In Athens for Phantasmagoria: daddy kills more people, at The Breeder

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This photo: The Breeder

At the beginning of November I found myself back in Athens for the opening of Mamali Shafahi's latest solo show, Phantasmagoria: daddy kills more people, at The Breeder. I hadn't expected to be present, but at the last minute Mamali himself sent me a plane ticket, so off I went for three days.

I don't need to write much about the exhibition, which is set in Mamali's 'signature' lighting scheme, alternating between normal gallery lights and UV LEDs, which bring to life fluorescent grids on the walls and floors, and fluorescent highlights on the works. There's a full text on The Breeder's website, along with better photos than mine, which follow.










The next morning, I had time to take in a small Bob Wilson exhibition, Owls and Chairs, at the Bernier/Eliades Gallery, perhaps timed to coincide with his production of Edward Albee's Three Tall Women at the Municipal Theatre in Piraeus. After which, I took the train down to the port to take a look at Piraeus's 'new gallery district'. This turned out to have been hugely over-hyped online in texts along these lines (I'm making it up, but this kind of thing): 'Athens art fans are flocking to the vibrant new restaurant and gallery scene in Piraeus's crumbing harbourside marine-industrial workshops...' In reality, only a handful of galleries are dotted rather forlornly among the warehouses and factories, some open, others not, and on a damp, grey day it's something of a trudge. The spaces you do visit are, however, quite spectacular; the risk (as at the Athens Biennale in 2021), is that they tend to outshine the works on display.











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