GOLDEN is Maria Hassabi’s first solo exhibition at The Breeder gallery in Athens. For this presentation the artist continues her work with gold and its manifestation in various materials. This body of work includes paintings, sculptures and photographs using the dancer’s body as the main subject.  Hassabi is interested in the paradox between gold, a metal that endures time, and a dancer whose act evaporates the instant it is performed.

Hassabi’s sculptures, photographs and paintings rely on a desire for permanence. The dancer’s body is presented fragmented, contorted and even blurred, yet its stillness, which is at the forefront of her live performances as an attempt to invite the viewer to consider the present moment, is now the given. These works ultimately challenge distinctions between permanence and ephemerality, presence and absence, wholeness and partialness.

GOLDEN is a continuation from Hassabi’s exhibition in the Spring 2021 at Secession, Vienna, where her live installation HERE took place. As in the past, the artist uses documentation material derived from her performances as a departure point and then employs other mediums to override the limitations that occur within the format of liveness and realness.

DATES
The Breeder Gallery, Athens, Greece (December 16, 2021 – February 12, 2022)