Cuesta Drive Salon

 

Curated by Katerina Nikou

Cuesta Drive, Hollywood Hills, LA

 

 

The project, The Cuesta Drive Salon, is based on chambres d’amis, an art exhibition on the concept of Jan Hoet (the artistic director of Documenta 9, the most crucial exhibition globally of contemporary art based in Kassel, Germany, which takes place every five years, since 1955, founded by artist, teacher and curator Arnold Bode)

Jan Hoet made the exhibition chambres d’amis in 1986, aiming to question the presentation of artworks in 56 flats (Ghent, Belgium) instead of the gallery's white cube space. He intended to invite the audience to experience art in private homes.

We live in a world where artists are in a precarious situation. Unfortunately, art, music, literature and socio-political works are considered a luxury; thus, many countries prefer to cut funding from the art system to invest money in the war industry. This is the procedure of meta-power, a concept of having control not simply of individuals but of the social structures themselves. The idea stems from the work of sociologists. Its study often uses the language of game theory since, at some level, having meta-power over a group of people means that one can control the form of the game, thereby controlling the outcome.

 

But art is not a luxury; art is essential for a spiritual need relating to or affecting the human spirit or soul as opposed to material or physical things. Thus, the participants of The Cuesta Drive Salon express the need to connect daily life with art as a reply to the current conditions. We strongly believe in the philosophical concerns of European thinkers. I am quoting a phrase by the Greek philosopher Plato, never discourage anyone...who continually makes progress, no matter how slow.

 

Despina Charitonidi (born in 1991 in Athens, Greece, based in Athens) is a sculptor and performer. Her video, To Fall With Grace, depicts the unseen processes and effects of human interventions in the underwater environment. a group of synchronised swimmers performs outside their natural environment and interacts with the urban surroundings.

Danny Hiele (born in 1957 in Belgium, based in LA) is a world-known director of photography. He is committed to painting and drawings; he dares to experiment and trusts his intuition without following the various trends of the art market. Being a top cinematographer, he knows how to capture images brilliantly. 

Yorgos Maraziotis (born in 1984, Athens, based in Athens and Antwerp) is inspired by violent historical events and topographical schemes of Los Angeles; Maraziotis uses the city as an allegory to question how constructed truth becomes collective belief and how the pragmatic blurs with the fictitious. 

Eva Mitala (born in 1978, in Athens based in Athens and San Francisco), in her Atelier Portable, makes sculptures related to her travels in Japan, where she collected small mementoes, which she later integrated into her artistic practice. The main element of her approach is an eclectic feminine nomadism that took her to Asian, European and American cities.

Andreas Vais (born in 1965 in Athens, based in Athens) uses masterful indian ink on paper and acrylic on canvas. His work leads us to an imaginary world, a personal universe where nature and humans are interconnected, blinking an eye at us. Existential uses are observing the emotional relationship between imagination and the exterior world. 

 

text by katerina nikou

international independent curator based in Antwerp, Athens and Los Angeles, curator assistant  of Documenta 14