ART CARRIES THE WORKER | ATHENS 2010

About This Project

Photograph made after an invitation to participate in the 3-day Festival Art on the move with an art project and a presentation of my artistic work in relation to labor at the same frame conference. The Festival was organized by the accompanied group in Athens School of fine arts in December 11th-12th 2010. Cordial thanks to Tina Kotsi for her assistance shooting the photographs, and to Antonis Volanakis for his help installing the piece.

Keywords and terms: artist employee, moaning, sacrifice, pieta, compassion

A woman carries an illuminated figure reminiscent of a worker around an abandoned industrial landscape. It is a symbolic gesture, in which an attempt is made to respond to the dual role of the artist, the creative subject and the manual worker. Through a détournement of Pietàs, medieval and renaissance sculptures of Virgin Mary moaning and showing her compassion to Christ, holding and cradling its dead body, I make a contemporary version with an ephemeral act, with protagonists Art and the Worker. Creator and at the same time handworker, a person misunderstood socially, and soon taken advantaged by the art-market system, many times a working artist remind us of a sacrificed person. With an Allegory, Art is wandering around with the body of her child, the working artist, seeking a vindication for the sacrifice. A creator and a craftsman, misunderstood socially, and at the same time taken advantage of the market system, many times an artist is an imitation of the sacrificed.