Kiki Athanassiadis (born Montréal, Canada) completed her MFA studies in Toronto and is currently living and working in Windsor, Ontario. One of her recent projects explored the collaborative aspects of the printmaking studio. Her participatory project Desire and the City: a citizen’s abandoned lot design consultancy was presented at Civic Space in 2013, and was also part of the 2014 Triennial exhibition, at the Art Gallery of Windsor.
Refusing the Frame
Refusing the Frame
Group exhibition
Curated by Sally Mackay and Carla Garnet
Gales Gallery, Toronto
2008
Magic Mountain evokes the seminal 1924 novel of the same name by Thomas Mann in which the author asks the reader to recognize problems with interpretation, amongst others themes. The piece also evokes the bluegrass song “Big Rock Candy Mountain”.
Fabricated of circus-coloured panels of iridescent cloth, Athanassiadis’ whimsical construction is patched together on plastic whalebone. In fashioning a gauzy, lit-from-within vertical landscape sculpture, the artist seems to be simultaneously evoking parody and reconciliation with the contradictory impulse of coming and going at same the time.
CARLA GARNET January 2008