Paola Revenioti – Paola
If the antidote to world-wide economic and social crisis is achieved through investigating itself inside the cultural roots of every state, it is interesting to discover that at times these roots are not so distant from present. So happens that in Athens, the symbolic city for economical defeat and the worrisome rise of Nazi-inspired parties, from a closer inspection, the signs and the seeds of a more open and less hostile culture are not relegated to the classical world but also to most recent past.
The simple title of the exhibition at Breeder Gallery, Paola, reflects a sense of familiarity and intimacy as addressing to a friend or someone known for a long time. Since Paola Revenioti is not a well-known personality outside national borders, she is actually a central character as well as a cult figure in Greek LGBT scene from the beginning of the 80’s. Paola is one of the most eccentric and revolutionary authors in an undefined territory between personal life and representation: gay rights activist, anarchist, transvestite, prostitute, photographer and film maker, above all creator of the magazine “Kraximo” that first approached with simplicity the environment of prostitution and street life of hustlers including “high” contents as the famous interview to philosopher Felix Guattari.
Kraximo has been a real archetype; free, brave and passionate in order to narrate the desires and the revolutionary spirit of a generation on topics such as politics, trans-gender and transgression through words and images, deeply focused to melt well the issues, clearly that the real social and political “revolution” can not be separated by a sexual revolution. The first intense exhibition at Breeder Gallery curated by artist, architect and teacher Andreas Angelidakis, interprets cleverly the versatility of this peculiar figure by right selections and setting.
Furthermore, what is exhibited inside the Athenian gallery is not a proper photography exhibition but something even more fascinating: between a historical archive and an intimate diary loaded with feelings, the spectator can be penetrated sliding around from the industrial metal shelving for the simple photo frames emerging pictures and memories of queer environment described by Paola in many years of her “career” as precious relics. Touching photographs loaded with beauty, desire, social emancipation, friendship at the same time a witness of willingness to build an identity and a common lifestyle, marvelously lapped by the Mediterranean light as well as the Aegean Sea.
Besides the photographs, the exhibition features some videos especially adapted from the archive ‘Video in Progress’ that points out the Athenian transsexual environment and underworld in a familiar way, since Paola has been a protagonist in it for three decades and beyond.
Paola will run until 16 February.
Riccardo Conti
