In her site-specific exhibition Substrate in the GAK Projekte series, Effrosyni Kontogeorgou explored the question of how an art institution can be symbolically represented through its underlying work and the invisible physical presence of its staff. To this end, Kontogeorgou collected sweat samples from staff members throughout the institution, which were visualized through scientific and artistic processes and bound into a book. For her annual gift, she transfers the resulting motifs into blueprints by means of cyanotype, thus referring to the historical use of this process for copies of architectural drawings; the high salt content of one of the solutions required for this purpose forms a formal analogy to sweat. The various motifs of Substrate (tracings) meander between individual portraiture and imaginary worlds that have topographies all their own. They unfold between micro and macro levels, between the intimate and the public, from skin to house, to institution and beyond.
Effrosyni Kontogeorgou (b. 1980 in Athens) studied Painting / Time-based Media at the Athens School of Fine Arts. She completed her Master’s degree in Digital Media (M.A.) at the HfK Bremen, where she was a master student with Jean-François Guiton in 2015. In 2019/2020, she won the 43rd Bremen Förderpreis for Visual Arts. She lives and works in Bremen. Exhibitions (selection): 2021 GAK Gesellschaft für Aktuelle Kunst; Städtische Galerie Bremen; 2016 Weserburg Museum für moderne Kunst, Bremen; LWL-Museum für Kunst und Kultur and Westfälischer Kunstverein, Münster.
Jahresgabe 2021
Substrate (Pausen), 2021
Cyanotye on watercolor paper
21 x 29,7 cm
22 motifs,
Edition each: 3 (+ 1 AP)
Euro 500,– incl. VAT