Banff – Walter Phillips Gallery Artist Talk and Performance, Sky Gazing by Chrysanne Stathacos December 13, 2023
Freize– Exhibitions Not to Miss Across the US This June
The Re turn Chrysanne Stathacos anonymous gallery May. 10, 2023 – Jun. 10, 2023
Frieze –Chrysanne Stathacos Celebrates the Beauty of Impermanence by Adam Smith-Perez
Brooklyn The Re- turn by Ann McCoy
“Cooking with Roses”, a survey of Chrysanne Stathacos” work with the eponymous flower was presented at the Buffalo Institute of Contemporary Art (BICA) in 2022. This exhibition is the first of three in BICA’s 2022-23 exhibition series: Recovering Futures.
Performance – Rose Mother Queen – December 10, 2022 –
Throughout Chrysanne Stathacos’s long career several materials, or in her words, “witchy items,” have been deployed again and again: ivy, hair, condoms, and roses. Cooking with Roses surveys Stathacos’ prints, paintings, installations, and objects that utilize the flower in a variety of unexpected ways: arranging its petals into sculptural mandalas, pressing it into the canvas (along with hair and condoms), and even printing images on individual petals; together, Stathacos’ rose work exemplifies her creativity and dedication to process-based innovations across many mediums.
photo credit Lanxin
From 22 to 24 June the artist Chrysanne Stathacos will be a guest of the museum and will give life to a mandala of mirrors and roses with the performance “Blowing roses”.
Video –MAO – STATHACOS RECAP LF
Chrysanne Stathacos is a multidisciplinary artist of Greek, American and Canadian descent. Her work encompasses printmaking, painting, textile art, installation and performance, and explores the connections between ritual action, Greek mythology, feminism, environmental issues, Eastern spirituality, Buddhism and technology that are reflected in her current artistic practice.
As part of the exhibition Il Grande Vuoto and the #MAOTempoPresente project, the artist was invited to create a performance at the MAO Museo d’Arte Orientale : over three days, from 22 to 24 June , Stathacos will give life in the salon Mazzonis at “Blowing Roses” , an installation from the Rose Mandala series.
“ I’m going to create an opera from my Rose Mandala series, Blowing Roses. The Rose Mandala installations are based on historical circular structures that aim to create a work that changes over time. These works are done by plucking dozens of roses – petal by petal – that surround large colored mirrors. The spectator’s senses are invested by waves of rose scent that inhabit the space of the work “ says Stathacos , who continues“The mandalas are left to dry while the petals shrink to a quarter of their original size. Eventually, the mandala is dismantled into a final representation. The Rose Mandalas are thrown, collected and scattered in the wind or blown away by the human breath, mine and the audience. These installations / performances reflect the ephemeral process of change, age, decay and emptiness ”.
On 22 and 23 June the public is invited to attend the creation of the mandala , which the artist will create in the Salone Mazzonis. Finally , on Friday 24 June at 4.30 pm , in a ritual ceremony open to the public, Chrysanne Stathacos will destroy the work.
INTERVIEWSMirrors, Mandalas and Seeing the Self
Chrysanne Stathacos talks about her new installation for the Gwangju Biennale
Gwangju Biennale– A new commission –
Artist Page : The Three Dakini Mirrors (of the Body, Speech and Mind) ”
February 26–May 9, 2021Opening Date: February 26
“Whatever it is, coronavirus has made the mighty kneel and brought the world to a halt like nothing else could. Our minds are still racing back and forth, longing for a return to “normality”, trying to stitch our future to our past and refusing to acknowledge the rupture. But the rupture exists.” – Arundhati Roy
The Artistic Directors of the 13th Gwangju Biennale, Defne Ayas and Natasha Ginwala, today announce further details of their plans for the forthcoming edition of the Biennale, Minds Rising, Spirits Tuning. Having launched the editorial platform of the Biennale, “Minds Rising”, and the online public programme with the forum GB Talks |Rising to the Surface: Practicing Solidarity Futures, Ayas and Ginwala are now pleased to announce 69 participating artists, 41 new commissions, and the Biennale exhibition venues in Gwangju, Korea. The exhibition delves into a broad set of cosmologies, activating multitudinous forms of intelligence, planetary life-systems, and modes of communal survival as they contend with the future horizon of cognitive capitalism, algorithmic violence and planetary imperialisms.
