On Wednesday March 2nd Wiels, centre for contemporary art in Brussels hosts the book launch of Archive Crisis by artist Stefanos Tsivopoulos.

Archive Crisis consists of previously unpublicized visual and textual records that document three distinct political moments in Greece’s recent past; the Truman Doctrine, the Dictatorship of the Colonels, and the Marxist Revolutionary Organization 17 November. Tsivopoulos organized and edited this material in the form of a multi-layered visual essay, after an extensive research into both private and public media archives over a period of seven years. Tsivopoulos is interested in these records as visual by-products of tumultuous political times, marked by nationalist propaganda, crypto-colonialism and terrorism. He reintroduces them as the remainders of an unsettling past and a present in crisis.

The book furthermore includes commissioned essays by Dimitris Antoniou (Adjunct Assistant Professor Hellenic Studies at Columbia University), Hilde de Bruijn (freelance curator and Curator at the Cobra Museum of Modern Art) and Alfredo Cramerotti (Director of MOSTYN, Llandudno, Wales) providing academic reflection and linking these historical images to a broader contemporary context.

Editors: Hilde de Bruijn, Stefanos Tsivopoulos
Design: NODE Berlin Oslo
Paperback, 176 pages, 21 x 28 cm, English
Published by Jap Sam Books
Supported by the Mondriaan Fund
ISBN 978-94-90322-44-1

Programme
Introduction to the book by Amsterdam-based curator Hilde de Bruijn, one of its co-editors and authors.
Presentation by the artist into his relationship to archive material, specifically the images in Archive Crisis and their urgency in relation to the current and historical international context of Greece.
Followed by an interview with WIELS Senior Curator, Zoë Gray.

Stefanos Tsivopoulos is a Greek artist and filmmaker. His poetic and often allegoric works, are driven by a strong interest in the sociopolitical and economic aspects that determine the world we live in. His films are presented in both art museums and film festivals around the world. In 2013 he represented Greece in the 55th Venice Biennial with the work History Zero.