work derives from anything that previously existed as “tools of death” and later on as commercial matter, since all these metal objects are living a “second life” in Cyprus, where they are being imported in order to be sold in auctions and then recycled. Consequently, the artist creates an installation in which various interpretations of these objects coexist. The bulk of all these materials functions as evidence of where they came from, as well as the whole process of their recycling. Socratous groups them by colour and shape, thus making a political comment around the “Mediterranean of territorial conflicts”. The grey from the protest signs in Athens coexists with the black from the explosions in Cyprus or even the blackened copper of the bullets in Syria. Suggesting that there are no borders when it comes to war and violence, Socratous searches for an appropriate material form in order to express the terror of war, not aiming to awaken consciences but to recall, through the intervening materials, the innocent victims.

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

Socratis Socratous, Untitled, 2015, mixed media, dimensions variable, Installation view at Galiere Saint-Severin, Paris, 2015

Socratis Socratous, Untitled, 2015, Installation view at Galiere Saint-Severin, Paris, 2015

Socratis Socratous, Reference images from the materials used in the project at Galiere Saint-Severin, Paris, 2015

THE BREEDER Socratis Socratous Stolen Goods nomination for DESTE PRIZE, 2015 | Museum of Cycladic Art Athens, Greece Socratis Socratous’ exhibition at the Museum of Cycladic Art is part of the nominations for the DESTE Prize 2015 award. It is presented after the artist’s solo show entitled “Six open gates and a closed one” (The Breeder / 2015). The Stolen Goods series, along with the exhibition at Breeder (presenting works from the series Stolen Garden) are the continuation of what the artist presented at Kunsthalle Athena (“This is not my beautiful house” / 2014). The series Stolen Goods and Stolen Garden have a common element, already obvious in their title: the word “stolen”. Lost goods and a lost garden that can be re-obtained. In his effort to process the various socio-political data and events, Socratous sheds light on all the goods that have been lost. Clearly affected by the events that have been happening in Greece in the past 6 years (economic and refugee crisis), the artist creates an original setting, by compiling elements and materials that refer to the National Garden of Athens. Stolen / looted grounds, confiscated fortunes, violated fundamental rights, a fragmented and misunderstood democracy… all these extremely timely issues are underlying in the work of an artist who always bears the experience of a stolen and divided place. Sculptural installations, where all the materials are moulded into bronze, copper, gold – metals which in antiquity were considered to signify glory and power - are dominating, like an ironic statement on our, now shaken, goods and values. The concept of the garden is a recurring pattern in Socratous’ work, whether in the form of an artificial oasis, of gardens comprising of plastic plants, or in the form of “monuments” of nature, which comprise of real plants that have been uprooted from their natural habitat. For the Stolen Goods series, Socratous wanders in the National Garden and “steals” roots, leaves, stories, narratives and anything else he can take… He converses with gardeners, he observes everything that is happening around him and he searches for plants that interest him, in order to imprint them in bronze, gold and silver. The final installations in the exhibition space transfer all that he heard and felt: the inexplicable beauty of nature, the worries of the gardeners that they might get fired sometime in the near future, the erotic desire and lust of the night visitors, the fear of the immigrants, the history of Greece which moves from monarchy, to an alleged democracy and then to an immoderate neoliberalism and so on. Socratous is inspired by the National Garden and creates worrying, but at the same time hopeful settings, where disaster and hope coexist. Decadence, exhaustion and poverty take the form of three precious metals, reflecting a potential new start, which will begin from our “shiny” debris.

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

Socratis Socratous, Stolen Goods, installation view at Goulandris Museum of Cycladic Art, Deste Prize, 2015, Athens

Socratis Socratous, Stolen Goods, 2009-2015 (detail)

Socratis Socratous, Stolen Goods, 2009-2015, (detail)

Socratis Socratous, Stolen Goods, 2009-2015 (detail)

THE BREEDER Socratis Socratous Six open gates and a closed one 2015 | THE BREEDER Athens, Greece