Participating Biennale Venues:
Gwangju Biennale Exhibition Hall, Gwangju National Museum, Gwangju Theater, Yangnim mountain – Horanggasy Artpolygon
1-900 Mirror Mirror – 1993-2020
Press: review by Parker Kay on“There Are More Than Four” inCornelia
Robert Flack and I used to read tarot together often back then, doing rituals with oils, candles, sage and secret objects on an Indian bed spread on the roof of my New York studio on Centre Street. I have found a copy of the deck he used – The Tantric Dakini Oracle – which I will use now, thinking of him.
Robert Flack died in October,1993, a few months before the opening of 1-900-Mirror Mirror. Jorge Zontal of General Idea left us a few weeks after the project ended. The sadness and tragedy of that time is still with me/us. Why were our governments and leaders not more proactive in the early 1980’s, when AIDS first appeared? So many could have been saved. WHY remains the question. Robert Flack, Tim Jocelyn, Jorge Zontal, Felix Partz, David Buchan and so so so many more should still be with us, that is the tragedy that will never die.
Chrysanne Stathacos, 2020
The Art Gallery of Ontario Artist Spotlight Series 
SISTERHOOD , Streaming voices unifying energies
Curated by Angelo Plessas atHaus N Athen
Participating Artists:
Sarah Abu Abdallah, Petra Cortright, Despoina Damaskou, Zoe Giabouldaki, Tamara Henderson, Liliane Lijn, Olga Migliaressi-Phoca, Bahar Noorizadeh, Nausika Pastra, Lena Platonos with Margarita Ovadia, Paola Revenioti, Vanessa Safavi, Georgia Sagri, Sofia Stevi, Chrysanne Stathacos, Susan Silas, Priscilla Tea, Amalia Vekri, Pegy Zali.“Sisterhood” is a show consisting of works by female and female-identifying artists who shape their practices through an intersection of techno-scientific sensuality where new emotional meanings and methodologies emerge.The artists of the “Sisterhood” come from different generations and backgrounds. The works selected in the show commonly illuminate the influence of technology spanning chronologically from the “early accessible tools” era culminating to the current time of our hyper-penetration of technology in our lives where attitudes and forms of communication change rapidly every day. The show aspires to highlight how our hyper-connected reality – whose mechanisms are still male-dominated, is sowing the seeds with a utopian drive for full equality.
I am honoured to be included in Andrea Miller’s book
“Awakening My Heart: Articles, Essays, and Interviews on the Buddhist Life.
I will be presenting at the Research Convening In The Present Moment” ,
October 25- 27, at the Art Gallery of Victoria and the University of Victoria.
Art Gallery of Greater Victoria explores relationship between Buddhism and contemporary art
Rose Mirror Mandala, Stathacos, Chrysanne. 2013. Photo by Matthias Herrmann
Art, Culture, and Healing the World: A Conversation with Haema Sivanesan
Art Basel Feature, June 2019 – Chrysanne Stathacos and Angelo Plessas,
The Breeder Gallery, Athens
| “The artistic practice of both Chrysanne Stathacos and Angelo Plessas is situated within communal and participatory performative space. Their sensibilities intersect where ritual meets social consciousness.
Stathacos reconfigures and subverts patriarchal histories through a feminist perspective. In the 1970s, she became associated with General Idea. After two of the group founders died of AIDS, Stathacos began travelling to India, where she became involved with Eastern spirituality. Her Rose Mandalas are time-based installations formed from rose petals in concentric circular constructions. The mandalas are swept away in a final gesture, reflecting on the ephemerality of life and loss. |
Plessas takes up the activist baton from Stathacos and the generation of General Idea. In his hands, the Internet becomes a techno-shamanistic facilitator of on- and offline interactions among like-minded participants. His Noospheric Quilts can be seen as physical mantles that are composed of talismanic symbols, communicating across time and cultures. The work also draws on the subversive, activist concept of commemorating loss and ephemerality that inspired the AIDS Memorial Quilt”
GOLD RUSH at COOPER COLE, TORONTO – December 15, – February 2, 2019
COOPER COLE is pleased to present Gold Rush, a solo exhibition by Chrysanne Stathacos.
“Mysticism and spirituality have long informed Stathacos’s practice, and her shadowy, elemental depictions of nature in reds, golds, silvers, blacks, and whites lend themselves to a shamanistic reading. In these canvases, altered consciousness becomes a mode of witness and remembrance.”
