Mikhail Karikis: Because we are together

The National Museum of Contemporary Art is pleased to present the first in-depth presentation of Mikhail Karikis’ work in Greece. Karikis, a prominent representative of Greece’s cultural diaspora, was born in Thessaloniki. He currently lives and works between London and Lisbon. Though the artist has shown in many important international exhibitions, his work in Greece is less known. Karikis combines moving image and sound, with collaborative practices, to draw attention to social, political and environmental issues, both past and present. Working with groups of students, workers, pensioners, activists and drawing inspiration from global industrial and political history, literature and avant-garde music, the artist creates musical and vocal events that shine a ray of hope on an ominous future.

The exhibition is structured around six key audio-visual installations from Karikis’s work over the last decade: Weather Orchestra (2022), Surging Seas (2022), Ferocious Love (2020), No Ordinary Protest (2018), Children of Unquiet (2014) and Sounds from Beneath (2011-2012). These installations are complemented by selected smaller works, photographs, and texts. What they all share is a sense of polyphonic poetics in which separate narratives connect groups brought together by a sense of solidarity in their struggles for a better future.