Socratis Socratous’ first solo show with THE BREEDER, entitled "Six open gates and a closed one", consists of new cast bronze sculptures that refer to the National Garden in Athens and the symbolisms it bears as a microcosm of Greece. Socratis Socratous’ emotionally charged experiences and trauma in his motherland Cyprus immediately following the country’s violent division and forced internal migration have profoundly affected all aspects of his artistic practice. In its diversity, his work is characterized by a strategic employment of artifice, even beauty, to negotiate hard issues of loss, displacement, and destruction. A recurring theme in his work since the 1990s, the garden – nature ordered, transplanted, and delimited solely for human purposes – has, for Socratous, political parallels. The series of works Stolen Garden is sourced from the National Garden of Athens, itself the symbol of enduring national, cultural and territorial integrity against foreign attempts at coercion. The Royal Garden, commissioned in 1838 by the German Queen Amalia, showcased the imported monarchy imposed on the new Modern Greek State. When it was renamed National Garden in the 1920s, it confirmed a new Greek identity in the wake of the Asia Minor Disaster. Nowadays, the perceived new external threats (the Troika, “illegal” migrants) are only superficially different and the internal reactions are but resurgences of traditional myths and latent fears. For Socratous, the National Garden is the field on which the contemporary narratives of Athenian civic life play out. Exploring its paths and corners, he takes the role, alternately, of a crime scene investigator, an archeologist, and a pilferer, harvesting specimens of indigenous flora, such as such as pomegranate, citrus, olive and laurel – symbols of honor and fertility since Greek antiquity – but also the opportunistic weeds, encroaching on native soil. The Garden’s contemporary vegetation is an allegorical microcosm of current Athenian society: native Greeks living alongside recent foreign migrants. Depending on one’s point of view, this new (bio)diversity can be as seen as an enriching element of multiculturalism, modernity and progress or as an economic and cultural threat. Socratous casts his fragile cuttings in brass, plating some in gold and silver, thus transforming the humble leaves, seeds and twigs into objects both everlasting and precious. For the exhibition “Six open gates and a closed one” Socratous lets his imagination wander beyond the seventh closed gate of the National Garden in Athens. He employs the sculptural tradition of cast bronze while at the same time he interferes throughout the process at the mould in the foundry, often eliminating elements from the compositions. The resulting sculptures are like plants with their THE BREEDER 45 Iasonos st, GR 10436, Athens, t/f: +30 210 33 17 527, gallery@thebreedersystem.com www.thebreedersystem.com

THE BREEDER tangled branches resembling a nightmarish haunted forest full of carcasses from prehistoric creatures. Simultaneously the color pallet of the cast bronze – that ranges from dark black to shiny gold – is like an allegory to the present reality with the hope of a brighter future shinning through the seemingly dark present.

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

Socratis Socratous, Six open gates and a closed one, 2015, installation view at The Breeder, Athens

! Socratis Socratous, Six open gates and a closed one, 2015, installation view at The Breeder, Athens

Socratis Socratous, Six open gates and a closed one, 2015, installation view at The Breeder, Athens

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! Socratis Socratous, Six open gates and a closed one, 2015, installation view at The Breeder, Athens

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Socratis Socratous, Six open gates and a closed one, 2015, installation view at The Breeder, Athens

Socratis Socratous, Untitled II (from the Series National Garden, Athens), 2015, bronze, 106x30x21 cm, cement base 106x 82 x 53 cm

Socratis Socratous, Six open gates and a closed one, 2015, installation view at The Breeder, Athens

Socratis Socratous, Six Open Gates and a Closed One, 2015, installation view

Socratis Socratous, Untitled I (from the Series National Garden, Athens), 2015, bronze, 66x20x10 cm, cement base 105x50x40 cm

Socratis Socratous, Philoshopher (from the Series National Garden, Athens), 2015, bronze, 98x51x25 cm, cement base 55x80x50 cm

Socratis Socratous, Six Open Gates and a Closed One, 2015, installation view

Socratis Socratous, Nursery Garden (From the Series National Garden, Athens), 2015, bronze, 47x28x24 cm

Socratis Socratous, Seventh gate, 2015, bronze, 50x133x88 cm

Socratis Socratous, Six Open Gates and a Closed One, 2015, installation view

Socratis Socratous, Garden Collection, 2009-2015, bronze, copper, gold, silver, cement base, 26x370x210 cm

Socratis Socratous, Garden Collection, 2009-2015, detail view, bronze, copper, gold, silver, cement base, 26x370x210 cm

Socratis Socratous, Six Open Gates and a Closed One, 2015, installation view

THE BREEDER Socratis Socratous This is not my beautiful house 2014 | Kunsthalle Athena Athens, Greece Borrowing its title from the renown Talking Heads song, the exhibition “This is not my beautiful house” brings together for Kunsthalle Athena four artists (Anastasia Ax, Apostolos Georgiou, Socratis Socratous, Kostis Velonis) whose work is, directly or indirectly, connected to the sociopolitical situation in Greece. Despite its title, the exhibition doesn’t include any direct references to 80s pop music or the culture of New York, but it mainly describes a world full of fears and desires that get stigmatized by the current sociopolitical events. For this exhibition, Socratous brings back the theme of the Garden, which is also a reoccurring pattern in his work: sometimes in the form of artificial escapades and gardens comprising of plastic pants (that neither smell nor disintegrate), and others in the form of monuments of nature (real plants that have been uprooted from their natural habitat). Socratous’ particular interest in the concept of the garden, which signifies the presence of nature in the urban setting, creates the opportunity to also add a political tone to the discussion, since the Garden functions as an extension of public life, the city or the house. The ‘Stolen Garden’ group of works grapples, essentially, with a fragile situation and focuses more on the idea that a garden, due to its accessibility, is a vulnerable part of the city. All the sculptures and installations are of elements of the National Garden, which are made into copper and bronze and are connected to national symbols of the country, such as olive branches, bay leaves etc. Something expendable with a limited lifespan, is transformed into something precious with the promise to last forever. The result, is essentially a meta-narrative of the National Garden of Athens, a space that lingers between public and private life, the city and the countryside, the artificial reality and nature. Referring to the natural environment and the life that it encapsulates, the National Garden becomes a symbol for the national identity of the people of a country. Thus, various personal stories emerge, through which Socratous underlines the actual meaning of coexistence, but diversity as well.

