Prospect
In this series of photographs, created over the course of six weeks when I resided across the road from the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, I explore the area along and around the road that connects Williamstown and North Adams—towns that are only a few miles apart but often seem like two different worlds. I started asking about their stories, and the social and economic conditions that formed today’s “town and gown” relationship. In my slow, long walks along Route 2, I observed the area’s distinct communities, cultures and natural elements in order to trace something that could be described as the genius loci (the spirit of the place).
The title for the photographs came from Mount Prospect, which overlooks the two towns. “Prospect” suggests a range of evocative meanings: an outlook onto the future, great expectation and distinct possibilities, and moreover my own expectations about what it means to travel through America and record its images.
Très long (project in progress)
Hymettus mountain in Athens, in antiquity a place of worship and healing is also known as “Trelos”, which literally in Greek means “crazy”. This originates probably from French travelers who during the occupation of Greece by the Ottomans used the words "très long" meaning “very long” in awe of its winding length of 16 km. Or it might originate from its unstable climatic conditions on its top.
During the Covid-19 period Hymettus mountain, a protected area in the EU's Natura 2000 ecological network, attracted many visitors. Being a constant visitor myself for many years now, I started to explore the anthropogeography of Hymettus on its north-eastern part near my home, by making pictures of runners, hikers, nature lovers and families, the forest, details of nature, entrances of caves, old mines, rocks and various views. As the project progressed, I came to realize that my first thoughts about exploring the anthropogeography of Hymettus began to integrate other elements. This shifting was in accordance with what I observed and sensed during my photographic explorations. I realized that Hymettus might be as a state of mind for its visitors and for me.
This is a project in progress that started in Autumn 2021.
Heading West (project in progress)
The western and northwestern region of Greece were among the 20 poorest regions in the European Union in terms of GDP per capita in 2015, when I started photographing in this region. However, what attracted me to the area of Missolonghi and Amvrakikos Gulf in the first place was the distinctive landscape, the energy and the aura of the region and the fact that it reminded me of some Walker Evans' and Stephen Shore's photographs; or perhaps the morbid atmosphere of Visconti's Death in Venice. Nevertheless, the Missolonghi and the Amvrakikos Gulf wetlands are not usually visited by aesthetes and the locals are not in the tourism business. They are usually poor fishermen; kind and a bit timid, in my eyes at least. But then again, when I start to seek a meaning for the photographs and a meaning for the place, I remember Ian Jeffrey writing about P.H. Emerson's Norfolk. "Norfolk's meaning was crucial to Emerson's enterprise. It was not simply a beautiful spot. To its devotees Norfolk seemed like the last enclave of ancient life in England". West is my East Anglia. A distant world, a kind of romantic landscape fantasy, with all the ethically problematic detachments of a remote perspective. A perspective which I am questioning.
Paradise on Earth
Ruegen, an island in the Balitic Sea, attracted me photographically as the romantic topos par excellence. It was the favorite place of German intellectuals, religious men and Romantic painters like C. D. Friedrich and P. O. Runge. Yet, the reason I visited Ruegen for the first time in 2009 was to photograph the so-called “Colossus of Prora” the 4,5 km long modernistic building that lies along the Prora bay. Conceived by the Nazi “KdF - Kraft durch Freude” (Strength through Joy) organisation for mass vacation by the sea it was originally planned to accommodate 20000 Aryan vacationers. The war prevented the KDF from completing the project.
When I started this project in 2009 the fate of the "Colossus of Rügen," seemed quite uncertain. Politicians, investors, historians and scientists had different views and interests. The various parts of the building offered sublime modernistic ruins, a Documentation Center, a dance club, a privately owned cheap fantasmagoric museum, and a café-restaurant. In 2011 a gigantic youth hostel appeared. The last years, however, most of the 500m long remaining blocks were transformed into luxury apartments - hotel rooms. In Prora, history, aesthetics and politics are closely interwoven. It seems to me that something like a conundrum emerges here; or a breach in managing the memory.
