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Under the Minaret’s Shadow

Exhibition at Sudanese Plastic Artist’s Union, Khartoum, May 2011

This exhibition was held at the Sudanese Plastic Artist’s Union in support of the Miracles Sudan Program. This program provides free hippo-therapy sessions to both physically and mentally disabled children in Khartoum. This exhibition was a combination of old and new work by Martina Anagnostou and was her first solo exhibition in Sudan. The title was inspired by the Minaret that stands next to Jane Anne’s Miracles Sudan farm where the hippo-therapy sessions take place. The proceeds of this exhibition were equally shared between the Sudanese Plastic Artist’s Union, the Miracles Sudan Program and the artist.

Group Exhibition at the UBS Bank S.A. in Madrid, Spain, February 2011.

All the artists that participated in this exhibition donated their work to Fundación Raíces that operates programs in support of children, youths and their families that suffer from exclusion and marginalization from society in Spain.

La tradición de iconografía ortodoxa ha ocupado siempre un espacio muy importante en la trayectoria creativa de la artista Martina Anagnostou. De nacionalidad Griega, Martina ha llevado su herencia visual ortodoxa en todos los países en los que ha viajado y vivido con su familia, ya que su esposo (y ella también esporádicamente) trabaja para los Médicos Sin Fronteras. Actualmente Martina vive en El Sudan con su familia, y tiene su propio estudio donde se imparten clases de arte también.

En el mundo artístico de Martina el dogma y el mundo visual forman dos partes separadas. Ella accede todo lo que es religioso no tanto a través de la institución de la iglesia sino a través del icono, el imagen divino. Los iconos no solo son un mundo muy de cerca liado con la vida cuotidiana contemporánea en un país como Grecia, si no también forman parte de una mentalidad mas bien oriental que occidental. En el occidente el significado del icono ortodoxa ha sido bastante mal interpretado o mal entendido desde el punto de vista de la historia del arte. La tradición de la iconografía Ortodoxa tiene una metodología y teoría muy grande y anciana y no muy bien conocida, que fue construyendo se después de las guerras iconoclastitas en el siglo 8 (Sínodo de Nicaea 787 DC). Sin embargo en el occidente la Iconografía ortodoxa se interpretaba como un tipo de arte sin desarrollo.  No fue hasta la época del modernismo (siglo 20) cuando el espacio visual no era mas una ventana al mundo real si no una puerta a otros mundos mas allá semejantes al mundo divinote la iconografía que el icono empezó a ser mejor entendido.

En estos icono hechos espacialmente para esta exposición, Martina se atreve no solo a interpretar el objeto divino sino también a combinar dos culturas muy distintas. Dos culturas muy diferentes pero al mismo tiempo muy semejantes, el mundo árabe con el mundo cristiano. Es un esfuerzo no a convertir ni no a unir. Martina siente una responsabilidad muy grande como artista no solo de producir objetos ascéticos sino que estos objetos tengan un significado y un mensaje actual que haga el publico buscar y pensar a través de los colores y los símbolos. El fondo de papel de prensa Sudanés con artículos de noticias diarias superpuesto con los iconos es un pequeño esfuerzo quizás infantil en unir el desconocido con el conocido. Nuestro mundo parece que se esta polarizando mas y mas en nuestro tiempo, aunque esta sea la época de globalización. Estos iconos son una manifestación de oposiciones:  religioso / cuotidiano; oriental / occidental; conocido / desconocido y mas de todo contradicción pero también unión. Ojala pudiésemos conseguir esta dinámica como seres humanos. En paz.

Exhibition at MMoMA, Moscow February 2010

From the moment I started thinking about my paintings as possessing a value, more important than mere aesthetics, from the moment that I saw these objects functioning as an important historical or social weapon, Christian Orthodox iconography has played a central role in my work both visually and methodologically.

About a year ago I embarked on a project that is based on the book titled The ladder of Divine Ascent written by a Mount Sinai monk called John Climacus (ca. 579 – 649, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Climacus). This project is called “Climacus”, which means ladder in Latin, and its core component consists of 30 paintings each measuring 110×105 cm. Along side this I have made 2 video installations and several other pieces. The whole body of work is intrinsically linked to a common theme that relates to my theories on current political and sociological issues, expressed through the more traditional methodologies of Orthodox Iconography. At the same time this project addresses issues about art and indirectly the art establishment.