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

Socratis Socratous, Stolen Garden, 2014, Installation view at Kunsthalle Athena, Athens

Socratis Socratous, Untitled (From the Series Stolen Garden), 2014, cast bronze, copper, dimension variable, installation view at Kunsthalle Athena, Athens

Socratis Socratous, Stolen Garden, 2014, detail

Socratis Socratous, Stolen Garden, 2014, installation view

Socratis Socratous, Stolen Garden, 2014, Installation view at Kunsthalle Athena, Athens

Socratis Socratous, Untitled (From the Series Stolen Garden), 2014, cast bronze, copper, dimension variable, installation view at Kunsthalle Athena, Athens

Text

Socratis Socratous, Stolen Garden, 2014, Installation view at Kunsthalle Athena, Athens

Socratis Socratous, Untitled (From the Series Stolen Garden), 2014, cast bronze, copper, dimension variable, installation view at Kunsthalle Athena, Athens

Socratis Socratous, Stolen Garden, 2014, cast bronze, copper, aluminum, dimension variable, installation view at Kunsthalle Athena, Athens Socratis Socratous, Stolen Garden, 2014, bronze, copper, silver, 24K gold, dimension variable, installation view at Kunsthalle Athena, Athens

Socratis Socratous, Stolen Garden, 2014, Installation view at Kunsthalle Athena, Athens

Socratis Socratous, Stolen Garden, 2014, installation view

THE BREEDER Socratis Socratous Gestures in Time 2012 | Qalandiya International, Riwaq Biennial various cities, towns and villages across Palestine

Gestures in Time is part of the pilot edition of Qalandiya International – art and life in Palestine. Presenting 30 artists whose works explore the individual gesture as an act of aesthetic and social creation, Gestures in Time takes place in urban and rural locations across Palestine (Abwein, Hajja, Jamma’in, Dhahiriya, Jerusalem and Ramallah). In 2012, Socratous travelled to Palestine, visiting contested, as well as liminal zones. For a period of two months, he stayed at the village of Dhahiriya. The resulting project was a Cave in Dhahiriya, which was presented within the context of the Riwaq Biennial and took the form of a temporary museum, housed in a complex of subterranean caves and dedicated to the history of the village’s community. Through investigating the town of Dhahiriya, interviewing people and visiting houses to collect photographic material, objects, ready-mades, old clothes, written texts, books, music, folkloric poems and so on Socratous built an installation in the cave that functions as a museum specimen for the village and the region. This space exhibits included memorabilia and family photographs, objects and artifacts donated by the villagers and incorporated into a display which addressed the complex ways that collective histories translate into subjective traumas and vice versa. Τhe project also raises questions that are pertinent to the recent Palestinian obsession of creating museums, that comes in certain cases as a plea for an unnecessary legitimization. As the myriad of recent public worldwide initiatives indicate, our times are characterized by an overarching sense of disenchantment with high forms of government. Gestures in Time seeks to reconsider how the individual can conceive of having an aesthetic and socially creative life, within and beyond a specific geography. The exhibition sets out to explore the individual gesture on an intimate, social, political and aesthetic level, as a means to reclaim our relationship with society. The gesture offers a liberating degree of personal autonomy, which is lacking in the more formalized version of an action or a movement. In the terrain of regulated conflict which this exhibition inhabits (Palestine), but also well beyond it, the gesture can become a form of divine dissent - chaotic, wild, anachronistic, guttural, amorphous and unregulated – requiring neither legitimacy from, or attachment to, any recognized body of authority. In the global field of artistic practice, the gesture functions as a self-reflexive tool of analysis of questions ranging from identity, behavior, instinct, authorship and the promise of creativity at large.

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

THE BREEDER Gestures in Time operates beyond any impetus of fragmentation and isolation, and beyond religious imperatives, which are being misused within the region and well beyond it. From this perspective the gesture functions as a micro, and subtle, tool towards speaking together and to each other.

