ARTIST POKA-YIO, the co-founder and artistic director of the Athens Biennale, has a new solo exhibition, with the title BREAKING. This exhibition opens to the public on Friday, June 19 with a performance by the artist. This ground-breaking artist, this time round has explored the whole notion of the breaking news strip and its effect on our lives, yet chocolate cookies will also play a part in the performance. A case of sweetening the pill? We will wait and see. Through a series of new paintings and a new performance, the artist continues his exploration of the cycles of seduction, attraction, satisfaction, saturation, and repulsion. The exhibition opens on Friday, 19 June 2026, from 20:00 to 23:00; the performance starts at 20:30.

What does BREAKING mean for Poka-Yio? The television text strip running across the bottom of the screen, the “news ticker” or “crawl”, has become embedded not only in our screens but also in our mental state. A continuous stream of wars, disasters, crises, deaths, and political conflicts permeates everyday life. The exceptional has become normal. The state of emergency has become a condition. This constant “breaking” reshapes our relationship with death, normalizes pain, and turns trauma into an object of compulsive daily consumption. BREAKING is not only a form of violence. It is also a form of continuous and unfulfilled desire. A promise that something important is about to happen. An invitation to look again. And again. After thousands of BREAKING alerts, what can remain intact within the Subject?
In BREAKING, the paternal figures of political leaders, mediated images of power, and media spectacle coexist with a maternal machine endlessly producing chocolate cookies. The cookies appear as acts of care, comfort, and love. As a promise of safety in a world that is falling apart. Yet this very promise gradually turns into saturation. Comfort becomes excess. Pleasure becomes discomfort. Attraction turns into repulsion.

Between BREAKING and COOKIE, between terror and consolation, between power and care, the psychic landscape of the exhibition unfolds. Political figures, small red landscapes of desire, and a self-portrait bearing the name of an active pharmaceutical substance together compose a world in which desire appears not as liberation, but as an endless mechanism producing attraction and repulsion.

Artist bio

Poka-Yio, is a visual artist, curator, co-founder and artistic director of the Athens Biennale, and associate professor at the Athens School of Fine Arts, where he directs the experimental studio LAB12, the Studio of Painting and Expanded Forms of Visual Arts. His work explores the oscillation between Attraction and Repulsion in the age of the Culture of Desire.
Poka-Yio co-founded the Athens Biennale in 2005, together with Xenia Kalpaktsoglou, and Augustine Zenakos, launching the first Athens Biennale exhibition, with the title Destroy Athens, in 2007. Despite changes to the biennale’s board, including a big recent revamp, Poka-Yio has remained the biennale’s Artistic Director throughout the years. He was also the co-founder of A-Station, Athens Center for Contemporary Art (until 2004). Poka-Yio holds a five-year diploma in Painting and an MA in Digital Arts from ASFA. He has exhibited, performed, and curated in Greece and internationally. His practice encompasses painting, performance, theater, and film.

Patisserie Supplies Sponsor: Fontan
Performance & Cookies: Mary Palmoutsou (Baked Sourdough Cookies)
Production: Melina Davia
Communication: Maria Paktiti

INFORMATION
Exhibition dates: 19 June – 4 July 2026
Opening: Friday 19 June 2026, 20:00–23:00 | Performance starts at 20:30
Exhibition hours: Tuesday–Friday 16:00-20:00, Saturday 12:00-16:00, Closed Sunday & Monday
Upper Ankyle: 5 Irodotou Str., Kolonaki, Athens
Website: upperankyle.com | Instagram: @upper_ankyle