translated and summarized by: Liz Wollner-Grandville,
040411: Galerie Krobath Despina Stokou
Galerie Krobath
Despina Stokou
16.03.11 – 30.04.11
No longer a language
Galerie Krobath stands out among the many galleries in Vienna’s Eschenbachgasse with its exhibition of works by the young Greek artist Despina Stokou.
Stoukou, who lives in Berlin since 2002, enjoyed a global education and attended the German school in Athens. In Berlin she is linked with numerous “off spaces” and repeatedly curates exhibitions. She considers herself an “artator” (artist-curator) and believes that creativity, self-organization and (self) marketing are in no way compatible. Here in Vienna, Stokou limits herself to her artistic work and mainly displays large-format panel paintings that developed from collages. These rather dark paintings with their gestural brush strokes serve as a picture carrier for the enlarged Arial and Helvetica letters that sometimes form sentences but don’t make sense, and that are glued onto them. This is obviously not meant to be a narration or a report it is more of a jungle of information and quotations through which Stokou leads us. Stokou uses Google for her research, she pursues certain topics and presents the results unsorted and jumbled. Stokou presents the concurrent flood of information and data that overwhelms all of us, with the quotations often no longer being legible. The works convey a certain expressivity and speed, however, this is not characteristic for her developmental process. On the contrary, in order to achieve this effect, Despina Stokou sometimes takes 20 to 30 days to transcribe and cut-out the texts. But since cutting an “S” turned out to be too complicated, this letter no longer exists in Stokou’s repertoire.
In Stokou’s work, the use of words (scriputalisation) is not only a self-assertion as an artist, but also as a curator and as a human being. In any case, the content of her analysis is not meant to be comprehensible to the viewer; only hints and insinuations are offered - a balancing act between disclosing and covering, between showing and hiding. Maybe this is especially important for an artist dealing with the 21st century’s flood of information. Ultimately, it can only be a step towards another artistic path.
By Susanne Rohringer
Galerie Krobath
1010 Vienna, Eschenbachgasse 9
Tel.: 0043 1 585 74 70
Fax: 0043 1 585 74 72
Email: office@galeriekrobath.at
http://www.galeriekrobath.at
Opening hours: Tue – Fri 11a.m. – 6 p.m., Sat 11 a.m. – 3 p.m.
Mehr Texte von translated and summarized by: Liz Wollner-Grandville
040411
Galerie Krobath
1010 Wien, Eschenbachgasse 9
Tel: +43 1 585 74 70, Fax: +43 1 585 74 72
Email: office@galeriekrobath.at
http://www.galeriekrobath.at/
Öffnungszeiten: Di-Fr: 11-18h
Sa: 11-15h
Galerie Krobath
1010 Wien, Eschenbachgasse 9
Tel: +43 1 585 74 70, Fax: +43 1 585 74 72
Email: office@galeriekrobath.at
http://www.galeriekrobath.at/
Öffnungszeiten: Di-Fr: 11-18h
Sa: 11-15h