Artistic Research in Greece, from the 1990s to the Years of the Crisis

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Published: Dec 13, 2022
DOI: https://doi.org/10.12681/pixelsh.31644
Elpida Rikou
Katerina Konstantinou
Abstract

This project considers the study of recent developments on artistic research in Greece as an occasion for an important theoretical and methodological contribution in this newly established field. It is timely in doing so, both given that artistic research, its history, and prospects are of great interest internationally and in view of the fact that, even though artistic research has become essential in cultural production of value worldwide, it is still not well documented as a social phenomenon and remains under-theorized, in need of specific case studies.


The term artistic research, referring to activities in the processes of art production that could qualify as “research,” is relatively recent but it has already been strongly debated. This project responds to the growing interest for artistic research, nowadays, related to current drifts in the arts, which may be understood as a confirmation of the artists’ innovative spirit that opens up new perspectives for scientists themselves or as a by-product of neoliberal antagonistic relationships in education that could restrict artistic freedom by creating a new academy.


The project focuses on the fact that since the 1990s artistic research has seen a significant development in Greece too, due to artistic initiatives drawing from social sciences and humanities in order to produce art with political overtones. This tendency has been reinforced during the current crisis when the need for art activism was clearly felt and encouraged by the international attention that contemporary Greek art production gained. Meanwhile, Greek Fine Arts Schools face the challenge of artistic research and of further updating their curriculums.


The research project combines notions and tools from anthropology and art history in order to document and theorize artistic research in Greece from the 1990s, when it first appears, onward. Methodology and outcomes can be summarized as follows: a) an archive of artworks, artists, and exhibitions; b) an online platform designed and implemented in order to host the research material; c) a selection of projects uploaded into an international database for artistic research, also offering artistic research in Greece wider visibility; d) four selected in-progress artistic researches have been compared through participatory observation and in-depth interviews; e) an event organized to publicise the research results and serve as an occasion for an informed dialogue amongst Greek and international artists, scientists, and theorists.


This project provides a solid background for the study of artistic research culture within and around academia both in Greece and internationally and will deepen our understanding of art-making processes, their institutional context and the public perception of contemporary arts. A number of questions on creativity, interdisciplinarity, and collaboration in scientific and artistic research will be posed, and their educational and political implications will be thoroughly considered.


 

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Author Biographies
Elpida Rikou

Elpida Rikou has studied sociology (Panteion University, Athens), anthropology (DEA, Université Paris V-Sorbonne), social psychology (DEA and PhD, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris) and visual arts (Athens School of Fine Arts). She has taught Anthropology of Art in the Department of Theory and History of Art of the Athens School of Fine Arts from 2007 to 2017. From 2011 to 2013 she has also taught in the Postgraduate Program (Master’s in Fine Arts) of the Department of Visual Arts of the same School. She is the editor of the volume Anthropology and Contemporary Art (Alexandria, 2013) for  which she has also written the introduction, as well as of the translation in Greek of Marc Augé’s book Pour une anthropologie des mondes contemporains (Alexandria, 1999). She has co-edited the translation in Greek of Alfred Gell’s book Art and Agency (MIET, 2021), two volumes combining works of artists and social scientists on value (Αξία, Nissos, 2018) and on sound and voice (Φωνές/Fones, Nissos, 2016), as well as the special issue of FIELD: A Journal of Socially Engaged Art Criticism on research between art and anthropology (2018). She has published articles in scientific periodicals, edited collections, art catalogues, and newspapers. She has conceived and coordinated several art projects with a transdisciplinary character in which she is also a participant as an anthropologist and visual artist, since 2010 (the art, research and education project TWIXTlab, with S. Grigoriadou and G. Samantas, the international research project “Learning from documenta” with E. Yalouri, etc.).

Katerina Konstantinou

Katerina Konstantinou is an art historian, currently a PhD candidate at the Department of Social Anthropology of Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences in Athens. Her research interests focus on the diverse and advanced modes of public and community engagement in the interpretations and representations of the past. She has participated in several research programs run by various institutions. In her independent research she has been applying and combining methods and practices that draw from various disciplinary and other fields, using ethnographic fieldwork techniques, oral and public history practices, community archaeology methods, contemporary art means, museology media, cinematography, technology and multimedia. She has worked for museums and cultural organizations in Greece and abroad. She has received scholarships and grants from the University of Ioannina, the Research Centre for the Humanities and the Greek Ministry of Culture and Sports. She is currently a research associate at the Institute of Mediterranean Studies of the Foundation for Research and Technology (IMS-FORTH).

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