Photo: Studio VacharidisSomething like a poem, a nude, and flowers in a vase, 2023, solo show at EMST (National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens)
Bagaki’s work in painting, sculpture, drawing, text, sound and videos revolves around a persistent development of auto-fiction. Through the reconstruction of personal experiences or the creation of imagined events, Bagaki explores issues surrounding erotic relationships, sexuality, gender representations, and the precarity that many of the younger generation experience in Greece. Central to her artistic practice is nomadic wandering and flight as an existential condition in the quest for a sense of belonging.
The exhibition at EMΣT, the artist’s first major museum presentation, features a series of paintings with compositions of human figures standing alone or interacting in natural landscapes. The starting point for these works is desire: Bagaki’s dreamy paintings are produced, as she emphasizes, by and for desire. Intimations of physical attraction and erotic observation shape the artist’s relationship with the depicted bodies and their environment. The exhibition Something like a poem, a nude, and flowers in a vase unfolds as a kind of dreamlike wandering and observation on desire, sexuality, and an erotic quest.
Text by Tina Pandi, curator at EMST
Curator Tina Pandi
Director Katerina Gregos
Photo: Studio Vacharidis
Photo: Studio Vacharidis
Man under the sky (he imagined his life naked), 2023, oil on canvas, 230 x 200 cm
Man with long hair (the wind had ceased), 2022, oil on canvas, 120 x 130 cm
The essence is real, 2022, oil on canvas, 150 x 140 cm
Man with flowers (he confessed), 2022, oil on canvas, 120 x 130 cm
The kiss (he was not one but two), 2022, oil on canvas, 120 x 130 cm
Lorenzo, 2021, colour pencil on paper, 19.5 x 25.5 cm
Tzouli, 2021, colour pencil on paper, 19.5 x 25.5 cm
Mia, 2021, colour pencil on paper, 19.5 x 25.5 cm
Rosa, 2021, colour pencil on paper, 19.5 x 25.5 cm
Nike socks, 2022, oil and acrylic on canvas, 45 x 50 cm
Gesso primer, 2022, oil and acrylic on canvas, 45 x 50 cm
Coca-cola, 2022, oil and acrylic on canvas, 40 x 45 cm
The book reader, 2022, oil and acrylic on canvas, 50 x 60 cm
Sound installation
Click on each title to listen to the song
he came 1:16
he said he liked me 2:11
in my bedroom 1:02
he never let me watch 2:23
Music composition, production: Anna Vs June, mixing: Nikos Triantafillou