Modern Love (Love in the years of cold intimacy) is the next major group exhibition of EMST with which the winter-spring exhibition cycle of the museum begins, focusing on digital technology and the internet, their influence on modern societies and their relationship with work, body and speech. Modern Love, curated by Katerina Gregou, artistic director of EMST, is an exhibition about love and close human ties in the years of late capitalism, globalization, digital interconnection and social media. It explores how digital technology and the modern economy have transformed emotion and social relationships, and how the experience of the virtual catalyzes the boundaries between private and public. It examines how the internet and social media have, on the one hand, facilitated the expression of different identities and alternative ways of being and constructing the self, and how, on the other, they play an aggravating role in the cultivation of pathologies, such as narcissism, obsessive self-promotion, digital dependence and the commercialization of emotion. She studies how the interweaving of reality, the virtual and the imagination creates complex psychological and interpersonal situations and entanglements. It captures social norms and challenges as well as the possibilities presented by the internet and social media in terms of our most intimate and close relationships. It is an exhibition about the tangible experience of the digital and the intangible experience of closeness in today’s era, after the pandemic, in the years of cold intimacies. The report borrows its subtitle from Eva Illouz’s book, Cold Intimacies: the Making of Emotional Capitalism, which analyzes how contemporary close, intimate relationships are increasingly defined by economic and political models of negotiation and Exchange. 24 artists from 14 countries participate. The exhibition is the product of an ongoing research and comes to EMST after presentations at the Museum für Neue Kunst | Museum of Contemporary Art in Freiburg in Germany, the Kunsthalle in Tallinn, the IMPAKT Media Organization and the Centraal Museum in Utrecht. For EMST the exhibition has been expanded and Greek and international artists have been added. Most of the latter present their work for the first time in Greece.

Venue of the exhibition: -1

The exhibition will be accompanied by a bilingual catalogue designed by Rafaela Drazic, curated by Katerina Gregos and Theofilos Trabouli, the catalogue will be presented at a special event in January.

At the opening of the exhibition will be presented at 21.00 the performance of Marijke De Roover, Live, Laugh, Limerence (a buffa Opera in four acts), in the exhibition area of the museum’s ground floor. This operatic performance is a biting commentary on the way in which we choreograph and culturally organize the representation of love through heteronormative structures. The play deliciously utilizes all the cliches of romantic comedies, musical theater, opera, karaoke and Hollywood

This large group exhibition will be followed by a series of solo exhibitions in January 2023, which focus on the impact of digital technology, the internet, social media and the economy they produce on social relations and modern life.

Artists:

GABRIEL ABRANTES (1984, US/PT)

ΑΝΔΡΕΑΣ ΑΓΓΕΛΙΔΑΚΗΣ (1968, GR)

MELANIE BONAJO (1978, NL)

CANDICE BREITZ (1978, ZA)

LAURA CEMIN (1992, IT)

BENJAMIN CROTTY (1979, US)

ΚΥΡΙΑΚΗ ΓΟΝΗ (1982, GR)

DAVID HAINES (1969, UK)

JULIET JACQUES (1981, UK)

SANAM KHATIBI (1979, IR/BE)

MAHMOUD KHALED (1982, EG)

DURAN LANTINK (1988, NL)

ARIANE LOZE (1988, BE)

ΜΑΡΙΑ ΜΑΥΡΟΠΟΥΛΟΥ (1989, GR)

LAUREN LEE MCCARTHY (1987, US)

KYLE MCDONALD (1985, US)

MARGE MONKO (1976, EE)

ΕΥΑ ΠΑΠΑΜΑΡΓΑΡΙΤΗ (1987, GR)

PETER PUKLUS (1980, RO/HU)

ΓΙΩΡΓΟΣ ΠΡΙΝΟΣ (1977, GR)

MARIJKE DE ROOVER (1990, GR)

MARGARET SALMON (1975, US/UK)

HANNAH TOTICKI (1984, DK)

ISTVÁN ZSÍROS (1985, HU)

Exhibition duration: 15.12.2022 – 28.05.2023

Opening: Thursday 15 December, 18.30 until late