– Sophie Kovel, Artforum, October 2018
The exhibition includes pivotal historical printed paintings of ivy and marijuana leaves made in the 1990’s, in conversation with recent paintings, and assemblages. A new site-specific installation from The Rose Mirror Mandala series, entitled Alchemical Golden Rose Mandala will occupy the floor of the gallery where Stathacos will conduct performative activities during the course of the exhibition.
Since the 1980’s, Stathacos has created works that conjure a shamanistic and eco-holistic reading. She investigates the spiritual properties inherent in visionary and healing plants, in conjunction with meditation activities. The AIDS crisis had a profound effect on her work, resulting in the use of direct impressions through a range of printmaking techniques using etching presses and silk screens. The impressions from nature were influenced by the works of Yves Klein, Anna Atkins and The Shroud of Turin. The ivy and marijuana leaves used for her 1990’s paintings came from the 12th Street garden apartment near St Vincent’s Hospital NYC and were grown by Jorge Zontal of General Idea. Jorge gave her the leaves to use in her paintings. Ivy, hair, roses and marijuana leaves have been recurrent symbols in her work since that time. As a counterpoint to consumerism, Stathacos has based her work on the natural world, ephemeral, alchemical and environmental concerns. Her use of mirroring and patterning manifest a sense of immediacy with reflections on time passing.
As a Tibetan Buddhist friend noted, “For me the Rose Mandalas symbolise the gradual unfolding of our innate nature. Conversely these mandalas remind us of the inherent impermanence of even the beautiful”. Based on historical circular structures, these installations are created by plucking dozens of roses apart petal by petal that circle large round glass mirrors. During the exhibition the petals are left to dry and they gradually reduce in size, almost disappearing while one’s senses are touched by waves of rose scent inhabiting the space of the work. What remains of the dried-up mandala is blown away as a closing performance on February 2nd at the end of the exhibition.
“FIVE MIRRORS OF THE WORLD” at the Second edition ofSCULPTURE PARK AT MADHAVENDRA PALACE, NAHARGARH FORT, JAIPUR, RAJASTHAN
The Sculpture Park at Madhavendra Palace in Nahargarh fort has turned an 18th-Century fortress into a Sculpture Gallery with works displayed throughout the meandering rooms and grand courtyards. Traditional Indian architecture creates a dramatic backdrop for the monumental works occupying central positions and more intimate works featured throughout the many rooms, awaiting discovery. Visitors are invited to meander through the palace, to encounter and experience each work in a range of settings and display. The Sculpture Park’s second edition opened December 9, 2018 and will run through 15 November 2019. The Sculpture Park’s second edition opened December 9, 2018 and will run through 15 November 2019.
“Five Mirrors of The World ” at The Sculpture Park, Madhavendra Palace, Nahargarh Fort, Jaipur, India
Press:
See the MajesticDisplays at India’s First Contemporary Sculpture Park.
“Five large colored mirrors installed on a round table reflect the outdoors through a skylight at the palace’s Maharaja suite. Chrysanne Stathacos’s work, entitled “Five Mirrors of the World” (2018), refers to astronomical diagrams depicted in Tibetan thangkas. The five mirrors — surrounded by roses, hand-printed hair cloth, and Bodhi leaves — represent different aspects of life: energy; existence; personality; emotional landscape; and the way in which we relate to others and to our world.”
“Another stunning creation is by multi-disciplinarian Canadian artist Stathacos. It is called Five Mirrors of the World. It comprises five large-sized circular mirrors, a hand-printed hair cloth with roses and is interspersed with Bodhi leaves. An ode to the five elements of energy, earth, sky, water, ether and fire, the installation tries to make a statement on how all species are so interdependent and thus interconnected.”
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ARTFORUM CRITIC’S PICS at SITUATIONS
Pleased to announce my one person exhibition, DO I STILL YEARN FOR MY VIRGINITY?
at SITUATIONS, 127 HENRY STREET, NEW YORK NY 10002
October 20 – November 25 , Opening Reception, October 21, 6 – 8 pm
SITUATIONS is pleased to present Do I Still Yearn for My Virginity?, a solo exhibition by Chrysanne Stathacos, comprised of pivotal printed paintings of ivy and marijuana leaves from the early 1990’s.
