Bill Balaskas
Parthenon Rising
Past
2 October – 10 November 2012
11 Haritos Street, Kolonaki
Kalfayan Galleries are pleased to announce the solo exhibition of Bill Balaskas titled“Parthenon Rising”, at the Athens gallery space (11 Haritos Street, Kolonaki, Athens). Theopening is on Tuesday, 2 October 2012, from 20.00 to 22.00.The exhibition in Athens takes place after the artist’s recent talk at TATE Liverpool and thepresentation of his work at Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival and at the “World Event YoungArtists” show in Nottingham. The latter was organised in the context of the London 2012Cultural Olympiad, in which Balaskas was selected to represent the UK in the field of “VisualArt”.In his first Athens solo show (the artist also had a solo exhibition in Greece in 2011, at theFrench Institute of Thessaloniki, as part of the 3rd Biennale of Contemporary Art), Balaskascontinues his research into the subversion of images drawn from contemporary visualculture, through works that reflect, more or less directly, on the global economic crisis andthe nature of the capitalist system.The exhibition at Kalfayan Galleries revolves around the artist’s new in-situ installation titled“Architecture of Good and Evil”, which investigates the cultural origins of the currentsocio-economic crisis. The work features an inverted replica of an Ionic column and 172works on paper. The artist has chosen to intervene on pages from the seminal book of A. W.Lawrence “Greek Architecture” (1957), which depict architectural sketches of ancient Greekmonuments. By painting over a single part or shape of each sketch in blue, Balaskas raisesquestions regarding both the polysemy of symbols and the role played by their monosemoustheorization in the formation of a national or cultural identity.
Artists
Bill Balaskas
Bill Balaskas (b. Thessaloniki, Greece, 1983) is a London-based artist working across different media.
Balaskas is a research student in the MPhil/PhD programme (2011-2014) in Critical Writing in Art &
Design at the Royal College of Art, London and holds an MA (2010) in Communication Art & Design from
the same college. In 2008 he earned a BA (Hons) in Video Arts Production from the University for the
Creative Arts, Maidstone (UK), and in 2004 a BSc in Economics from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
(Greece). Balaskas’ work has been widely exhibited internationally. Recent solo exhibitions include
presentations at the Institut Français de Thessalonique (3rd Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art),
Thessaloniki (2011); Jewish Museum, London; and Sketch Gallery, London (both 2010). Recent group
exhibitions and screenings include presentations at Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival; World Event
Young Artists – London 2012 Cultural Olympiad, Nottingham (representing the UK); Maribor – European
Capital of Culture 2012, Maribor (representing the UK); Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh (all 2012);
Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, New York; Leeds International Film Festival, Leeds (both 2011);
Musée des Abattoirs, Toulouse; British Film Institute, London; and A Foundation, Liverpool (all 2010).
Furthermore, Balaskas is an awarded writer (British Council of Greece, 2005) and screenwriter (Houston
International Film Festival, 2006), as well as guest editor of the most prominent academic journal in the
field of New Media Art, the Leonardo Electronic Almanac (The MIT Press). In April 2012, the Global
Board of Contemporary Art nominated him for the ALICE Award (‘People’s Voice Award’ Winner). Bill
Balaskas is represented by Kalfayan Galleries (Athens – Thessaloniki).
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