Near-Far was an exhibition by Baltoyanni that focused on the way local concerns can blot out attention to crises that occur at a distance. It was curated as part of the Greek Pavilion at Berlin Kreuzberg Biennale in exile, which took place at the Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, and the Palais de Tokyo, Paris, in the midst of the Greek debt emergency. Participants included Evangelos Kaimakis, Nikos Katsaounis and Nina-Maria Paschalidou, and Panos Tsagaris.
PRESS RELEASE
The near-far problem in wireless communication systems is a condition in which a receiver captures a strong signal and thereby makes it impossible for the receiver to detect a weaker signal.
On Greece:
From a distance fiction merges with reality leading to an inevitable sacrifice of quotidian truths to a higher tragedy. An emission of violence and failure has overpowered the everyday as it has overpowered history. The works presented in near-far were created within and without the crisis. Feeding off traditional means of capturing history, near-far presents a personalized historicity as experienced by four young Greeks, half of whom live in Greece and the other half abroad. The works touch on aspects of media sensationalism, a prevailing folkish escapism, and spirituality intertwined with tradition both as a social construct and a pragmatic healing device.
Near-far explores the relationship between the private and the public, the specific and the general in experiencing national identity and history.
Participating artists: Evangelos Kaimakis, Nikos Katsaounis and Nina Maria Paschalidou, Panos Tsagaris.
