Lydia Dabassina's exhibition, presented by the Municipality of Athens, as part of the great Athens City Festival at the Arts Center from May 25 to July 16, 2023, deals with issues such as ecology, economic inequalities, religious fanaticism and love.

The exhibition, entitled "Lorem Ipsum", organized by the Organization for Culture, Sports and Youth of the Municipality of Athens (OPANDA), includes new works - photographs, sculptures, installations and video projections - combined with some older ones.

The eponymous centerpiece of the exhibition is an imposing installation with three suspended crosses made of oak branches. The accompanying video, shot in Jia in 2021, shows the same crosses swaying in the moonlight with the sound of lapping waves. The artist refers indirectly to the revolutionary symbols of the Riga flag (liberty, equality, brotherhood), to the aesthetics of subversion, to the social revolutionaries of yesterday and today.

The exhibition touches on socio-political issues, and in that sense it is a political exhibition. The title of the exhibition is also a kind of protest. "Lorem ipsum" refers to the unintelligible, trial text used in graphic design and typography. It is an ephemeral text, waiting to be replaced.

The exhibition is specially designed for the Arts Center. On either side of the eponymous installation, Dabasina creates a dipole. The works on the right side of the room deal with the women's issue and have a strong political character. The installation "I can't leave" (2022) consists of nine iron bars, at the bottom of which hangs women's hair. With this work the artist pays tribute to the Iranian women activists who cut their hair to protest the government's oppressive control over their bodies. On the left side of the room, Dabasina presents works that focus on ecology and male speech. It is dominated by a 2022 triptych of black plywood panels bearing anatomical replicas of human skulls on iron bases.

The curation of the exhibition is signed by Christoforos Marinos, art historian, curator of exhibitions and actions of OPANDA.

When:

May 25, 2023 - July 16, 2023

TUESDAY 11:00 - 19:00
WEDNESDAY 11:00 - 19:00
THURSDAY 11:00 - 19:00
FRIDAY 11:00 - 19:00
SATURDAY 10:00 - 15:00
SUNDAY 10:00 - 15:00

Free entrance.