Beyond the Zero (Peres Projects Athens) Press Release / Peres Projects

"Dialectics, matrices, archetypes all need to connect, once in a while, back to some of that proletarian blood, to body odors and senseless screaming across a table, to cheating and last hopes, or else all is dusty Dracularity, the West's ancient curse..."
Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow

The West's ancient curse sits atop corinthian columns, on great Athena's throne, BEYOND THE ZERO is the poison that will shroud her surfaces, fade out her reflection.

As an infant revolution, against time, against the tyranny of history, beauty and form, BEYOND THE ZERO is a coup d'etat against the Athens of old. Its Aim: to reconfigure the destruction of the West into aftereffects of New Histories, where alternative universes unfold determined by their own rules and logic.

Beyond the Zero is the first of two group exhibitions hosted by Javier Peres at a temporary Peres Projects site in the Keramikos neighborhood of Athens. These exhibitions are mounted alongside the first-ever Athens Biennial, "Destroy Athens."

Thematic assignment can and usually should be challenged, especially where a typical group exhibition is concerned. This is not to say that there is no sense in trying to curate of course, but, more simply in the case of Beyond the Zero, the site acts as the principal driving force. To wrest artwork from the tight, capillary art marketplace of New York City (where all but one of the included artists currently reside) and deliver it to one of the world's sage yet still secretive cities is itself proposition enough.

Subsequent interactions between a bronze crushed tomato lying beside a carnival-striped sock (David Adamo), a dreamy Plexiglas fountain circulating dark squid ink (Agathe Snow and Rita Ackermann), a photograph of sublime but insidious kudzu in the American South (Andrew Rogers), and a half-dead saxophone (Dan Colen and Nate Lowman) don't address one theme – and certainly not in a Greek context. But they do create quite a few and probably insult some others.

We will produce a catalog for each of the exhibitions and also dedicate an issue of Daddy, our new art journal to the complete Greek adventure, both in and out of the gallery.

September 8th – October 13th "Beyond the Zero"
Opening September 8th, 7 - 10PM

Terence Koh
Joe Bradley
Dan Colen
Nate Lowman
Dean Sameshima
Dash Snow
Spencer Sweeney
Agathe Snow
Andrew Rogers
David Adamo
Rita Ackermann
**others to follow

For more information please email athens@peresprojects.com or call Peres Projects Berlin at +49 30 6162 6962.