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

Socratis Socratous, Gestures In Time, 2012, installation view

Socratis Socratous, Gestures In Time, 2012

Socratis Socratous, Gestures In Time, 2012 (reference photo)

Socratis Socratous, Gestures In Time, 2012 (detail)

THE BREEDER Socratis Socratous UTOPIA New acquisitions from the Collection of Nicos Chr. Pattichis 2012 | Evagoras Lanitis Centre Limassol, Cyprus The exhibition UTOPIA was presented at the Lanitis Foundation featuring new acquisitions from the collection of Nicos Chr. Pattichis and the newspaper Phileleftheros. Following the first presentation of Nicos Chr. Pattichis collection in 2008 entitled “Where do we go from here?” at the Municipal Arts Centre, the exhibition at the Evagoras and Kathleen Lanitis Foundation comes as a response to that question. This is what inspired the title (Utopia) which refers not only to the new direction in the Pattichis collection but also to the concerns which preoccupy contemporary Cypriot and Greek art. Therefore, whereas the 2008 exhibition reflected the involvement of the artists and the interest of the collector in form and in representation, this new presentation of the collection, which has since been enriched with more than thirty works, registers the artists’ aim to tackle, through their art, crucial issues of the social and political reality. It is this non-place, as suggested by the etymology of the word, this unattainable state, which is built not only of dreams but also of nightmares, mythical beasts and destruction. In Cyprus, this dystopic reality has many names: Green Line, the Cyprus issue, immigration problems, uncontrolled gentrification, the financial crisis. Inevitably these difficulties enter the work of modern artists who at times tackle it with optimism at others with contemplation. The exhibition at the Evagoras Lanitis Foundation will seek to reveal their soul searching through the new acquisitions of the Pattichis collection. Socratous takes part in the exhibition with a series of works and installations entitled “A place to visit them” / Missing People ? that refers to the missing people of the Turkish invasion in Cyprus. Asked (like all of the other artists who took part in the exhibition) to choose objects and works from the Archaeological Museum of Cyprus, Socratis uses in his installation, not vessels (as was to be expected) but bones belonging to Kings of antiquity. THE BREEDER 45 Iasonos st, GR 10436, Athens, t/f: +30 210 33 17 527, gallery@thebreedersystem.com www.thebreedersystem.com

THE BREEDER Placed on tables lined with white fabric, these bones remind of the process of recognition of a dead person, emitting the cold sensation of a morgue. The installation is accompanied by a video, which depicts in every detail the transfer of the bone case, the heat, the soldiers and the truck, but the lens mostly focus on the bone case and how it shakes with every bump on the road. Without it showing, Socratous creates a deeply anthropocentric work, highlighting the human presence through loss and death. Socratous’ travels in various places in Cyprus mark a change in the direction of his work, which develops with a critical point of view, revolving around humanity. The complete lack of references to the human existence of his previous works is now revoked and replaced by an anthropocentric curiosity. Going back repeatedly to the other side of the island, the artist deconstructs and examines collective memory and its constructions. His images don’t aim to “memorize” or to “eulogize” History, but mostly function intermittently, and are in a critical dialogue with it. The injustices of all those years resurface, as familiar words take on new meanings. The “missing” person is not a faded black and white photograph anymore, which is carried around by a wife, a mother, a sister. In fact, through his research Socratis addresses, among others, the Laboratory of Forensic Genetics in Nicosia, where bone and DNA analysis take place, often of bones excavated from specific burial points which might include missing persons’ remnants…

Extract from Pavlina Paraskevaidou text, titled In Present Tense, London, August 2012, included in Socratis Socratous catalogue «The History of the War of Cyprus», Cyprus Contemporary Art Museum, August 2012, printed by Phileleftheros Publishers)

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

Socratis Socratous, UTOPIA, 2012

THE BREEDER Socratis Socratous The Newspaper Show 2012 | THE BREEDER Athens, Greece

In 2012, the group exhibition The Newspaper Show was presented at the Breeder Gallery and included works by young international artists whose central core in their works is the newspaper. Contrary to the digital revolution and the economic recession that threatens the printed media with extinction, the artists, with their own extraordinary ways, assist to the perpetuation of the medium. Appropriation of printed matter, most commonly newspapers, first appeared in the Synthetic Cubism of Picasso, Braque and Juan Gris in 1912. A century ago it was a radical concept: ephemera intended for disposal incorporated into fine artwork that was expected to have timeless value. Fifty years later Pop Art and Arte Povera artists took up the enterprise, with different objectives but undiminished impact. And although the conceptual premises behind the use of found printed matter may have changed over the decades, its appeal to artists perseveres. The artists that participated in the show use the newspaper either as raw material or as a conceptual canvas for the work that they present. Socratis Socratous coated the gallery walls with pages from Cypriot newspaper “New Times” from the period 1960-1974, which he collected from a military outpost in the green line of Nicosia in Cyprus. The Dictatorship and the coup in Cyprus, the Vietnam War, the Moon landing, Middle East and Cuba, make headlines along with other news that aren’t far from today’s reality. His installation with the title Page Range also included an artistic intervention on the wide distribution Cypriot newspaper “Fileleytheros” (“The Liberal”) which on the day of the opening transforms its front page into an artwork co-signed by the artist and the publisher of the newspaper, Nikos Pattichis. Copies of the newspaper were available at the exhibition but were also circulating as usual at their regular retail outposts.

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

THE BREEDER

Part of the same work was also the current issue of Athenian free press newspaper “Lifo”, which featured a work by Socratous at its back cover and was exhibiteddistributed at the gallery from Lifo’s recognisable metal stand.