The icon made as a result of the above book is one that has always fascinated me. This icon type portrays a very surreal image with a captivating sense of space, movement and emotion. At the core of its subject matter, it seems to me visually, are polarities; saints vs. demons, up vs. down. These polarities are why I chose this image and this book. I am fascinated by forces of good and evil and how they influence the path of our lives. Each of the 30 paintings represents a part of the icon, if all the 30 paintings are put together they will reveal the icon, it is a kind a giant puzzle if you will.

One of the books core messages is apatheia or dispassion, this being the only way, according to the author, to reach divinity. It’s hard to be dispassionate however when you look at the world around us. In this, the Moscow metro and Russian popular culture for me have become symbols of a global phenomenon. Travelling daily in the Moscow metro is a very intense experience. What strikes one most is the apathy yet extreme intent with which people go about their daily business. Untouched by the increasingly polarized world around them, and eagerly soaking up any media ploy to keep them abject, men and women mesmerized by popular culture and the hypnotic hum drum of an ultra materialist existence, descend towards decadence. With a determined, aggressive step it seems to me they step towards their ultimate destruction, fully aware and yet not caring, apathetic. In one of the video installations there is footage of metro escalators combines with a 3x2m painting of the Climacus icon.

In all this work, Russian contemporary popular culture is placed in the boxing ring with Orthodox spiritual thought (not dogma, nor missionary type religious messages), in an attempt to awaken the need to want to be aware, to be involved and above all to be active concerning global affairs. At the same time, the use of on the one hand video and on the other of painting is a similar commentary on the state of contemporary art which shuns any reference to spirituality and gloats much rather in sensationalism, irony and the ultimate shock effect, through grand scale multimedia creations.

Moscow, January 2009

7 visions of contemporary life:

‘A group of international artists are taking advantage of the economic downturn to put on an exhibition in an abandoned office space in the heart of Moscow.  Paintings, drawings, prints and sculpture ranging from the figurative to the abstract, the comical to the serious will be exhibited.  The artists have taken  inspiration from different aspects of contemporary life to produce a body of work that is dynamic, full of colour and wit and an antidote to the dry and sterile conceptual art of the pre-crisis era!!!!

 

Portilla de Escape 7

7 visiones de la vida contemporánea:

‘Un grupo de artistas internacionales se está aprovechando del depresión económica para organizar una exposición en un espacio de oficinas abandonado en el corazón de Moscú.  Pinturas, dibujos, imprimaciones y escultura extendiéndose del figurado al extracto, el cómico al serio serán exhibidos.  ¡Los artistas han tomado la inspiración de diversos aspectos de la vida contemporánea para producir un cuerpo del trabajo que es dinámico, lleno de color e ingenio y un antídoto al arte conceptual seco y estéril de la era de la pre-crisis!!!!

 

Выходной люк 7

7 зрений современной жизни:

‘Группа в составе международные художники take advantage of хозяйственный спад для того чтобы положить дальше выставку в покинутый космос офиса в сердце Moscow.  Будут exhibited картины, чертежи, печати и скульптура колебаясь от фигуративного к конспекту, комичное к серьезному.  Художники принимали воодушевленность от по-разному аспектов современной жизни для того чтобы произвести тело работы динамическое, полное цвета и острословия и противоядия к сухому и стерильному схематическому искусствоу эры pre-кризиса!!!!

Moscow, Russia, November 2008

The Project “Artists against AIDS” with the support of the United Program of United Nations on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) unites well-known contemporary Russian artists with one principle – the health and future of the nation is important to them.

Today Russia has one of the highest in the number of newly registered cases of the diseases related to HIV- infection in Europe. According to the estimations of international experts, the number of HIV-positive people in Russia can be 1, 5 million people. The epidemic affects not only risk groups, which include, firstly, the users of narcotics, but society as a whole. In 2007, 44% of all new cases of HIV – infection were women. The number of cases with children increased accordingly, as they originated from HIV-positive mothers. Among them are a large number of HIV abandoned children, who fall into orphanages and are deprived of family warmth and care.

Participants in the project consider it their duty not only to speak up about the problem of HIV/AIDS and overcome the specific prohibitions and prejudice in society, but also to help HIV-positive children, who live in orphanages.

For this reason artists have donated their works to be exhibited and sold. This exhibit is planned to be held in the Central House of Artists in the first half November 2008 in Moscow. All income from the sale of art will be given for aid to children in the Lomonosovsky orphanage in the Leningrad region, where there are 2 groups for HIV-positive from infancy up to four years. Today there is a sharp need for 15 beds. All participants in the project will obtain a detailed report about the use of the funds. The release of a catalog and a poster of the exhibition is planned.

