November 5th –23rd 2013
"The in-Tension" / Beton7, Center for the Arts
15th - 18th April 2014
"The in-Tension #2" / Espace 24 - Institut Supérieur des Beaux-Arts de Besançon, France
Curated by Demosthenes Agrafiotis & Andreas Pashias
Presented by epitelesis - Performance Art Foundation

Site specific performance, Aoos artificial lake, Metsovo, Greece
Silent Op-position represents a return to investigations of the body/ground most fully explored by shamans, yogis and practitioners of alternative healing arts.
Duration: 3 hours

As part of the Athens Photo Festival 2013, the exhibition was presented for the first time under the title 'The in-Tension' at Beton7 Gallery in Athens - Greece. By examining the fusion of artistic practices experienced in the contemporary cultural scene, this exhibition brings forward the work of prominent international artists as a crucial effort to re-evaluate the relationship of performance art and photography. In performance art, the duration required to execute an artwork is 'equal' to the actual artwork. Photography is introduced in this process, as an attempt to capture the artist's corporeal existence or its trace in action. The 'tension' between these two artistic practices is brought forward through the contrast of a performance's duration unfolding over a specific period of time and the photographic instance capturing only one frame/moment of action. Therefore, the ephemeral dimension of performance art is quoted by the resulting photograph, into a document of permanence. As a pictorial essay, this exhibition proposes the detached photograph as autonomous artwork and presents it alongside similarly treated artistic output.

The differences between the art of performance and the art of photography come in diverse formats, so that the performance artist and the photographer can choose the elements on which they can build convergences and divergences. These formats of 'intention' can be realized through a photograph taken during a live performance, a still image captured from a video performance, an image of the artist taken in collaboration with a photographer or even a self-photographed image of the artist. The relationship between the performer and the photographer is formulated according to the structural elements of these 'in-tensions'. As a result, this exhibition is based upon the formats of producing artwork by a 'hybrid creator', that rises through the merging of an artist's body and a photographer's camera lens.

Performance Artists: Abel Azcona · Alastair MacLennan · Alexandros Plomaritis · Amalia Charikiopoulou · Andreas Pashias · Bartolomé Ferrando · BBB Johannes Deimling · Boris Nieslony · Carlos Martiel · Dagmar I. Glausnitzer-Smith · Demosthenes Agrafiotis · GRAAM · Grigoris Semitecolo · Joseph Ravens · Julien Blaine · Katharina Kastl · Kurt Johannessen · Lala Nomada · Michel Collet · Monika Günther & Ruedi Schill · Pekka Kainulainen · Seiji Shimoda · Valentine Verhaeghe

Photographers: Anne Lise Dehee · Daniel Häller · Dimitris Priftis · Fabrizio Garghetti · Jean Marc de Samie · Jesse Clockwork · Jessica Smith · Jouko Vatanen · Juan Pablo Hoyos Ramírez · Kenny Lemes · Manuel Vason · Mathias Pick · Miklos Legrady · Mishka Henner · Monika Sobczak · Rita Rodrigues