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

The Newspaper Show Installation view of works by Socrates Socratous and Elias Kafouros, The Breeder, 2012

Socratis Socratous, The Newspaper Show, 2012

The Newspaper Show Installation view of works by Socrates Socratous The Breeder, 2012

The Newspaper Show, installation view of works by Socrates Socratous The Breeder, 2012

The Newspaper Show, Installation view of works by Alexandros Vasmoulakis and Tao Xue, The Breeder, 2012

The Newspaper Show, Socrates Socratous installation view The Breeder, 2012

Socratis Socratous, The Newspaper Show, 2012

Socratis Socratous A rock and a hard place 2011 | Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art Curators: Paolo Colombo, Mahita El Bacha Urieta, Marina Fokidis Assistant Curators: Domna Gounari, Anna Mykoniati (SMCA) State Museum of Contemporary Art Thessaloniki, Greece In the current climate of gathering instability that holds great promise, as well as danger, the title A Rock and a Hard Place resonates powerfully. It captures the sense of fragility and jeopardy that looms over the wider politics of the Mediterranean and the psychology of the individual. Affected by a sense of impending danger and “Hamletic” doubt, contemporary artists produce work that is often characterized by a defensive, ironic stance. The main programme of the 3rd Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art derives its inspiration from the city, as a metaphor of the powerful multicultural character of its past history. Each and every one of the biennale venues (5 historical monuments and 5 museums) constitutes an episode of the all-embracing narrative. These episodes are inspired both by the former and the current use of these buildings, by the past and contemporary contribution to the social life and political game of the city, and the artists and the works hosted have been chosen within this particular framework. Therefore, the visitors of the exhibitions will be walking around the city and at the same time will be playing a part in its life and history. Socratis Socratous participates with the series of photos and installations titled The School. … Having the same impulse as a starting point, the intention to examine the possibility for a non-existent place (u-topia in Greek is defined as no-place), for an inviolable refuge as he calls it, the artist turns to the urban landscape in search for answers. At a time when everything is falling apart and violated, this should remain untouchable, he suggests, offering shelter to the dream for a better life. Affected by recent violent incidents, racist attacks and social upheavals in urban areas around the world and especially in Athens, the artist transforms the city into his own “battle field” and strips her off her materials. Objects with which the citizen usually “armours” himself in order to express his resentment, his frustration and

despair in an undeclared war against “the system”, become in the artist’s hands the raw materials for a different type of sculpture. … From Plato’s Kallipolis in The Republic to Le Corbusier’s propositions, the city has been associated with the search for happiness and ideal coexistence. However, the urban landscape is often transformed into a place of violent conflicts and extreme behaviours. At the same time it is being constructed, transformed, recreated, it can be destructed, ruined, deserted and remain a city compromised by its own debris. This is something that Socratous engages with in his art. The artist identifies in the urban space what Mumford said: “the city is a theatre of social action”1. Extracts from Elena Parpa’s text “The Cyprus Experiment” on Socratis Socratous’ work Inviolable Refuge, 2011.

1 Mumford, Lewis, “What Is A City?”. The City Reader. Richard T. LeGates and Frederic Stout, eds.

London, Routlege, 1996, p.94.

Socratis Socratous, A Rock and a Hard Place, 2011

Socratis Socratous, A Rock and a Hard Place, 2011, installation view

THE BREEDER Socratis Socratous Uncovered 2011 | Nicosia International Airport, Project #7 Ledra Street / Locmaci Buffer Zone Nicosia, Cyprus

UNCOVERED is a three-year research-based art project, divided into two phases, and it explores the closed Nicosia International Airport. The title of the project is a word-play (UN+COVERED) reflecting on the role and presence of the UN at the airport since the latter was declared a United Nations Protected Area following the hostilities on the island in the summer of 1974, resulting in the defacto division of the island and the creation of a buffer zone. The United Nations continue to facilitate peace negotiations between the two sides. The project aims to explore notions of memory, commons and control mechanisms, as these arise out of the status of a closed-off airport in a space of conflict. Lying abandoned inside the buffer zone and off limits to the local communities, the Nicosia Airport represents a spatial order generated by 37 years of UN control in the context of a protracted conflict between the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities. The once-bustling airport reflected the hope of a newly independent country in the wake of post-colonialism.

The novelty of its

architecture, with its much-hailed new terminal has acquired a thick layer of abandonment and now stands as a monument to failed modernism while it remains in a state of suspended animation. UNCOVERED explores how this place, frozen in time and space, exposes the operational and organizational logics of control that have evolved on the island, and asks questions that go beyond the ubiquitous mnemonic of pain in order to ultimately understand and reclaim the island’s “commons.” Amongst other artists - Özge Ertanın and Oya Silbery, Görkem Müniroglu, Vicky Pericleous, Erhan Oze, Andreas Savva, Zehra Sonia and Gur Genc, Demetris

