Greece Patrons Circle

Jonas Staal‘After Europe’, 2016

Outset Greece supported State of Concept‘s presentation ‘After Europe, the first Greek solo exhibition of Dutch visual artist Jonas Staal, curated by Iliana Fokianaki. The exhibition ‘After Europe’ centred on the current political, economic, and humanitarian crises in Europe. Rejecting both the existing managerial and corporate policies of the EU as well as the rise of ultranationalist parties all over the continent, Staal proposes art as a space to criticise and rethink the idea of the political union. What comes after Europe as we have known it so far? Where can the desire and imaginary of art bring us, to establish a new transdemocratic union? The first part of the exhibition consisted of the artistic and political organisation ‘New World Summit’, which the artist founded in 2012 and since then has developed by creating “alternative parliaments” for stateless and blacklisted political organisations from all over the world. The second part of the exhibition consisted of Staal’s ‘New Unions’, the beginning of a new long-term project shown for the first time, in which the artist’s research in Athens became its point of departure. This project started with the current European crises and took the form of an artistic campaign to support progressive, emancipatory, and autonomist movements all over the European continent to explore the possibility to establish a new transdemocratic union. Both Staal’s ‘New World Summit’ and ‘New Unions’, aim to contribute to the imaginary of an age after Europe.

ON VIEW: 21st June — 7th October 2016