IYP X Pavilion of Greece at the 54th la Biennale di Venezia
Diohandi: Beyond Reform
Curated by: Maria Marangos
Diohandi presented an extensive installation titled Beyond Reform in the Greek Pavilion, as part of the 54th International Art Exhibition – la Biennale di Venezia in 2011. This exhibition was curated by Maria Marangou, and was commissioned by the Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Tourism.
Taking as her starting point the overall theme of the Biennale, namely ILLUMInations, Diohandi created a site specific installation. This major intervention explored space and time and saw the pavilion’s interior and exterior revised.
Diohandi remarks in reference to her installation: “My research understands the theme in its deepest, most basic sense. Starting with what is a very specific, concrete, strictly rational space, I am intervening to reform the space, one that is different in terms of both structure and emotional charge, where the dialogue between viewer and work/space is at once ambiguous and animated. I am shaping the pavilion’s image, both outside and inside: the entire space is remodeled, although none of these interventions will actually affect the existing structure. Sound and light, indispensable to the work, will also feature.”
Maria Marangou (Curator of the Greek Pavilion at the 54th Biennale di Venezia) shares: “Diohandi’s installation-Greek pavilion in a way reflects the current political state of Europe and the world at large. It is at the same time, obviously, a comment on the contemporary Greek experience of economic recession and IMF tutelage. A place of light thrown into darkness and decline, almost willingly it seems, yet holding on to hopes of spiritual and sociopolitical reconstruction; in other words, to a vision of light that should bring along with it clarity of mind and the ultimate catharsis. As such the work would encourage anything but imitation and repetition.”
Diohandi (b.1945) lives and works in Athens, Greece. Her research reveals a preoccupation with reconstructing environments based on time – space relationships, always in relation to the given spaces she works in. Hence no work is repeated twice. Her large-scale installations interact with the environment they inhabit by means of a succession of shifts between their architectural and visual art elements, their varied materiality, and the use of lighting and sound.