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

THE BREEDER Taliotis, Constantinos Taliotis and Orestis Lambrou – Socratous participates in the project with a series of photographic works entitled Blue Beret Camp. After having been granted a special permission, he enters the army camp space and documents with his camera the everyday life of the United Nations soldiers. Socratous’ work exhibits the peculiar way of life of those soldiers, who live in a strictly grounded area, without any contact with the city in which they are. There are bars, shops, sports facilities, even vegetable gardens, all destined exclusively for those living in this specially configurated area which has a specific expiration date, since those soldiers move countries every six months. Through this work, Socratous continues revisiting the reality of Cyprus. The series of photographs taken in Nicosia’s buffer zone documents the everyday life of UN soldiers, in an attempt to reconsider the presence and role of the peace-keeping forces in Cyprus…

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

Socratis Socratous, Uncovered, 2011 (detail)

THE BREEDER Socratis Socratous Inviolable Refuge 2011 | Omikron Gallery Nicosia, Cyprus

Through his show Inviolable Refuge, Socratis Socratous presents yet another dimension of reality. He discusses contemporary urban spaces, cities which are exposed to various political and economic events. Besides, he’s an artist who photographs constantly, isolating moments and transcribing the rhythm of the city. Socratous’ view becomes personal and intrusive, breaking down any boundaries that might exist between the photographer and the photographed object. Through his body of work, one can notice an existential relation to the streets (in the sense of the ancient Agora). His lens seem to collect images of a symbolic, as well as actual «disaster» of the urban landscape, which has been taking place throughout the recent years in Athens. Images, sculptures and «photo sculptures» bring us face to face once more with the protests, the riots and the reactions to them. The whole exhibition explores, essentially, the realisation of a simingly immaterial «entropic» energy which forms around the various sociopolitical events. For the first time, Socratous directs a staged photoshoot, aiming to explore the externalisation of human anger as protest against a managed operating system and a system of ethics, which are arbitrarily imposed on the individual. Scattered building materials, detached iron components, “uprooted” metal stairs, various metal objects with which the citizen is customary to express his anger and despair for an undeclared systemic war, are being transformed into primal matter for a different kind of sculpture. The materials stop being included in the components of a photographic documentation and are transformed into sculptural compositions which lose their gravity, since they are photographed while being launched 20 meters up in the air (with the help of specialized machinery) as well as in staged environments, where the viewers are confronted by their schematic imprisonment. Metal objects hover and Socratous photographs their spectacular fall, while they essentialy “freeze” in random geometric formations, reminding of the abstract inquiries of modernism, especially that of the artists connected to the Russian Avant Garde. When those materials fall to the ground they become the foundations for the Inviolable Refuge installation. So, what is the Inviolable Refuge? It is mainly an artificial metal small reef in a strictly structured architectural environment which reminds us simultaneously of a safe space and a trap. The refuge is converted into a claustrophobic prison, similar to a ghetto or a refugee camp, an isolated space which exists far from the urban chaos. From Kallipoli in Plato’s Republic to Le Corbusier’s ideas, the city has been connected to the pursuit of happiness and ideal co-existance. However, the urban landscape is often converted into a space of violent conflict and extreme behaviour. Through his work, Socratous observes a city which is being built, transformed, occassionally destroyed, and ultimately reborn.

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

THE BREEDER

Inviolable Refuge and works from the series Architectural Strategy have also been part of the exhibition Restless at the Adelaide International Festival (2012), as well as the exhibition “Mapping Cyprus Crusaders, Traders and Explorers & Mapping Cyprus Contemporary Views” (ministry of Education and Culture of Cyprus – Bozar Expo / Centre for Fine Arts, Brussels, Belgium / 2012). Moreover, from 2016 some oeuvres of the series Architectural Strategy are part of Centre Pompidou permanent collection and they were presented at the exhibition Cher(e)s Ami(e)s – New Hang of the Contemporary Collection of Centre Pompidou (13/ 07 – 12/ 09 2016).

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

Socratis Socratous, Inviolable Refuge, 2011, installation view

Socratis Socratous, Architectural Strategy, 2011, c-prins, dim: 110 x 165 cm

Socratis Socratous, Untitled I, 2011, c-print, dim: 110 x 115 cm

Socratis Socratous, Untitled II, 2011, c-print, dim: 110 x 115 cm

Socratis Socratous, Untitled III, 2011, c-print, dim: 110 x 115 cm

Socratis Socratous, Untitled V 2011, c-print, dim: 125 x 110 cm.

THE BREEDER Socratis Socratous Socratis Socratous Photographs Athens 2010 Athens and Epidaurus Festival Benaki Museum Athens, Greece

For the first time in 2010, the Athens and Epidaurus Festival introduces Fine Art in its programme. Among other artists, Socratous presents part of his photographic works which focus on Athens, and that which were also featured in Symbol 1 magazine. This is the first solo exhibition of Socratis Socratous where he photographs the city of Athens. It is a peculiar kind of diary, updated daily by the artist, who walks around and captures moments. Portraits of strangers, well-known faces uncritically presented in front of his lens and examinations of socio-political issues – by turns unpleasant and traumatic or pleasant and ceremonial – together form a mosaic that accurately reflects city life. Socratous chooses to document with his camera marginalized groups, such as Albanian immigrants. Thus, he focuses on the inglorious human existence in the city, the cheap human resources that would make its urban regeneration possible. However, this is not photojournalism: Socratis’ eye is so personal and penetrating that it transcends the boundaries between photographer and subject.

