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Egyptian telecoms magnate Naguib Sawiris and mobile operator TIM Hellas’s CEO Sokratis Kominakis announced the company’s renaming as Wind Hellas in Athens yesterday.

Sawiris said he had also made ‘a generous offer’ to the Public Power Corporation to buy out Tellas, its telecoms arm. He said Wind will expand into fixed telephony and broadband services as of this summer, a sector in which he plans to continue investing given the large profit margins.

Police said yesterday they had arrested an Australian fugitive in Athens who is wanted for murder and trafficking.

Tony Mokbel was arrested in the southern Athens suburb of Glyfada, police added. According to the Australian press, Mokbel is Australia’s most wanted fugitive and a global search for him had been launched 15 months ago.

A coordinated investigation involving Victoria Police, the Australian Federal Police and international law enforcement agencies is believed to have led to the arrest.

Mokbel left Australia in March 2006 while standing trial in Melbourne on a charge of trafficking 2 kilograms of cocaine. The court convicted him in absentia and sentenced him to nine years.

The thief who stole a silk dress worn by opera singer Maria Callas from the Italian Cultural Institute in Athens almost two weeks ago has returned the robe by post!

The Institute’s Director Melita Palestini said yesterday that a package containing the dress, valued at 100,000 euros, arrived at the center on Friday. “I recognized the material as soon as I opened the package,” Palestini said. “I did not touch it and immediately called the police.”

Palestini said the dress, which was taken away by officers for examination, appeared a little crumpled but not damaged. The robe was worn by Callas at a performance at the Herod Atticus Theater in August 1957 and was part of a collection put on display at the institute to mark the 30th anniversary of the diva’s death. Palestini said that an ardent admirer of the opera singer probably stole the dress.

Art and the police, two concepts, two worlds that are far apart and should remain so. After all, every time these two worlds have approached each other, it has always been for the worst.

As the official with political responsibility for the police department, Public Order Minister Vyron Polydoras is experiencing a kind of purgatory, or so he maintained recently. As a self-professed poet, however, who currently happens to be running the Greek police force, what should be Polydoras’s reaction to the sight of his officers bursting into an art exhibition and removing an exhibit, as happened last Saturday with the video installation of acclaimed artist Eva Stefani at the Art Athina show? Should he just sit back and watch? Or should he exploit his influence to defend freedom of speech and artistic expression?

There are many of us who probably feel bothered by a work of art that mixes pornography with the National flag. But if we give the state the power, and chiefly, the right, to remove such works from public displays, we will be setting off down an extremely dangerous spiritual and moral road. Such things do not happen in free countries; they are not done by free people. Such things happen under Third World regimes, in fascist-style states.

And when such things happen in free countries, then both the societies themselves and other public agencies must take concerted action to contain such activities. But such actions are certainly not silently overlooked, swept under the carpet or tolerated.

Art history is rife with creators who offended the “sacred values” of their times, including some huge names, who should one mention first?, whose restriction due to censorship would have left the world of art a much poorer place.

But Greek art has also suffered much from jingoistic censors over the decades. I do not know if Stefani offends our National sentiment. Perhaps she does. But I do know that the initiative of the police, in removing her work, offends this sentiment much more violently, as it insults the much deeper, central concept of patriotism. After all, the notion of patriotism should go hand-in-hand with that of freedom, otherwise there is something fundamentally wrong with it. In a true democracy, these two notions cannot be in conflict because if they are, our lives will become reminiscent of the gloomy years of the 1950s, 60s and 70s.

Irrespective of the fundamental values linked to civil rights and freedoms, beyond the argument about what constitutes art and what does not, there is another reason that we should allow provocative works to be shown, because they make us think. If we think long enough, we may wonder whether Stefani’s artwork offends our patriotism more than other activities we see every day and tolerate.

Further reading >

Police pull offensive video art off display

Protests as Greek police close indecent art show

Artists protest raid on show

A video exhibition at the Museum of Cycladic Art looks at the past through the subjective > Rodney Graham’s ‘Vexation Island,’ was created for the 1997 Venice Biennale

The rare collection of archaeological artifacts owned by the Museum of Cycladic Art traces the course of prehistoric Greece in a chronological, linear fashion. The display moves from one period to the next in a way that assumes succession and continuity.

In «Her(his)story» an exhibition of contemporary video art which just opened on the Museum’s premises and is curated by Marina Fokidis, the intention is to offer a completely different understanding of history. The exhibition includes works by 21 international and Greek artists, most of them well-known names in the art establishment. Victor Alimpiev, Cory Arcangel, Paolo Canevari, Douglas Gordon, Rodney Graham, Garry Hill, Isaac Julien, Peter Land, Annika Larsson, Aernout Mik, Toni Oursler, Oliver Pietsch, Anri Sala, Zineb Sedira, the Atlas Group, Charis Epameinonda, Lina Theodorou, DeAnna Maganias, Miltos Manetas, Angelos Plessas and Yorgos Sapountzis. More artists are included in the exhibition’s second part which will open in early September.

In the accompanying catalog, Fokidis writes that the main idea of the exhibition «was to present, at a Museum which visitors think of as the inner sanctum of our archaeological roots, works which trigger our interest about multiplicity and our perception of the concept of ‘historical truth’ through a variety of solitary journeys towards the understanding of oneself within this world. Its aim was to contribute to the broader debate about the subjective development of ‘History…’»

In that same essay, Fokidis adopts the well-known argument of how history develops in a non-linear fashion, of history not as grand narrative but as constructed by interpretations and a variety of different, personal stories. References to Foucault, among other thinkers, are used to analyze the idea of a fragmented reality that replaces an absolute truth.

