One of Athens basements. The history, the secrets, the sediment, what remains to be remembered and what we keep. The fears, the garbage, the best we want to salvage and the worst we wish to bury deep in our subconscious. The soft underbelly of Athens. In Soft Underbelly, curated by Poka-Yio, combining images, touch, smell and sound, we participate in a domestic drama, in a basement, in the characteristic gallery of Athens.

Sasha Streshna, BOP!,Λάδι σε καμβά, 120X120εκ., 2019

The Soft Hypogastrium

We grew up with poetry spray-painted on the walls of the city. With broken sidewalks, with bombed streets, with marbles abandoned, with melted water lilies, pigeons, dog turds, scarlet cats and opened bags. Your sandals – as you walk along Kolonaki – go up and down the embankments. Your fingers have the most perfect pedicure made from second generation fingers. Athens puffs away on a summer evening, cursing and sighing, its breaths puffing out, scavenging garbage and a farmers’ market.

Αγγελος Μεργές / Aggelos Merges

Somewhere in there Moralis, Chrysa, Tsarouchis has an opening. The flashbulbs, the newspapers, the magazines, the socialites. The sandals slip on the sidewalks, the dresses crawl over cats, they go down to the basement, where the water stagnates, where there is the oil boiler, the storage rooms, the boxes of the old days. There, cockroaches do whatever it is they do, the dampness drips, and the metal gutters carry the sound of crying babies. Athens drips in its basements. All the city’s humidity. Ancient sewers, old laundry, imperatives, braking, swearing and stories of deadly viruses and strangers undermining us. The underground gallery. The showroom. The repository of the subconscious. The basement. Where the make-up drips, where the history drips, the faces of the city. Where what remains, the dregs, the dregs, the distillate, settles. The best we have and the worst we are. Where touching our Eileen hurts. Our essence and our Para-Nature Seat. Our Seat is somewhere out there, in the bowels of the city, under the concrete. In its soft underbelly.

Γιώργος Βαβυλουσάκης, Blackmilk,Ακρυλικά σε καμβά, 60×55εκ.,2021

Participating artists: George Vavilousakis, Vangelis Gokas, George Kazazis, Andreas Ragnar Kasapis, Panagiotis Kefalas, Angelos Merges, YannisMoralis, Kyriakos Mortarakos, Maria Polyzoidou, FotiniPoulia, EviRoumani, Theodora Savvalaridi, AntonisSelekos, Katerina Stefanidaki, Maria Filippa, AngelosFrentzos, Chryssa, Ilios, Poka-Yio, Sasha Streshna

Exhibition curator.Poka-Yio

Μαρία Πολυζωίδου, Χωρίς τίτλο,Λάδι σε λινό, 50×60εκ., 2022

Duration of the exhibition: 14 June – 9 July 2022

Opening hours: Tues., Thurs. Pol. 11.00 -20.00, Wed. Fri. & Sat. 11.00 -15.00, Sunday & Monday closed