Antonis Pittas

Antonis Pittas’ ‘Landart’, from 2012, is both an object and a performative act: In each space it is presented, Pittas writes on the marble sculpture with graphite, words that are erased when the exhibition is finished. He reiterates phrases from the public domain, in this case online sites of newspapers. The artist is especially interested in de-contextualizing and re-contextualizing public statements made in the context of revolutionary events, and connects them in the framework of the exhibition space with art historical icons, such as minimalist sculpture and the abstract shapes of Russian avant-garde painting. In Amsterdam, he appropriates a 2012 statement by IMF director Christine Lagarde reacting on the economic situation in Greece, in which she reminds the country of its obligations towards the international community by uttering the word “implementation” repeatedly. The stone structure refers to Syndagma Square in Athens, as it is a replica of one of its marble steps, vandalized during the upheavals. Pittas creates multi-layered works, in which past and present change each other dynamically and continuously. While, at first glance, the movement of abstraction and recontextualization of the original shapes and utterances seems to obscure the political contexts they are derived from, the reactivation of art history re-politicizes them by referring to the social design ideas of avant-garde predecessors such as the Russian suprematist movement. Pittas’ work could also be seen as an archaeology of the modern.