Furthermore, what I find of a particular aesthetic interest in Prora, is the juxtaposition of the visitors vulnerable bodies who come here to see the spectacle or to have a swim, against the brutality of this massive architectural Nazi artifact. Just like in Friedrich’s paintings the human figures that turn their back to us remind us that in this natural as well as historical spectacle we are only latecomers.
http://www.phosmag.com/eleni-mouzakiti/
http://www.photofestival.gr/exhibitions/eleni-mouzakiti
Riss
The German word ‘Riss’ means ‘breach’. Riss #1 depicts the Colossus of Prora, the largest Third Reich building in existence. The gigantic 4,5 km long Prora seaside resort was designed by Clemens Klotz and built between 1936 and 1939 as a Kraft durch Freude (KdF) project that sought to provide cheap or free leisure activities for the working class. In Prora, history, aesthetics and politics are closely interwoven. There seems to be a breach in managing a site of memory.
The diptych was created on the occasion of the Forgetmenot group exhibition curated by Supermina at Elika Gallery, Athens (23 February - 24 March 2012
Riss # 1, 2011, KdF Prora Resort, Ruegen, Germany. Archival inkjet print, 52 X 66 cm, edition of 3and 78 X 100 cm, edition of 3
Riss # 2, 2011, Ruegen, Germany. aArchival inkjet print, 52 X 66 cm, edition of 3, and 78 X 100 cm, edition of 3
Leisure Time or a Fantasy of [not] Belonging (on-going project)
This on-going series started in 2005 as a photographic investigation of the leisure time geography - typology. I was and still am interested in recording the open public spaces (parks, beaches, for instance) that host or suggest "leisure time". In this context I am interested in depicting the appearance of people in these spaces-areas, and in describing the concept of ‘absorption’ in the public realm. I am also trying to explore the obvious political connotations of this leisure-time geography.
Nine photographs of this series formed part of the "Heterotopias: Society Must Be Defended" exhibition which was curated by Jan-Eric Lundstroem in the framework of the 1st. Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art
http://biennale1.thessalonikibiennale.gr/actdetail.php?prg_id=22&ptype=1&lang=2
In limbo
Ian Jeffrey’s text about this series ☞ https://elenimouzakiti.com/ian-jeffrey-in-limbo
Through this series of photographs taken in the London underground during the years 2000-2005, I explore the notion of 'absorption' in the public realm. This notion is in accordance with what Georg Simmel in 1908 described as the ‘blasé outlook’, which is the typical outlook that city people adopt, as a the consequence of an intensification of external sensual stimuli in the city.
In the subway we seem to ignore that we are being observed by other people. The presence of a photographer and a visible camera also seems to be ignored. However, on the same time I wonder whether we have to do with a kind of attitude similar to what Michael Fried described as “theatricality”. Whether by being conscious of our roles as 'subjects' to the gaze of others we pretend to be absorbed. My series includes photographs that show people who are aware that they are being photographed but still remain unresponsive and have a blank expression, as if they are looking inwardly. I did not use a hidden camera as other photographers did (starting with Walker Evans in New York subway in 1938 and most recently Luc Delahaye in Paris metro in 1999), as I was not after an 'objective' recording or ‘truth’. However, the result was similar to theirs.
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In limbo, 120 images presented in 10 grids of 12 pictures each. Each picture is 32 x 38 cm, grid 180 x 105 cm. Lambda print mounted on aluminium. Edition of 3.
Part of this series (4 grids) was exhibited in a solo exhibition in Ileana Tounta Contemporary Art Center, Athens (May 2001). 8 grids were presented in a solo exhibition in the House of Art in Bratislava (in the framework of the International Month of Photography in Bratislava, November 2003). 6 grids were exhibited in Blue Sky Gallery, Portland, Oregon, U.S.A. (September 2006) www.blueskygallery.org
2 grids belong to the permanent collection of the Thessaloniki Museum of Photography.
3 grids belong to the Portland Art Museum, Oregon, USA.
in limbo I, in limbo II and in limbo VI participate in the exhibition "Flesh and Bone" at the Portland Art Museum, in Oregon, USA. Please visit the following websites http://www.portlandartmuseum.org/fleshbone and http://www.portlandart.net/archives/2012/10/flesh_bone_at_p.html.