The title Do I Still Yearn for My Virginity?* refers to one of the artist’s favorite fragments from the archaic Greek poet Sappho. Stathacos recited excerpts from Sappho’s poetry during her recent performance-installation, Pythia’s Rose Mandala at AA Bronson’s Garten der Lüste, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin and Pythia at The Breeder, Athens. The Pythia references the tripod structures used in ancient Delphi by the ‘virgin’ female oracles who inhaled the vapors of hallucinatory plants. Reflecting on her past, Stathacos presents the paintings as ‘virgins’ to the public for the first time at Situations. While imagining The Eleusinian Mysteries, she created these radical works with the intention to evoke a shamanistic reading. Made in the 1980-90’s as a counterpoint to the Neo Geo and The Pictures Generation commentaries on consumerism and mass media, her investigation explored the spiritual properties inherent in visionary and healing plants.
Additionally, the AIDS crisis had a profound effect on her work, resulting in the use of direct impressions from nature. Just as one would take a handprint or make a death mask, Stathacos used leaves, roses, hair, and body imprints to create permanent marks, inspired by The Shroud of Turin and Yves Klein/s work. Stathacos’ use of mirroring and patterning of direct printing from the plants manifests a sense of immediacy. She paints back into the canvas, creating an illumination by her use of drips and veils of paint. The final results are paintings that flip directions in the mind, with detailed alchemical gestures that conjure the plant’s inherent healing properties.
Situations is also pleased to reprint Chrysanne Stathacos and Anne De Cybelle, AA Bronson’s preface in her artist book, And So Beautiful (1995, Lombard Freid Fine Arts, NYC). AA Bronson references Stathacos’ self-created alter ego Anne de Cybelle and reveals her as the Psychic d’Elle Arte. Stathacos continues to embrace her Anne de Cybelle, the Psychic d’Elle Arte, and Pythia personages.
Pythia Rose Mandala, Chrysanne Stathacos @ AA Bronson’s Garten Der Luste
Photo © Andrea Rossetti
Courtesy KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, and Esther Schipper, Berlin.
Pythia’s Rose Mandala at AA Bronson’s Garten Der Luste, KW, Berlin
Stathacos’ work in AA Bronson’s exhibitions is featured in “AA Bronson’s House of Shame”published by Edition Patrick Frey in 2021.
“Pythia’s Rose Mandala” at The Breeder, Athens, Photo-Andreas Angelidakis
Pythia, The Breeder, Athens, 2017
The Breeder is pleased to present Chrysanne Stathacos’s (b. 1951) first solo presentation in Greece. Titled Pythia.
The Pythia’s Rose Mandala is exhibited in the gallery’s ground floor. The Rose Mandala series was originally created to be presented to the Dalai Lama in 2006 for his visit at the University of Buffalo; the Mandalas have been featured in numerous international exhibitions such as AA Bronson’s Garden of Earthly Delights, Kunstverein Salzburg, 2015; Sacre du Printemps, Kunstverein Graz, 2015; The Temptation of AA Bronson, Witte de With Centre for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam, 2013 and will also be included in AA Bronson’s upcoming exhibition at KW Institute of Contemporary Art Berlin in 2018.
The titular “Pythia” is a bonze tripod censer, placed in the centre of the installation and referencing the tripod structures used in ancient Delphi by female oracles. For Stathacos, these bronze structures reference ancient female spirituality – the oracle that prophesies the future and also heals certain pasts. Her use of the Pythia is an act of feminist reclamation of this spiritual ancestry.
This installation is initiated and concluded by a time-based performative ritual. Departing from the historical mandala structure, Stathacos plucks dozens of roses apart petal by petal, laying them in a circular formation around a colored mirror, at the center of which stands a Pythia censer. Stathacos invites her audience to participate in the place-setting ritual by engaging them in conversation throughout. This has been described by AA Bronson as an act of ‘public service’. The space is redolent with the scent of roses. Throughout the exhibition these petals are left to dry and although the mandalas maintain their colour, they gradually reduce in size. Included in the exhibition are paintings, Rose Dance and Pythia’s Scroll, which are made thought Stathacos unique use of printmaking techniques on canvas and linen.
