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Jan 2017 unFriend from

Marina

is "Greece" to me: like Greece, Marina is a very challenging entity that-for my survival- I always preferred keeping at a certain distance. I never decided to alienate myself completely from any of them though...

I realize of course, that comparing Greece to Marina Fokidis sounds unfair for my country, especially now, after the many years I live abroad.. As another friend wrote-shocked from such a comparison- "Greece has lately become so many different things that I frankly don't see your point of calling it "a Marina".." She is right, there is a new Greece out there which I probably don't take in consideration and maybe there's a new Marina too.. Therefore I am accepting- in advance- that my reading of both, Marina and Greece, is heavily biased, still, I think that what matters here is not my reading but the reasons I have to relate with both-the woman and the country- the way I do. What matters even more-for you reader- is what may come out of these (troubled) relationships..

It was the same perplexed friend that asked me: "Why should you ever care for Marina Fokidis, why not simply ignore her?"

But an ignored Marina (or an ignored Greece), wouldn't be of any use: people such as Marina and countries such as Greece are wood, sometimes they are good wood that one can plasm into something, more than often wood too dry to really do anything with it, still it can be always used to start a fire..

Now, when it comes to fires, artists only way to burn someone or something is turning it into a portrait! That way, even an unremarkable person-or an exhausted country- would stay in history as something important- the way the artist depicts them.

So here is Marina's portrait: the work I am doing with her in the context of Documenta (one of those now obsolete Giant-exhibitions of the past century that would be of little or even no interest for me if it wasn't happening in Greece and if Marina Fokidis was not involved in it).

The work can be seen here and it started when Marina invited me to participate to Documenta with my OutsideoftheInternetThereisNoGlory t-shirts. "I suggested that to Adam"-she said "and he is enthusiastic, I think its a great idea produce many of them and have everyone working for Documenta wearing it."

She was right, it was a great idea and I can see her point now, only that in that moment, I couldn't.. it was in the middle of the Summer of NO and I was taken by a huge project, another Social Media Portrait my portrait of Greece (and Europe) while the Greek Summer of No was happening. I was also inspired by Marina herself, who for the last 2 years was doing the only noteworthy publication Greece has seen from the days of Ideodromio by Leonidas Christakis. Her magazine was called SOUTH and it was for me a major influence for my concept of MedioSud. I say "it was" because even if SOUTH is still published under the same name, its content, design and vision has nothing to do with the original: the magazine is now at the hands of the Total North -the employers of Documenta- and has turned to just another instrument for domination: Fokidis simply gave her jewel to them in exchange of absolutely nothing...

Like modern Greece has always done, immediately after the capricious North clapped its fingers and commanded, she handled out the major work of her life, she literary thrown it to the dogs.. We have seen this happening again and again, in politics and culture and architecture and society: the names change but the pattern is always the same.. Unfortunately its not just happening in Greece but to the entire South: our South has always felt so ashamed of itself, so inadequate, that is embarrassing the superiority of the North and accepts anything without even looking.. My dream was-and still is- that this Old South is gone already, that we are in front of a new MedioSud that has the guts and that can take charge.

So when Marina asked me to dress all those clowns, I didn't pay attention and proposed instead that we try to take-over and make a really significant project, namely to use Documenta and start building MedioSud! Like Judas- the miserable follower- she agreed to do so and like the cuttlefish she is -Greeks call someone who is two-faced "a cuttlefish"- she start faking that she was working for me on that direction... When I realized that she was not, I decided to contact Adam Szymczyk-the chief curator of Documenta- directly. I knew Adam well as I had accepted to participate to his "Roundabout" (CCA, Warsaw, 1998), the show that had launched his career back in the 90's. He is a Polish guy that always reminded me of Karol Józef Wojtyła, the man employed by the Total North -through the Vatican- back in the 80's, to help solve the Empire's internal problems, namely the smooth passage from so-called "communism" to advanced Capitalism. Adam like Wojtyła, sexy and empty at the same time, can touch everything without changing anything. He is the perfect man to handle a crisis and turn it to well-behaved demonstration of "compassion"- which is the motto of Total North when it comes to Immigrants/Refugees/Poverty etc. It was clear for me that his Documenta would avoid any experimentation and any association with artists like myself, still I decide to give it a try. So we start talking with Adam and I start explaining him "MedioSud". He got nervous pretty soon and noticing that, I assured him that I am not going to put him in trouble: my participation should stay outside of the official program of the exhibition, they should do nothing to include me, I would be simply using the material that Documenta was producing to support my thesis (my conviction that him and Documenta are just another face of Total North) and I would be trying to turn all of this into some kind of artwork. Then- once it was all over-they could appropriate my work, use it and celebrate it the way Contemporary Art and Spectacle always did..

At the same time, I start approaching his collaborators to see if any of them have the courage - or the interest- to try and overturn Adam's leadership so that we could inject to Documenta certain explosive elements and maybe even bring the whole adventure to some kind of momentum... The first person I did approached was the "good servant": Fokidis herself! That's when she got really scared and hurried up to de-friend me from Facebook and from other Social Networks, writing to Adam that she had absolutely no involvement to the ideas that I am bringing forward, although she did that in a very diplomatic way- just in case Adam had any interest in me (apparently he does...).

Well, the way I see it, Marina Fokidis is still working for my project, playing her role in this first MedioSud artwork together with Adam and his team. Maybe we"ll succeed after all to make from Documenta 14 something remarkable, something marking the peculiarity of this historical moment and the tragic position of the unlucky European Continent in it.. Adam, Marina, friends of Documenta, If we"ll all work well-everyone from his/her side of the table, everyone simply embodying his/her personality stereotype, I am sure WE CAN MAKE IT.

Keep up the good work!

Miltos Manetas, New Year's eve, Bogotá, 2016






Together we did:


Group shows 2011 Greek Contemporary Woman, The Hub, Athens, curated by Marina Fokidis, Athens, Greece 2009 EVERYDAY UTOPIA, Curated by Marina Fokidis, think.21 Gallery, Rue du Mail.21, Brussels, Belgium RANDOM RULES, A channel of Artists, Curated by Marina Fokidis at the Pulse Art Fair NY 2007 HER(HIS)STORY, Curated by Marina Fokidis at the Cycladic Museum in Athens

Publications 2012 South_as_a_State_of_Mind_issue_1 Miltos Manetas_My Family in MedioSud 2010 Break a leg Ένα ατύχημα, ένα επαρχιακό ιταλικό νοσοκομείο και μια σελίδα στο Facebook γίνονται σπουδαία τέχνη. LIFO, 8.9.2010 ΑΠΟ ΤΗ ΜΑΡΙΝΑ ΦΩΚΙΔΗ ΜΕΤΑ-ΜΙΛΤΟΣ ΜΑΝΕΤΑΣ LIFO, 2.9.2010 | ΑΠΟ ΤΗ ΜΑΡΙΝΑ ΦΩΚΙΔΗ 2009 Έι, πειρατή-ευρωβουλευτή, το logo μου! LIFO, 17.6.2009 | ΑΠΟ ΤΗ ΜΑΡΙΝΑ ΦΩΚΙΔΗ

Conference 2011 Southernity Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa invited by Francesco Urbano Ragazzi.