In the context of the 8th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art 2014 Outset Greece supported the project Crash Pad by Greek architect Andreas Angelidakis. The room installation opened on 25th January 2014 as a preliminary project, being the first commissioned work of the 8th Berlin Biennale.
Located in the front building of KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, Crash Pad was a multi-purpose room comprising a library which drew upon the idea of the 19th century salon as a setting for cultural and political conversations.
The room was formed by an arrangement of ancient, folkloric Greek rugs together with a set of columns. Displaying a transitional iconography from an Ottoman to a European tradition, the carpets as well as the columns represent two conflicting systems that modernised Greece in the 19th century: the Europeanised Greek diaspora educated in Germany, France, and England, and the peasant guerrilla fighters under general Theodoros Kolokotronis. Andreas Angelidakis also referenced the first bankruptcy in the history of modern Greece in 1893, which led to a series of failed governments and economic crises.
The room offered a space for events and discussion within the 8th Berlin Biennale, as well as a place for contemplation and exchange for the traveling artists arriving at KW Institute for Contemporary Art. The opening of the installation was accompanied by a public conversation between Andreas Angelidakis and Juan A. Gaitán, curator of the 8th Berlin Biennale.
ON VIEW: 29th May – 3rd August 2014
Born in Greece in 1968, Andreas Angelidakis holds a BA in Architecture from Sci-Arc, Santa Monica, and an MSc in Advanced Architectural Design from Columbia University, New York. In 2013 Angelidakis created the Frieze Art Fair Projects’ space and curated and designed The System of Objects, DESTE Foundation for Contemporary Art, Athens. Among the exhibitions he has designed are the 3rd Thessaloniki Biennale (2011) and the 2nd Athens Biennale (2009). Andreas Angelidakis lives and works between Oslo and Athens.
