Chrysanne Stathacos is a multidisciplinary artist of Greek, American and Canadian origin. Her work has encompasses printmaking, textile, painting, installation and conceptual art. Stathacos is heavily involved with and influenced by feminism, Greek Mythology, eastern spirituality and Tibetan Buddhism, all of which inform her current artistic practice. Amidst the AIDS crisis in the 1990s, Stathacos’ work became deeply engaged with body politics, and her commentary on issues of sexuality and gender became more pronounced. Through her work, Stathacos created images and experiences that connected issues of body, environment, and future. Her works from that time represent this pivotal moment in the artist’s practice.
Stathacos has exhibited in museums, galleries, and venues internationally. She has participated in countless exhibitions in various media, but she is most known for her unique combination of performance and installation. She has received funding for her projects and her artwork from foundations and government agencies such as the Art Matters Foundation, the Japan Foundation, the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Adolph & Esther Gottlieb Foundation, among others.
Stathacos has served on the boards of Art Metropole, Toronto; The Gap (Grange Arts and Performance) Toronto; the Lower East Side Printshop, New York; and Dongyu Gatsal Ling Initiatives, New York. She established Expanded Art Ideas, in 2001, an innovative art education program for Artists’ Space, NYC focuses on schools in the Lower East Side and Inwood area. Stathacos is a founding director of Dongyu Gatsal Ling Initiatives, to help Tibetan Buddhist women practitioners in the Himalayas. An integral part of her creative work as an artist over the years has been to facilitate and advance artistic positions, art education residencies, women’s and environmental issues, public art projects and conversations promoting mutual understanding of the interstices between diverse groups.
Stathacos is known for her support of her woman artists in her collaborative exhibitions and blogs, and social practice. Two major collaborative works from the early 1990’s still resonate today: “The Abortion Project” with Kathe Burkhart, and “The Banquet” with Hunter Reynolds. The Abortion Project commemorated women’s reproductive rights, and was presented at Artists Space, Simon Watson Gallery, Real Art Ways, Hallwalls, and New LangtonArts between 1990 and 1993. The Banquet was first performed at Thread Waxing Space in 1992, inspired by Surrealist Meret Oppenheim’s Spring Feast. On May 1, 2017, Participant Inc. celebrated The Banquet’s 25h Anniversary as part of Ephemera Office Enterprise.
In February 2012, the artist Susan Silas and Stathacos launched the art-blog MOMMY. The idea was to create a platform, in an interview format, that functions as an appreciation of women artists who have been working for at least 20 years. We have interviewed Linda Montano, Cathy Busby, Betty Tompkins, Barbara Yoshida, Robin Kahn, Alison Knowles, Bharti Kher, Judith Braun, Arahmaiani, Silvia Kolbowski, Bettina Lockemann, Perry Bard, Carla Gannis, Judith Bernstein, Nancy Friedemann, Howardena Pindell, and published a letter from Ida Applebroog.
WORKS
In the 1990s, Stathacos developed an artistic alter ego named Anne de Cybelle, who was enraged by the exclusion of women artists in the art historical canon. Cybelle was part self-portrait, part activist, and asked questions about how we see art history, conventional time, identity, and patriarchal social conventions. The canvas works included in this presentation are a result of this critical inquiry. Stathacos printed on her surfaces using intimate materials such as hair, clothing, condoms; and organic materials such as ivy, cannabis, and roses. Through her careful and repeated patterning she critically reflects on a history of vulnerability and loss, and transforms its remnants into poetic compositions that reflect on spiritual imagery.
Stathacos’ first major interactive work 1-900-Mirror-Mirror (1993-2020). This sculptural installation was made during the height of the AIDS crisis when Stathacos was living in New York, and was first exhibited at Andrea Rosen Gallery the year it was made. Grappling with the deaths of many friends and colleagues, Stathacos conceived of the work to discover what viewers might ask when confronted with their own image in an infinity chamber. Using a video phone, the artist would speak with viewers as they entered the booth and conduct tarot readings in order to create a space where people could ask questions about the future. The mirrored walls were meticulously printed on with hair and ivy, and exemplify the interconnected interests of Stathacos’ practice.
”1-900 Mirror Mirror”predicted by a decade the skype chats and video-streaming exchanges. The Breeder Gallery, Athens, presented this seminal interactive work “1-900 Mirror Mirror” at Frieze NY, May 4-11, 2017, to much acclaim in The Art Newspaper.In 2020, during another pandemic, 1-900 Mirror Mirror was exhibited in There are more than four, curated by Jacob Korczynski at Cooper Cole Gallery, Toronto which resulted in many articles on this work. Many zoom interactive chats during the exhibition were offered to the public as the gallery was often closed due to the pandemic. Rhiannon Vogl’s article “Calling Cards” for Blackflash magazine details her experience with 1-900 Mirror Mirror at Cooper Cole Gallery, There are more than four, curated by Jacob Korczynski.
1-900 Mirror Mirror
AA Bronson included her performance and installation Rose Mirror Mandala (2006) in The Temptation of AA Bronson, Witte de With Centre for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam, (2013). Her performance “Pythia’s Warm Breath” was included in Oracle Drawings, Parliament of Bodies, public programs, documenta 14, 2017. Stathacos had her first one person exhibition in Athens, “Pythia”, The Breeder, Athens in 2017. “Pythia Rose Mandala“was presented in “AA Bronson’s Garten Der Luste” at KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin. Her work is also included in “AA Bronson’s House of Shame” published by Edition Patrick Frey in 2021.
Stathacos works are in the collections of The National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Canada the Albright-Knox Art Gallery , Buffalo, New York; the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria . British Columbia, Canada; the Castellani Art Museum, Lewiston, New York; the Art Gallery of Ontario, in Toronto, Canada; and the Memorial Art Gallery, University of Rochester.
Stathacos participated as a panelist in a major artist-centered research convening titled, In the Present Moment: Buddhism, Contemporary Art, and Social Practice, organized by the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria in partnership with the University of Victoria in 2019. Stathacos was included in The Art Gallery of Ontario’s Artist Spotlight series
Blowing Roses – Photo credit -Lanxin
Stathacos participated in the 13th Gwangju Biennale Minds Rising, Spirits Tuning:– with a new work The Three Dakini Mirrors (of the Body, Speech and Mind). Canadian Art Magazine featured an interview Mirrors, Mandalas and Seeing the Self with Chrysanne Stathacos on her new installation for the Gwangju Biennale and psychic communications and connections amid pandemic loss. Stathacos’ paintings from her Condom Series will be presented at ” Every Moment Counts – AIDS and its Feelings” at the Henie Onstad Museum in February, 2022. Stathacos presented “Blowing Roses” at the MAO- Museo d’Arte Orientale in Turin in June, 2022, an installation and performance work.
The Buffalo Institute for Contemporary Art presented “Cooking with Roses,” a survey of the acclaimed, Buffalo-born artist’s Chrysanne Stathacos’ work with the eponymous flower. The exhibition is the first of three in BICA’s 2022-23 exhibition series: “Recovering Futures” supported by the Warhol Foundation. In 2023 Stathacos presented The Re- Turn, a survey of her paintings at anonymous gallery, 2023 to great acclaim with reviews in Frieze, Brooklyn Rail and a Must See in Artforum.
Recent news and press on her work can be found here
Chrysanne Stathacos fonds at The National Gallery of Canada
Chrysanne Stathacos Brooklyn Museum,
Thanks to the following Art Councils for their support of my work