Press- Top 12 Must-See Art Exhibitions in Europe this September – Blouin Artinfo
Most Interesting Exhibitions in 2017 – Culture Now Greece
The Parliament of Bodies, The Public Programs of documenta 14, July 2017
“Oracle drawings” is a project initiated and curated by Sozita Goudouna and Paul B. Preciado. It consists of a collaborative staging of a public participatory installation by Karen Finley and Adonis
Volanakis and an introductory ritual, Pythia’s Warm Breath, by Chrysanne Stathacos for The Parliament of Bodies, the Public Programs of documenta 14, and the specific context of Parko Eleftherias.
Working with her text “Delphi, The Womb of the Eurotic World” and Par Lagerkvist’s “The Sibyl,” Chrysanne Stathacos creates a ritual of breathing, meditation and healing with herbs and essential oils that prepares the environment. The project draws from the feminist tradition and takes as a starting point Pythia’s myth and the prophecy as a narrative that foretells the future but also forecloses or heals a certain past. What happens when the door is closed? What remains when our paths have to break apart?
Frieze NY, 1-900 Mirror Mirror at The Breeder , May, 2017
1-900 Mirror Mirror (1993) was shown at Frieze NY with The Breeder, Athens from May 5- May 7th – we had the interactive component readings on every day for two hours – with famous psychics and artists! 1-900 Mirror Mirror was well received and on the front page of The Art Newspaper Frieze and selected as one of the 10 Best by iD , and Wallpaper . Art News featured The Golden Thread from the recent Greek India Series . Here is the link to the book on the history of the project 1993-96 – With text by AA Bronson and photographs by Maxine Henryson. Frieze Highlights and Looking Forward from Stefan Kalmer and The Culture Files ..
Political Gestures, Galerie Heike Strelow, Frankfurt, 2017
The international exhibition “Political Gestures” is the second of three exhibitions that Galerie Heike Strelow has conceived to celebrate its 10th anniversary. The works shown in this exhibition explore the relationship between the individual, society and the environment in different forms. They raise questions about migration, transculturality and demarcation, but also about personal and collective identity. In doing so, they challenge the viewer, at times in a subtle and at time in a very direct way, to consider his position regarding this questions.
The exhibition will include works by Barbara and Michael Leisgen, George Steinmann and Chrysanne Stathacos, who were already dealing in the 70s and 80s in their work with political and personal identity questions. Their works will be presented in discourse with works by emerging and established artists, like the Syrian artist Khaled Barakeh, the British artist Zavier Ellis, the Venezuelan artist Jose Vivenes, the American artist Travis Somerville as well as the German artists Fides Becker, Goekhan Erdogan, Katrin Ströbel and Hendrik Zimmer. During the opening, Chrysanne Stathacos will do a performance.
More News
Art Forum – Kpisis Management by Andrew Durbin – mention of performance Chez Anne
Tht Temptation of AA Bronson: A Finissage– Witte de With, Rotterdam
The Rose Mirror Mandala (of three reflections for HHDL)” in “The Temptation of AA Bronson”, Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam, Netherlands
Press
Artforum κρίσις
The Wish Machine in the Toronto Star
Rose Mirror Mandala installations in Metropolis M , Hyperallergic & here- the Consolation of Temptation , All is Full of Love , Art in America, Art Forum Phantasmaphile, and Springerin.
The Rose Mandala series and the inspiration behind them was featured in the September 2013 issue of Shambhala Sun
A mention of 466 Bathurst early history in Toronto in Kathy Acker goes to Toronto in Canadian Art
The Banquet inspired Abby Hertz in Cosmopolitan – “Hertz credits the inspiration for the dinner portion of the evening from past works by artists Méret Oppenheim, and Hunter Reynolds and Chrysanne Stathacos,
Flower Power in whitehotmagaizne by Robert Mahoney, and the Lincoln Star Journal by L. Kent Wolgamott.
Floating poems – Los poemas flotantes de Chrysanne Stathacos
The Rose Mirror Mandala series at Salzburger Kunstverein (AA Bronson’s Garden of Earthly Delights)
and Grazer Kunstverein, (AA Bronson’s Sacre du Printemps).
Flower Power, Fiendish Plots in Lincoln, Nebraska
The Baby Wish Machines in “The Botanica”, Carroll and Sons, Boston and Invisible Exports, NYC,
The Rose Mandala Mirror ( of Three Reflections) inThe Temptation of AA Bronson at the Witte de With, Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam
New Publications
Were You Here, (1984-2015) with xxx/888 books and Ho Tam
Delphi: The Womb of the Eurotic World, EROS, Scapegoat Journal, Spring, 2016