Grids
This series by Eleni Mouzakiti explores the concept of the grid. Repetitive elements characterised by geometrical regularity compose spaces, which, although inhabited look two-dimensional. We tend to organise a living space based on repetition. Repetition offers security, makes one fell at home. These photographs try to offer this same feeling by isolating parts of the urban space. The presentation of the works conveys a similar structure. The framing (parergon) repeats the framed reality (ergon). This is the main feature of the grid as it was formulated by American art criticism during the 60’s and the 70’s. Both Michael Fried and Rosalind Krauss, although in disagreement about the evaluation of this so common artistic structure , acknowledge the fact that the structure of the grid implies the work’s continuation into the world (beyond the frame). Michael Fried notoriously condemned this tendency criticising it as “theatricality”. Mouzakiti’s boxes do look like little stages that convert reality into a scene. Krauss traced the roots of the grid back to the bedrock of the avant-garde. She perceived in these structures the ambition of the avant-garde to reorganise the world according to a new spiritual order. Behind the geometrical purity of the grid lies a deep ambiguity. Grid is an obsession. Obsessions resist rationalisation.
K. Ioannidis
Art Historian
Braids (2022)
An angiography of my mother's kidneys was the reason for this new series of images. The kidneys and the trees clean the blood and the air respectively. They look like threads that connect us all, with everything, in everything. They show us that we are in a dynamic interaction, in a kind of coexistence where there is nothing exclusively active and nothing purely passive. It all looks like we're a tangled mess, or maybe something more orderly, a sweater.
I adopted the round shape of the angiography for the rest of the images. It brings to mind the vague picture we have of the cell, the unit of life. The circle typically symbolizes eternity, life, wholeness. I'm also thinking of the first Kodak snapshots of the late 19th century: some of the first snapshots in the history of photography, often of leisure time subjects were printed in a circular format. Perhaps it was then for the first time that life became so inextricably entangled with art.
Braids series are each 18 X 21 cm archival inkjet on archival paper, framed on aluminum. Each one comes in an edition of 7.
Quotations
In contrast to a conventional quotation my visual references do not relate to a concrete subject. The pre-text to which they refer remains open. Since I have not systematically written down their original context most of them are in a limbo state. Moreover looking at them I have the impression that they refer to biblical scenes. They form an attempt to illustrate the Book par excellence of the western tradition, something similar to the medieval laicorum literatura.
Body - Landscape - Urbanism
The photographs in the series Body - Landscape - Urbanism were taken between 1995 and 2004. Some of them were at first grouped into themes such as landscapes, portraits or cityscapes. The choice to exhibit them all together in mosaic sets in the form of a grid was motivated by the observation of a unified style that connects the photographs of these different subjects, which is partly due to the medium format I chose to use. My intention to propose narratives as open as possible to the viewer's reading, narratives without the linearity of a conventional series but also free from the schematic and restrictive nature of the dyad, also played a role.
Weekend
A series of 20 black and white photographs taken in 1999 in Brighton, a seaside resort in East Sussex, England. Historically, the discovery of the beach as an autonomous landscape subject and leisure opportunity occurred in England in the second half of the 18th century. The first seaside resort town, Brighton, was established as such around 1750. This seaside town, where these photographs were taken over the course of a few weeks, is a weekend getaway for Londoners. The eternal silence and tranquillity of the endless grey of the Atlantic Ocean that stretches before Brighton, the people who gaze upon it, their relationship to this space, the notion of leisure and absorption in public space, themes whose depiction continues to occupy me to this day in my ongoing series Leisure Time is the subject of this series of images.
Backstage Photographs
Photography moves along the dividing line which separates conspicuous truth from veiled falsehood, at the threshold where the certainty of reality yields its place to the doubt of dream. In the theatre, this threshold is to be found in the winds. It is there where the actor prepares for the big change that will take him from the world of reality to the world of the stage. Backstage, disorder, and suppressed agitation combine with ritual order. With my photography I have tried to transform the wings into the theatre stage of my own photographic agitation. I have tried to open my eyes to what is invisible, to this other reality which lives in the same breath with what is visible.
A book under the same title was published by the Thessaloniki Museum of Photography within the framework of “Thessaloniki: Cultural Capital of Europe, 1997
The photographs were taken during the years 1994 - 1997