Fokidis makes an attempt to analyze an intricate, philosophical debate and raises issues that spark one’s curiosity for further reading. Yet, the concept, even in this general outline that the curator has presented, does not come through via the actual exhibition in a forceful and direct manner. This is why looking for proof of an a priori intellectual construct is probably the wrong frame of mind to visit «Her(his)tory». The exhibition is better enjoyed when approached in a more relaxed, open way.

One of the exhibition’s strong points is that it sensitizes the viewer to the notion of time. Video art in itself has that temporal quality, unlike static imagery, it unfolds in time, but the fact that the works are placed in an exhibition space connected with history is also part of the overall effect.

Another strong point is the actual arrangement of the works throughout the Museum’s premises. The spot that has been chosen for each work has been carefully thought out and the outcome succeeds in bringing out not only aspects of each work but also of the Museum’s holdings. An example is DeAnna Maganias’s video «Say Goodbye to the Monkeys» which shows the image of a gorilla eating inside his cage and uses the crying sound of a young girl as an acoustic background. The screen that projects the work is positioned outside the glass corridor that links the Museum’s two buildings. The choice of that particular spot enhances the play between the spectator and the object of his gaze and blurs the concept of inside and outside, making one feel both in the position of the caged animal and the voyeur, the victimizer and the victim.

A large screen that shows «Nemesis», a video by Cypriot artist Charis Epameinonda that plays with double imagery, is placed diagonally in the stairwell of the Museum’s Megaron Stathatos building. This unusual positioning offers a view that, especially when seen from the top of the staircase, is quite impressive.

«Her(his)tory» should also be noted for including some wonderful works. «Saphir» a work by Zineb Sedira, a French artist born to Algerian immigrants, is a poetic contemplation on issues of identity, immigration and memory. Set in the area around the port of Algiers, the story told in this double-screen projection features a solitary man who wanders along the harbor and looks out toward the sea and a woman in a hotel that dates from the colonial rule of Algeria, who also also looks out at the port from the room of her hotel. The images unravel slowly, showing minimal movement and zooming on the protagonists’ facial expressions. Atmospheric in mood, the work puts across a feeling that is caught between entrapment and escape.

An emotional tension is also the mood in «Summer Lightings», a video by Russian artist Victor Alimpiev in which the nervous, noisy movement that young schoolgirls make by tapping their fingers on their desks is suddenly interrupted by silent, closeup images of their facial expressions. The work combines a feeling of menace with the tenderness and innocence of youth.

Video art can be tiring and at times unpleasant to follow, yet in this particular exhibition, it is most likely that one will find himself watching most of the works from beginning to end and leaving the exhibition with a feeling of gratification.

The fact that the exhibition is held in a museum that holds archaeological artifacts adds to the positive experience. Although the idea is to distinguish between a traditional and a more contemporary way of perceiving history, one does not necessarily obtain a sense of rupture but rather the warm feeling that usually emerges when the contemporary is seen in relationship with the past.

«Her(his)tory» at the Museum of Cycladic Art, 4 Neophytou Douka Street, Athens, tel 210 7228321. Through 29/9. The second part of the exhibition will open in early September.

Related Links > http://www.cycladic-m.gr

‘Downlove’ the first stereoscopic video dance in Greece > Actors Aris Servetalis and Lina Sakka star as two avatars whose tops fall for each other.

‘The idea was that clothes are not just something we wear, but that they have their own existence,’ said Laskaridis.

In a tightly packed room, an excited audience eagerly waited, equipped with special three-dimensional vision glasses. As the lights dimmed, the video kicked into action, unfolding the short, simple yet intriguing story of two people whose clothes fall in love because they themselves are unable to do so, although they want to.

“Downlove” the first stereoscopic video dance in Greece, set in virtual reality and conceived by Euripides Laskaridis and Marios Sergios Eliakis, received a warm welcome when screened at the 7th Videodance Festival in Athens before the festival’s premature closure at the Vasilissis Sofias venue.

In “Downlove” well-known actors Aris Servetalis and Lina Sakka play the two avatars, virtual reality characters. Their movements, as well as those of their clothes, cleverly instrumented by Laskaridis, reveal the emotional shortcomings of the avatars. The pullover and cardigan appear to acquire a life of their own and take over, establishing the communication that the avatars cannot have.

Laskaridis and Eliakis’s next plan is to try and screen the video at as many festivals as possible, already they have applied to Athens’s Synch Festival, an annual event for avant-garde artistic expression, in July and are waiting for a reply. They have also been in touch with Bios. For practical purposes, because stereoscopy is hardly used, they are also planning to promote “Downlove” as a monoscopic video.

An exhibition is currently held at the Benaki Museum to mark Constantine Karamanlis 100 years since the statesman’s birth.

The late Constantine Karamanlis, was Prime Minister and President of the Hellenic Republic and the uncle of Greece’s current Prime Minister. He served the country as President of the Hellenic Republic 1980–5, 1990–5 and as Prime Minister 1955–8, 1958–61, 1961–3, 1974–80.

Current Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis said yesterday that his uncle contributed decisively to Greece’s current position in the EU.

Related Links >
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantine_Karamanlis

http://www.idkaramanlis.gr

http://www.karamanlis-foundation.gr/en/index.html