Angeliki Makri

The performance titled “Ribbons” by Angeliki Makri was held on May 7, 2008 on Dagli Street in the heart of Thessaloniki. Employing an artistic approach, the performance dealt with Wim Wenders’ “Faraway, So Close!”, or the well known phrase in Antonis Samarakis’ book titled “Ziteitai Elpis” (“Hope Wanted”) that says ‘never before have the roofs of houses been so close and the hearts of men so far apart’, using an artistic practice that takes us back to the late 1960s, when the term ‘process art’ was first used.
Following an invitation extended by the artist to the local daily Press and community, she prepared the reception of the project, which was positive beyond all hope and expectation.
She used red ribbons, which signified a vehicle-link-tie-means of communication, and the end-result was a complex, intricate mesh among the balconies of the buildings, as in the interpersonal relationships that were formed and/or strengthened during the performance.
The work is the ephemeral artistic result of collective action under conditions of utter freedom, with the artist playing the role of the shareholder-shaper-regulator of things, with emphasis not only on the procedural aspect of the event, but also on its socio-political aspect. This is an effort that touches upon one of Art’s current issues, namely its identification with life – and, as we all know, Art draws close to politics when it is identified with life. It refers to a socio-ideological action, recommending a way out of individualistic and almost autistic modern artistic introversion. In this particular case this was achieved through the collectivization of the result by including not only those directly involved, but also the broader community through its announcement via the local television channels.
In her own way she aims at the demystification of the artistic process and at the ritualistic initiation of the viewer to creative thought and action, transforming the latter into a contributing factor of the project, or even into a co-creator. This concerns art’s critical dialogue with the real world, based on the common principle of raising the viewer’s awareness of current problems and situations that function on a specific and also universal level.
As opposed to a-political art today, with the social element giving way to the private element, the artist essentially removes herself from society, interacts and generates new ideas, criticizes and detects new functions, only to redefine her very self in the end.


                                                                                                      Maria Kenanidou
                                                                                                          Art Historian