Vasilis Papageorgiou

“Exhausted” represents an institutional self-diagnosis, a sort of medical certificate or, better, of exhaustion. On the other hand, Papageorgiou himself embodies a state of tiredness caused by a demanding art system. The title also refers to exhaust pipes, the final part of a car’s engine system through which burned gases or steam are discharged, signifying a moment of decompression. To escape from a new occupation, the artist, at the venerable age of 26, turns his gaze backwards imagining his own retrospective: a format that can only exist here paradoxically thanks to the feverish pretensions of the aforementioned system, the same that made possible the accumulation of a large amount of works over a few years. “Exhausted” ironically pauses, at a small turnaround, the chronometer that adjusts the gruelling race towards the success of the contemporary artist.

Vasilis Papageorgiou’s studio is in constant flux between the intimate and the public place, since it is also used as the exhibition space for Enterprise Projects. For open form, Vasilis brings out from the storage of his studio ‘Somebody has to do it’, 2016 and reinstalls it in the space it was first conceived, inviting the public to interact with it for the first time. ‘Somebody has to do it’ is a large scale installation that was exhibited for his first solo show at Elika Gallery in 2016. Although this work mirrors the architecture of a bar, within the exhibition at Elika Gallery it operated as an artwork, not to be touched or interacted with and in a sense, never served its primary function as a bar. Where does then an artwork that also serves as a platform for conversation belong? Should it be accessible to the public or should this artwork be stored and protected? Vasilis chooses to communicate his practice by recreating or staging the very environment that serves as a source of reference in his practice. Bars function as a catalyst for conversation and so Vasilis invites the public for a drink and a conversation around ‘Somebody has to do it’ in order to activate the function of this installation.

For his first solo show, and in an effort to create a platfrom in which to draw together recent works, Papageorgiou creates a large scale installation inspired by the bar as a meeting point. Tha bar and the space that unfolds around it become an assembly point for commonplace, everyday objects that bear no relation to each other - other than forming part of the artists’ personal universe - objects that are drastically redefined in the Athenian landscape that is put together. Using the materials as well as their characteristics and properties as the starting point for his work, the artist constructs a still life composed of contemporary archaeological findings that is infused with sarcasm and humour. The focus here is on relationships; between objects, between objects and people, and ultumately, the broad spectrum of human relationships. Papageorgiou’s bar functions, not only as a physical boundary, but also as a symbolic boundary between imagination and reality. The staged landscapes and micro-situations and scenarios lead the viewer onto an exploration of the space of dreams and the subconscious. In Somebody had to do it the function of objects is negated and time stops in a static narrative