Virginia Mastrogiannaki graduated from the École des Beaux Arts de Rouen, France, in 2002, then received a double Master degree from the School of Visual and Applied Arts-Faculty of Fine Arts, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (2010) and the Athens School of Fine Arts of Athens (2013). She recently showed her work at the Sakıp Sabancı Müzesi in Istanbul (2020), the Old Parliament of Athens (2019), the Benaki Museum (2016) and the ZKM (Germany, 2015).
Virginia Mastrogiannaki’s works deals, among others, with the concepts of time, sustainability, the unnecessary, concepts that are all relevant to the exhibition “The Green Path”. “Until today”, says the artist, “the body of my work has dealt with the concepts of the duration, limit, the error, the unnecessary, both in relation between myself and materials, but also in terms of social relationships”. In her performances, the artist explores the human body – more specifically her own body. Sometimes the body can function as a machine that can calculate time, sometimes as a speaker or wind instrument, sometimes as an endurance indicator. As time and body are closely interconnected, the artist records the performative functions of the time we all spend in our daily lives, from beginning to end: working time, rest, development, performative time. According to Mastrogiannaki, the perception of time is connected with both the body and the mind. Materiality, whether in inanimate objects or in the human condition itself, is for the artist a field of observation that is often explored through long-term performances.
For “The Green Path”, Virginia Mastrogiannaki will be showing photographs of objects that defy our perception and understanding. Once on a walk in the port of Thessaloniki, the artist found herself in front of some « unidentified », metal objects that were lying there. They were not exactly rubbish. Today one of them stands at the entrance of the port as a welcome sign. What message do these objects carry over time? Do objects have a “soul”, a perception of destiny? As asked by 18th Century French writer Alphonse de Lamartine in a famous poem: « Objets inanimés, avez-vous donc une âme ?».