Raster is among nine renow­ned gal­leries from Europe and Middle East to take part in the Condo Unit show in Athens.

Condo takes its name from ‘con­dominium’ and is a large-​scale col­laborative exhibition of inter­national galleries. The initiative encourages the evaluation of existing exhibition models, pooling resour­ces and acting com­munally to propose an environ­ment that is more con­ducive for experimen­tal gal­lery shows to take place inter­nationally. This initiative is also close to Raster who developed a similar model of col­laboration named Villa (that took place in Warsaw, Reykjavik, Tokyo and Toronto). The idea that both Condo and Villa share is simple: to use the curatorial experience of the most interesting.inspiring young and established private gal­leries to create encoun­ters with the general public and local art com­munities that are innovative, stimulating, and not merely market driven.

Condo takes place in London, New York, Mexico City and Shan­ghai. This year, the special Condo Unit edition will happen in Athens, at The Breeder gal­lery, and will take place con­cur­ren­tly with the sixth Athens Bien­nale. Other par­ticipating gal­leries are: Art:Concept (Paris), Carlos/Ishikawa (London), Dastan’s Basement (Teheran), Bar­bara Thumm and Koenig (Berlin), Grey Noise (Dubai), and Sommer Con­tem­porary Art (Tel Aviv).

As part of the exhibition, Raster will show new works by Olaf Brzeski, Janek Simon and the Slavs and Tatars col­lec­tive. Izabella Scott writes for frieze.com:

A group of sculp­tures by Raster gal­lery artists com­plete the ground floor trio. The easiest to decode are Janek Simon’s series ‘Polyeth­nic’ (2016). Each around 60cm high they com­prise quasi-​ethnographic objects, drawing on folk and tribal art – Simon has made them at home using a 3D prin­ter. There is a man with the head of a bird, and a Kali-​esque figure with six arms.

 

Towards the centre of the same room are two works by the neo-​dada col­lec­tive Slavs and Tatars, also represen­ted by Raster. Co-​founded by a Polish-​Iranian duo in 2005, they work to destabilize lan­guage and under­mine taste, attemp­ting to view the world though what they call a ‘Eurasian’ view­point. On show at The Breeder is woolen carpet, Qatalogue (2018), which depicts an elon­gated scarlet-​red tongue that curls around seven let­ters stolen from the Slavic alphabet. On a plinth to its left is Hung and Tart (2016), a glass object streaked with amber and beetroot-​pink, that looks somewhere between a dildo and a fos­silized tongue.