Nikos Arvanitis Exotic is Elsewhere: Anthropological garden paviliion with middle class curiosities installation, fashion design, performance, 2015 Exhibition view at TWISTING C(R)ASH, Group Exhibition Romantzo, Athens 22. October - 3. November 2016 Curated by: Madeleine Amsler, Séverin Guelpa, Vana Kostayola, Kostis Stafylakis Exhibition view at TWISTING C(R)ASH, Group Exhibition Bâtiment d'art contemporain « Le Commun » Genève 2. - 27. October 2015 Curated by: Madeleine Amsler, Séverin Guelpa, Vana Kostayola, Kostis Stafylakis How Other is the other? There is a fascinating yet scary way in which isolationist and localist responses to crisis can dance together with the “exoticism of the other.” Various global and western intellectual agents are more than ready to discover resources of emancipation in local ideologies of national autarky. And, for sure, this is the major danger in the art-world’s recent interest in Greece and the Greek art scene. What kind of curatorial practice would expose and challenge the vestiges of mutual (self)exotisization? Artistic practice, often, offers alternatives: Nikos Arvanitis constructs the tableau vivant of today’s exoticism – an anthropological park with middle-class curiosities, dress-options offered by the renowned cheep fashion brands. This international middle-class that inhabits Arvanitis’s park is dressed up in a detourned style that re-exotisizes, in a puzzling way, what is supposed to be neutral, inclusive, casual and cozy. Text by Kostis Stafylakis. Close Window