Symbol magazine is an avant-garde weekly publication that is part of the greek newspaper “Ependytis”, and in which Socratis Socratous held the column Ena.

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

Socratis Socratous, Socratis Socratous Photographs Athens, 2010 (detail)

THE BREEDER Socratis Socratous Rumours 2009 | Pavilion of Republic of Cyprus 53rd Venice Biennial – curated by Sophie Duplaix The work of Socratis Socratous is undoubtedly about the merge of art and politics. An example is the invitation he received to represent Cyprus in the Venice Biennale. In 2009, Socratous participates in the 53rd Venice Biennale, presenting the project Rumors at the Cyprus Pavilion, curated by Sophie Duplaix (centre Pompidou). Socratous borrows a story from the Cypriot press, according to which the Greek Government asks from the Turkish side to uproot some palm trees (imported from Egypt), because their roots bear Cobra snake eggs, something for which they accuse the importer. Apart from this incident, he is also inspired by a poem by the Greek poet Giorgos Seferis, entitled “The Cats of Saint Nicholas” (1969), as well as his personal experiences and the modern history of the only country in Europe which still has a dividing boarder. Socratous, along with the above story, includes one more element to his presentation: he invites two snake charmers – who are activists and want to protest the veto of environmental groups and the ban of the snake charmer profession in India, which left a whole Caste unemployed – to live for 6 months in the Cyprus Pavilion in Venice and make their voices heard. With the use of snakes and palm trees, which the artist himself imports to Venice, he creates a new event, an action, a piece that doesn’t just document the historical past, but reflects on something more universal, the weaknesses of human nature. The imported palm trees roam around Venice’s canals, “homeless” like the immigrants in Cyprus, from where they were chased away, and at the same time the snake charmers play music on the streets trying to awaken the snakes. In fact, all the bans (including the one about planting a palm tree in Venice) are shown as part of the project, clearly referencing the difficulties that occur when there are dilemmas of any kind, more or less serious.

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

THE BREEDER The work presented at the Venice Biennale functions as a comment on the tolerance or intolerance of diversity, and it is the result of a long period of research and work from the artist in Cyprus, regarding similar matters. The whole concept of the installation addressed various issues, including that of immigration and rootlessness, identity and fear of the ‘other’, through a fabled story of carefully orchestrated symbolisms, inspired by the artist’s itinerary in the North of Cyprus following the partial opening of the borders in 2003, that permitted the crossing to what had been for almost thirty years the inaccessible ‘other side’ for both Greek and Turkish Cypriots. Socratous travelled across a landscape that was both familiar and strange, and acquired the resonance of a personal revelation which inspired him to question the prevalent political rhetoric surrounding the Cyprus conflict, by fabricating a narrative – using palm trees, cobra snakes and boats as protagonists - that effectively addressed the usual tactics of myth-making and propaganda, employed by both sides. Once again, Socratous makes us think about how the checkpoints might be equipped to face a military invasion - but not that of poisonous reptiles -, but he also resorts to narratives that seem to be deeply embedded in a very subjective gaze, insofar as he translates past traumas into a symbolic language that persists into a form of quasivisual political consciousness.

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

Socratis Socratous, Rumours, Pavilion of Republic of Cyprus, 53rd Venice Biennial, 2009

Socratis Socratous, Rumours, Pavilion of Republic of Cyprus, 53rd Venice Biennial, 2009, curated by Sophie Duplaix, installation view

Socratis Socratous, Rumours, Pavilion of Republic of Cyprus, 53rd Venice Biennial, 2009

Socratis Socratous, Rumours, Pavilion of Republic of Cyprus, 53rd Venice Biennial, 2009, curated by Sophie Duplaix, installation view

Socratis Socratous, Rumours, 2009, c-print, Pavilion of Republic of Cyprus, 53rd Venice Biennial, 2009

THE BREEDER Socratis Socratous Expanded Ecologies. Perspectives in a Time of Emergency. 2009 | National Museum of Contemporary Art Athens, Greece

2009 is the year when the financial crisis strikes Greece. New, strict measures are enforced, causing reactions and mass protests to increasingly grow. In this heavy and harsh climate, Socratous participates in the exhibition Expanded Ecologies. Perspectives in a Time of Emergency, with the work Museum of Complaints. With this installation, the artist uses this opportunity to complain about the lack of a museum, more specifically the years-long absence of a space for the National Museum of Contemporary Art. The piece consists of a small edifice built in the outdoors space of the Athens Conservatory, where the museum’s permanent collection was housed for years, aiming to gather all the complaints and written reactions for the lack of a building for the National Museum of Contemporary Art.

