I Would Prefer Not To

 “I Would Prefer Not To” - Maro Michalakakos

Ileana Tounta Contemporary Art Center
29.03.2012 – 26.05.2012

 

The exhibition title «I Would Prefer Not To» is inspired by the enigmatic character of Herman Melvill’s Bartleby (“Bartleby the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street”, Herman Melville), who persistently uses the above phrase.

 

 Facing space as a philosophical entirety and not just as an environment where things just happen, the artist presents two installations; “Red Carpet” and “Happy Days”. For the first one, the pile of the velvet is being removed and for the second the process of abstraction; the sound and the red fluff falling down, become artwork. Both these installations have direct references to authority, power, as well as the forced intimacy between life and death.

 

The “Red Carpet”, a velvet with the prints of a predator is spread all over the gallery, developing a relationship of intensity with the space. The danger of subverting the roles within the relationship between the victim and the abuser, predator and prey is charming, frightening and stimulating

 

 The title of her second installation “Happy Days” (Oh Les Beaux Jours) has been chosen by Paul Verlaine’s homonym poem and Samuel Beckett’s work. The gallery columns; white, simple and with the desire to remain invisible while they support the building, are fully covered by fluff, adding to it and to dust a monumental dimension.

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