Moscow artists Sergey Tsigal, Andrey Bilzho, Galina Bystritskaya, an artist from Uglich, Valentina Maximova, and others have confirmed that they will participate in the exhibition.

The project “Artists against AIDS” is a regular continuation and development of the photography project “Stars against AIDS”, begun by UNAIDS together with well-known photographer Serge Golovach in March 2008. Participating were Tatiana Mitkova, Elena Khanga, Svetlana Khorkina, Julia Bordovskikh, Maria Kiseleva, Dina Korzun, Diana Gurtskaya, Marina Aleksandrova and other women who are successful in their professional and personal lives. These women are certain that it is necessary to actively counteract the spread of HIV – infection. The photography exhibition was shown in Moscow at the Stella Art Foundation and in Rostov-on- Don at the State Public Library.

In the modern world, we all live next to HIV and, until vaccine against the disease is invented, and even though there is treatment, we must speak against discrimination and stigmatization of people living with HIV.

ArtPlay, Moscow, Russia, April 2008

Martina Anagnostou, Genoveva Fernández, Juana Domingo, Sarah Watterson.

The project is a group exhibition, titled “Glances” of our most recent work. This exhibition is a manifestation of different artistic processes and perspectives from various cultural points of view, as much as a commentary on the diverse faces of active and reactive femininity. Each of us in our own way and with the individual experience we have of art and life, offer different ‘glances’, as it were, of our inner world. The Exhibition is scheduled to open in the centre of architecture and interior design ArtPlay on the 19th of April 2008. This venue is a refurbished old beer factory, which has a bohemian atmosphere and houses up-market interior design shops.

Asni gallery, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, March 2007

How great it would be to have the ability to read another persons mind, and how catastrophic at the same time… Works of art are probably the closest one gets to opening the doors to ones psyche. What keeps me awake at night and drives me to make these strange objects that we call “art”, is the great irony of this world we live in and the stringent polarities we humans create out of something that is simply a united whole. Although at heart I am a painter, my convictions have lead me to use more immediate forms to express my ideas. Together with painting, text and photographic means have been a dominant aspect of my work. It is more crucial for me to convey an important message rather than be praised for the mere stylistic qualities of my work. The protagonists of this show are re-settlers, migrant workers and commercial sex workers from the north west of Ethiopia. These people have come here in search of a better life and instead they have been trapped in a merciless climate, exposed to insects infected with unthinkable killer diseases, exposed to dangers impossible to imagine. Still how brightly their eyes shine, and how resilient their spirits. The material I am using is a reflection of the idea of protection but at the same time entrapment for example the baby pouches or enquelba as they are called in Amharic, or the corrugated iron sheets, also protection mechanism that entrap. In my last exhibition in Islamabad Pakistan I worked almost obsessively with the art of henna tattoos incorporating the international symbols for the male and female. One can imagine my shock when upon coming to Ethiopia I beheld the beautiful faces of the Habesha with the tattooed foreheads displaying what look like female symbols and suns. I have incorporated these beautiful tattoos in this series of work as a manifestation of the divine in the midst of the desperate.

“Switch!” Nomad Gallery (September 2005)

How great it would be to have the ability to read another persons mind, and how catastrophic at the same time… Works of art are probably the closest one gets to opening the doors, or more appropriately in this case, the windows to ones psyche. What keeps me awake at night and drives me to make these strange objects that we call “art”, is the great irony of this world we live in and the stringent polarities we humans create out of something that is simply a united whole. Male Female… East West… Christian Muslim… Looking into the faces of the people populating these works, religion and even gender are hard and in many cases impossible to recognize. Their eyes (if uncovered…) allude simply and anonymously to the oh so familiar experience of emotion, so common to all of us. Although at heart I am a painter, my convictions have lead me to use more immediate forms to express my ideas. Together with painting, text and photographic means have been a dominant aspect of my work. It is more crucial for me to convey an important message rather than be praised for the mere stylistic qualities of my work. Pakistani ancient and popular culture in the form of mehandi has been a great source of inspiration for this, my latest group of work. I have combined the decorative density of mehandi with the political austerity of global symbols in order to raise some questions about our times. In this age where one can only be “with or against”, the idea of “good and bad” is being defined for us. I therefore invite you to touch the switch and dare to shed light on a different way of thinking about what is good and what is allegedly bad. I will leave the interpretation up to you…