zeus camouflage

Access Art Trail, QR code Stops F and G

April 12—19

Andreas Mallouris

Curated by Frances Painter–Fleming

Jóse Muñoz in “Cruising Utopia” mentions, “Queerness is not yet here. Queerness is an ideality. Put another way, we are not yet queer”. The work presented, elaborates around a queer body cruisng in heterotopias of desire and claiming agency over its corporeality, identity and penetrability. The Municipal Garden of Nicosia, where I had an artist residency in June, hosts gay cruising men, immigrants and marginalized multicultural groups of people. A public space, where in times of any pandemic or conditions of imposing heteronormativity, a queer body may be “de-immunised; strip off all it’s community privileges, according to Robert Esposito’s thoughts on ‘immunity’ and “community”. This space may become the place where potentially new communities are formed. «Ου – τόπος», in Greek language, Utopia, the abstract portrait of the ideal society, does not exist. Queer heterotopias on the contrary, may exist in real spaces, rise in ambition to encompass multiplicities and potentially become ephemeral. They remain inherently unstable to resist processes of capitalism such as fetishisation and commodification and may host new dynamics of hierarchisation, homonormativity and exclusiveness.

Andreas Mallouris

Andreas Mallouris lives and works in Nicosia and Athens. He is a professional Plastic Surgeon and holds a PhD in Plastic Surgery and a BA (Hons) Fine Arts from UWE (UK). Currently he is an MFA Fine Arts student at Goldsmith, University of London. He is co-founder and director of korai project space in Nicosia. His practice addresses issues around the position of the body as a living archive, inherently vulnerable to its history, biopolitics, hierarchies and mythologies. Andreas’ next solo presentation is scheduled for September 2021 at P.E.T projects, Athens. He participated in several exhibitions, among them, Catch of the Year(s), DIENSTGEBÄUDE Art Space Zurich, (2019) Ever Fallen, Metodo Milan ( 2019), Else/Where, Biscuit Factory, London (2019), Ingrutati Palermo, collateral events Manifesta 12, Palermo (2018), Platforms Project 2018, Athens (2018).