“In Present Tense”

“In Present Tense” is the first exhibition of its kind that endeavors to look into the condition of being a Young Greek Artist, rather than striving to identify shared traits in the work of a group unified by nationality. This approach has enabled the show’s curators both to circumvent a dependence on slippery selection criteria, such as the artists’ places of residence, and to widen the exhibition’s possibilities. The title of Vangelis Vlahos’s 1981 (Allagi), 2007, refers to the year and the slogan that marked Greece’s turn to socialism, a chapter of the country’s recent political past that Vlahos tackles with a collage of photographs and magazine cuttings. Stefanos Tsivopoulos’s video installation The Interview, 2007, provides the documentary-style testimony of a Yugoslav war veteran, as well as a behind-the-scenes take that deconstructs the interview’s media-generated reality. Meanwhile, Alexandros Georgiou records his own long journey to India, Iran, and Pakistan through images and comments on postcards that he sent to a number of selected participants in Greece.

The show is a welcome undertaking by the National Museum of Contemporary Art—itself rather young. The museum ventures into unmarked territory, as previous curatorial attempts to contextualize Greek contemporary art have been limited to seeking a unified national identity. Times have begun to change, however, and old narratives—such as the existence of national particularity—have given place to new ones, like the inevitable process of “glocalisation.” As employed by the show’s curators, the term describes the tailoring of global goods to local markets, and the hand-in-hand formation of increasingly differentiated consumer subgroups. With glocalization, the particularity of the show’s Greek audience derives not from a shared nationalism, but from an art education driven largely by commercial initiatives. As a result, the show’s roster of artists holds no surprises; the vast majority of participants have already had work shown in galleries, collected, and short-listed for awards. The tried-and-true ingredients for an art scene all seem to be in place within Greece: an influential private sector, a willing museum, and an eager gallery system. The stage is set: Here come the YGAs.