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

Socratis Socratous, Museum of Complaints, from Expanded Ecologies. Perspectives in a Time of Emergency, 2009

THE BREEDER Socratis Socratous Illegal Installation 2005 | Archimede Staffolini Gallery Nicosia, Cyprus

In 2005, Socratis Socratous installed a charcoal floor in Archimede Staffolini Gallery. Visitors were free to walk on it, and the sculpture was completed by two wooden seagulls hanging from the ceiling, fighting, symbolizing the two conflicting sides in Cyprus: the Greek and the Turkish one. The exhibition is entitled Illegal Installation and was the result of research on the traditional coal industry of Pyrgos, a small town at the northern coast of Cyprus. Socratous was familiar with the place, as he had spent one year in Kokkina, which is only a few kilometres away, during his military service. Kokkina is a territory of historical importance and a strategically valuable area in Northern Cyprus, where in 1964 Greek-Cypriot and Turkish-Cypriot factions engaged in violent fights for days. It was there that Socratous returned to collaborate with the local workers, asking them to work with him on the production of his piece. He provided the material that is generally used to build wooden floors and turned it into a pile of charcoal, in order to then make it into a sculptural installation. The whole production process combines the various aspects of his research: the experimentation with traditional production processes and techniques; the collaboration with workers from the workshops, who are asked to work with the artist and produce unorthodox objects in unorthodox ways; the desire to return to places and landscapes that are imbued with personal as much as with historical memories. Once Socratous’ works are broken down into their constituent elements, it is possible to identify what their artistic methodologies have in common. Like words conceal their history within their etymology, Socratous' sculptures become legible as soon as we interrogate their creation. How are we to separate, in theory and in practice, the artwork from the place where it is made, the effect it had on it, its memories, and its turmoil? Any attempt to establish hierarchies between the material and the conceptual world would harm the complexity of Socratous' practice; to speak of symbolism or of sheer beauty would be reductive. What is truly eloquent here is—instead—the identity of the artwork.

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

Socratis Socratous, Illegal Installation, 2005, installation view

Socratis Socratous, Illegal Installation, 2005, installation view (detail)

THE BREEDER Socratis Socratous Incarnation 2004 | Archimede Staffolini Gallery Nicosia, Cyprus

For the first time in 2004, Socratous creates in Archimede Staffolini Gallery an installation using carnations as primal matter. The notion of the “garden” is a reoccurring pattern in Socratous’ work, whether in the sense of escaping everyday life or in the form of “monuments” of nature, which comprise of real plants that have been uprooted from their natural habitat. For this installation, Socratous creates stacks of flowers that he finds in the trash, and more specifically, carnations. This is not a random act. Carnations are flowers inextricably connected to Greek-style entertainment, such as Greek night clubs with live music, known as Bouzoukia. It is customary for the audience to buy carnations and throw them on stage as a sign of appreciation towards the singer. In fact, it is often said that large amounts of carnations are stolen from cemeteries, where they have been left as a tribute to the dead, in order to be sold to night clubs and become part of the ritual of entertaining one’s self by listening to popular music and spending massive amounts of money while doing so! And all in the name of meaningless fun. The artist had been working on this piece since 2002, a period where finances were blooming. The rise of the stock market was still strong and there was a general climate of prosperity; perhaps nothing was foreshadowing what would ensue. Besides, the financial crisis in Greece started appearing gradually from 2009 onwards. However, Socratous gets ideas and conceives his work inspired by the already existing indications of the serious financial issues that were about to come up. At the same time, the carnation also symbolises revolution and undoubtedly refers to Nikos Belogiannis, who is known as “the man with the carnation”, due to a red carnation that he held in his hands during his trial. The “Belogiannis case”, as is THE BREEDER 45 Iasonos st, GR 10436, Athens, t/f: +30 210 33 17 527, gallery@thebreedersystem.com www.thebreedersystem.com

THE BREEDER called the trial and execution of Belogiannis under the accusations of being a communist and a spy, gained great amounts of publicity and caused reactions worldwide, while it went down in history as an example of the extremely harsh anticommunist prosecutions during the post-civil war era. Resorting to his almost standard tactics, Socratous chooses to work on a kind of banal/ordinary pattern, which refers to the struggles of the Left, while trying to change the quality of this symbolism, since he uses carnations differently. Thus, Socratous wanders among this “triptych” of life, which unfolds between fun, revolution and death, creating a piece that comments on the uncontrollable consumerism and wasting money for meaningless fun… The Incarnation installation also travelled to The Armory Show in 2015, as part of the booth of The Breeder gallery.

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

Socratis Socratous, Incarnation, 2004/2015, installation view, FOCUS MENAM, curated by Omar Kholeif, Armory Show, New York, under the auspices of The Breeder

Socratis Socratous, Incarnation, 2004, installation view (detail)

Socratis Socratous, Incarnation, 2004, installation view

Socratis Socratous, Incarnation, 2004, installation view (detail)

Socratis Socratous, Incarnation, 2004, production documentation