The DESTE Prize was established in 1999 as part of the foundation’s efforts to support and promote the work of contemporary emerging Greek artists. It is awarded every two years. Eligible applicants are Greek artists aged 40 or under, living in Greece or abroad, who have graduated from an art school in Greece or abroad and have continued to pursue a career in art since graduating.
A six-member committee of curators, critics, collectors and artists (the Selection Committee) chooses 36 candidates, from whom 6 artists are placed on the shortlist for the DESTE Prize and take part in the DESTE PRIZE exhibition.
For the second year running, the exhibition for the DESTE Prize 2011 is being held at the Museum of Cycladic Art, where the artists Giannis Varelas, Anastasia Douka, Irini Miga, Alexandra Bachzetsis, Eftychis Patsourakis and Theodoros Stamatogiannis, all candidates for the DESTE Prize 2011, are presenting their work.
An international jury of 6 members, made up of distinguished museum directors, curators, art critics and the President of DESTE, Mr Dakis Ioannou, selects the winner, who receives €10,000 at an award ceremony to be held on 14 September 2011.
The Artists of the DESTE Prize 2011:
Giannis Varelas
The work of Giannis Varelas is defined by the search for sets of historical references, with the aim of recombining them and redefining them through new frames of perception.
The artist is interested in exploring the mechanisms by which human perception generates meaning, as well as the correlation of the shifts that meanings undergo within the human psyche.
He is also interested in the mechanism by which individuals define themselves through their own mythologies at any given time. This search leads Varelas, each time, to use different materials and media such as drawing, collage, video and sculpture.
See his CV!
Photo: Giannis Varelas, Untitled, RHP-Venice 812, 2010
Anastasia Douka
Anastasia Douka examines any human process, as well as every model of knowledge or transmission of information and their by-products: architectural elements and geographical maps, ancient civilisations and popular contemporary idols, precious and everyday objects, human anatomy and the anatomy of machines, fantasies and verified theories.
She makes condensed, dislocated objects that flatten out elements of the above. Hollow moulds of recognisable objects and symmetrical wooden developments are joined into a new unit.
Each object/unit, like an adventurer, searches for the gold buried deep inside the earth.
See her CV!
Photo: Anastasia Douka, FLIPPERS’ FAMILY I, 2008
Irini Miga
Irini Miga draws on personal and historical references in her work, taking an allegorical view of reality.
One of her primary aims is to create a dialogue between the present and the past.
She is interested in discovering the poetry and romance that arise from handling old, distant events and cultural products, giving the present new meanings and interpretations.
See her CV!
Photo: Irini Miga, A paradoxical Epicenter Of an Enchanting Entity Can Also Be Encountered If Only ou Just Stop L, 2010
Alexandra Bachzetsis
The main subject of research in the work of Alexandra Bachzetsis is the various forms of the performing arts, choreographic techniques and modes of stage behaviour.
She is particularly interested in the codes that govern gesture and movement, both in everyday life and on stage.
Bachzetsis’s choreographies look closely at how gesture and movement are used in “popular”, “commercial” genres, such as the romantic comedy, the television soap opera or the video accompanying hip-hop songs, and in “high” art, such as ballet, contemporary dance and performance, as well as at the two-way influences between them.
Her aim is to formulate new ideas within the framework of dance that will serve as the basis for constructive contact, communication and exchange between cultural fields whose coexistence has until now seemed rather impossible.
Her performances draw material from the stereotypical representation of the female body in contemporary pop culture and in the entertainment and sex industries.
Undermining the clichéd images of commodified femininity and the idealised male, Bachzetsis incorporates them into her formal language and uses them as basic building blocks, which act as a means of introspection and of empowerment.
See her CV!
Alexandra Bachzetsis, A Piece Danced Alone. Photo: Melanie Hofmann. Pictured: Alexandra Bachzetsis & Anne Pajunen
Eftychis Patsourakis
At the centre of the multifaceted artistic practice of Eftychis Patsourakis lie individual and collective memory, the relationship between identity and history, and a re-examination of depiction as a vehicle for these concerns, both through a web of topical social and cultural references and through specific reinterpretations of the history of modern art.
In his works Patsourakis mainly uses humble materials such as Post-its, paper from cigarette butts, photographic remnants and pages from photo albums, among others, which, chiefly through their repeated use, become structural elements of the image.
These works move between the aesthetics of the sublime (erhaben), the mechanistic and reductive sensibility of minimalism, and a dimension of commonplace pop novelty.
See his CV!
Photo: Eftychis Patsourakis, Fest, 2007
The work of Theodoros Stamatogiannis focuses on how sculptural objects can emerge from the geometry and function of architectural space.
The artist’s work is an interpretation of sculpture as a means of redistributing space, interweaving the boundaries between architecture and sculpture, interior and exterior, private and public space.
See his CV!
Photo: Theodoros Stamatogiannis, Untitled, 2010
Selection Committee of the DESTE Prize 2011:
Stelios Vellis – Journalist,
Gerasimos Giannopoulos – Collector,
Polyna Kosmadaki – Curator, Benaki Museum, Department of Painting, Drawings and Prints,
Nikos Navridis – Visual artist, candidate for the DESTE Prize 2003,
Dimitris Paleokrassas – Art historian, art consultant,
Iason Tsakonas – Collector, organiser of REMAP.
Jury of the DESTE Prize 2011:
Dakis Ioannou – DESTE Foundation, President
Madeleine Grynsztejn – Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Director
Kasper Koenig – Museum Ludwig Koln, Cologne, Director
Jessica Morgan – Tate Modern, London, Curator
Sarah Thornton – Journalist,
Andro Wekua – Visual artist.
DESTE Prize Exhibition (DESTE PRIZE 2011)
Museum of Cycladic Art, Athens
25 May – 30 October 2011
Award ceremony: 14 September 2011
For more information, visit the website of the DESTE Foundation: www.deste.gr or www.cycladic.gr
