THE GROUP EXHIBITION entitled Trifles and troupes, everything lies under the surface, gathers a wide range of creative temperaments and mediums.  Glyfada’s The Blender Gallery has been taken over with a whole host of art, that reflects upon the significance of the insignificant, such as the little things or aspects, the fetishistic, the ornamental whimsies, or even habits and passions which can change our lives. Curator Ioanna Gerakidi has brought together a variety of works, among them the quirky, the totemic, and some threatening, cutting-edge (literally-speaking) metal works.  The overall visual experience is powerful and pluralistic. This group exhibition runs through January 30 at The Blender Gallery in Glyfada, Athens. The finissage will take place Thursday, January 30, 7-9pm.

The concept of this exhibition has been inspired by the arguments of Siegfried Kracauer, expounded in his 1963 book “The Mass Ornament”. The political and cultural scholar Siegfried Kracauer writes: “We must rid ourselves of the delusion that it is the major events which have the most decisive influence on us. We are much more deeply and continuously influenced by the tiny catastrophes that make up daily life”. These tiny catastrophes, which he elsewhere refers to as “surface level expressions”, as the seemingly superficial phenomena that shape historical frameworks and current socio-political schemes, are used as axes for the group show Trifles and troupes, everything lies under the surface.

The works exhibited examine, transcribe and legitimize colloquialisms, diaries, micrologies. Through them, the quotidian becomes a strategy and a vessel to reveal the multiple potentials of a surface alongside the unnoticed meaning residing in what’s considered trivial, ephemeral, popular. In other words, it aims to establish that which would otherwise remain unobserved by intentionally encountering its belletristic qualities, always in order to move beyond them. By engaging with both the temporal and the marginal, the protective and the intrusive, the isolating or the solidary, the exhibition aims to decipher both mundane structures and vexed pasts, to see with, through and beyond popular schemes, profane themes.

Participating artists: Niki Danai Chania, Dimitris Gkikas, Maria Konti, Natalia Manta, Vasilis Papageorgiou, Katerina Papazissi, Myrto Patramani, Anna-Maria Pinaka, Janis Rafa, Ariadne Strofylla, Dimitris Tampakis, Orestis Telemachou, Eleni Tomadaki, Natalia Triantafylli, Elena Zaghis

• Trifles and troupes, everything lies under the surface, runs through Jan 30 at The Blender Gallery, 4 Zisimopoulou Street, Glyfada, Athens. Opening hours: Tuesday – 10:00-18:00, Wednesday – Friday – 12:00-20:00, Saturday: 12:00-16:00. Tel: 213 0280597; Email: info@theblendergallery.com

Art Scene Athens’ is written/run by artist/journalist Stella Sevastopoulos. Dedicated to presenting what is happening on the Greek art scene (but not only), and also to giving Greek artists (and artists based in Greece) an international voice on the internet. For more on Stella Sevastopoulos’s art, click here If you would like to be featured in Art Scene Athens, please send email (stelsevas@yahoo.com).