What we saw during the Opening days

The 6th Athens Biennale ANTI opened its doors to the public on October 26, attracting more than 5,000 visitors and art professionals from Greece and all over the world.

During the first two weeks, more than 900 representatives of Greek and international media and art professionals were accredited to the exhibition, two-thirds of whom travelled to Athens to visit AB6, highlighting the major international attention.

Several international media have already reviewed ANTI, including Artforum, Artnet News, Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Tageszeitung, Marianne, RFI , German Radio, Austrian Radio (ORF), while the majority of the Greek press has covered the Biennale in length.

ANTI is the new normal

Sited just a few steps from the city’s central Syntagma Square, the 6th Athens Biennale explores how opposition plays out today in the political, social and cultural arenas. ANTI takes place in four iconic venues around Kolokotroni Square: the TTT building (Telecommunications, Telegrams and Post), formerly housing the Hellenic Telecommunications Organization OTE, designed by the architect Anastasios Metaxas in 1930 (Stadiou 15), the four-star Esperia Palace Hotel, whose operation suddenly stopped in 2010 (Stadiou 22), the historical Benakeios Library, property of the Hellenic Parliament (Anthimou Gazi 2) and the former offices of the fund of retired engineers and contractors of the public sector, TSMEDE (Kolokotroni 4).

In the exhibition, more than 100 Greek and international contemporary artists map cultural expressions of antagonism in the digital world, post-truth nihilism and conspiracy theories, critiquing through their works the pleasure, the indulgence and the discomfort of ANTI, while proposing various instead-ofs. The exhibition highlights contemporary role play in games as well as our digital selves, analyzes popular desires for opposition and explores ways out of the dialectics of ANTI.

The 6th Athens Biennale ANTI, curated by Stefanie Hessler, Poka-Yio and Kostis Stafylakis, is dedicated to the memory of the LGTBQ activist and performer Zak Kostopoulos / Zackie Oh, who had collaborated with the Biennale on several occasions in the past.