Vasilis Papageorgiou at UNA

Artist: Vasilis Papageorgiou

Exhibition title: It’s 2 a. m. I am spilling it

Venue: UNA, Piacenza, Italy

Date: March 30 – September 28, 2019

Photography: Marco Fava / all images copyright and courtesy of the artists and UNA, Piacenza

UNA is delighted to present It’s 2 a.m. I am spilling it, a solo show by Vasilis Papageorgiou (*1991, Athens).

For this project, Vasilis continues his on-going research around gathering places and leisure – the bar, the stadium, the car tuning workshop – intended as cradles of subculture and resistance against the hyper-productivity of our post-capitalist era.

The artist has created a site-specific installation, especially conceived for the space of UNA, in which the atmosphere of a bar is evoked through its deconstruction: a series of steel footrests and marble leaks lying on the ground recall a previously existing situation, which implies the imagination of the viewer to be fulfilled. The game – the moment of idleness par excellence – is celebrated through giant marble cards, displaying different combination of poker, which evoke moments of glory and of an enthusiastic victory as well as moments of defeat and discomfort.

Issues of value – of our time, of our actions, of money, and also of art and artworks – are central in Papageorgiou’s artistic research and become major aspects of his presentation at UNA.

As suggested by its title, It’s 2:00 am. I am spilling it is also an allusion to moments suspended in time and possible characters which come to play, always triggering the viewer’s active reflection, through memories, unconscious, wonder and surprise.

Vasilis Papageorgiou (b.1991) lives and works in Athens, Greece. Selected solo shows include: When the Sun goes up, Hot Wheels Project, Athens, 2018; Exhausted, cur. Nicolas Vamoukis, II Colorificio, Milan, 2017; All Eyes On Me, cur. Ornothing, Clovis XV, Brussels, 2017; Take A Long Holiday, cur. Ber Janssens & Ilektra Kalaitzaki; BRDG project, Antwerp, 2017; Somebody Had To Do It, Elika Gallery, Athens, 2016. Selected group shows include: 1st Artworks Fellowship program exhibition, Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center, Athens (upcoming); Flashing and flashing, cur. by Il Colorificio, MAXXI Museum, Rome (upcoming); Constellations in the Dirt, cur Fanis Kafantaris & Irene Kalligas, Neon Organization, Kouphonisi, 2018; An Exercise Of Values, cur Alexios Papazacharias, Haus N Athens, 2018; 6th International Moscow Biennale for Young Art, cur, Lucrezia Calabro Visconti, Moscow, 2018. Papageorgiou is also the co-founder of Athens based project space Enterprise Projects.