iLiana Fokianaki is the director of Kunsthalle Bern. She is a Greek curator, writer, theorist, educatorWebsite, Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, collaborators and former journalist based in Bern, and occasionally Athens and Rotterdam.
Biography Fokianaki holds a B.A. in Fine Arts from Oxford Brookes University in Oxford and a M.A. in Arts Criticism and Management from City University London.
Fokianaki's exhibitions explore the relation between art, formations of power and how they metamorphose under the influence of geopolitics, national identity and cultural and anthropological histories.Website, Parasite Center for Contemporary Art hong Kong, international conference participation iLiana Fokianaki, "Redistribution via Appropriation: White(washing) Marbles," e-flux journal, #91, May 2018
She is the founding director of contemporary art institution State of Concept in Athens.BBC World Service, "Interview with curator iLiana Fokianaki, director State of Concept Athens", September 2, 2015 The New York Times, “In Athens, Austerity makes Contemporary Art Palatable”, June 21, 2015 Frieze magazine, Critic's Guide: Athens, “A round-up of the best current shows in the Greek capital”
Fokianaki was part of the artistic team (curator and programmer) at Kunsthal Extra City in Antwerp from 2017–2019, where she curated two large-scale group exhibitions: Extra Citizen (2017)Tamara Beheydt, "Burgerschap en verbeelding: Extra Citizen in Antwerpen," Metropolis M, September 25, 2017 and Extra States: Nations in Liquidation (2018).Stephanie Bailey, "Extra States: Nations in Liquidation at Kunsthal Extra City," Ocula, December 8, 2018
In May 2022, Fokianaki was announced as the artistic director of the festival Survival Kit, organised by the Latvian Center for Contemporary Art, in Riga.
In November 2023, Fokianaki was announced as the new director of Kunsthalle Bern
Exhibitions
Since 2013 she has showcased at State of Concept, solo exhibitions of artists such as Laure Prouvost,Website Outset Foundation, Visual tour of Laure Prouvost's exhibition "C'est L'est Not Ouest" the research agency Forensic Architecture,Website Forensic Architecture, exhibition “Violence, Fast and Slow" Croatian artist Sanja Iveković,Website Art Forum, exhibition review “Weird Sisters, Ivana Bago on Sanja Iveković’s Whether we were brave” Website Kunstkritikk, “Women are Obliterated, Yet Endure” Dutch collective Metahaven, the film collective Rojava Film Commune.Announcement of Rojava Film Commune's exhibition "Forms of Freedom," e-flux, 2018 The exhibition of the Rojava Film Commune Fokianaki curated, titled "Forms of Freedom", was featured in Art Forum magazine in 2020,Website Art Forum, September 2020, Alan Gilbert, "Autonomous Determination The Rojava Film Commune" and has travelled to Galerija Nova, in Zagreb, the exhibition space of e-flux publications in New York and Moderna Galerija / Museum of Modern Art of Slovenia, in Ljubljana.
She has curated State (in) Concepts at Kadist Art Foundation in Paris in 2017.Announcement "State (in) Concepts," Website Kadist Art Foundation, Paris, 2017 and the group exhibition at La Colonie (Art Space) "The Trials of Justice".Website, La Colonie, exhibition Fokianaki Trials of JusticeE-flux announcement, exhibition Trials of justice She has curated the solo exhibition of artist Kapwani Kiwanga at the Formerly Known as Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art in Rotterdam,Website, fkaWdW, On view, new works Kapwani KiwangaArtnet Interview Kapwani Kiwanga, Unearthing Buried Histories which coincided with Kiwanga's award for the Marcel Duchamp Prize of the Centre Pompidou.Artforum, Kapwani Kiwanga Wins Prix Marcel DuchampWebsite, Art Review announcement Marcel Duchamp Nominees
In 2023, she was the co-curator of Machinations, a large-scale research and exhibition project at Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía.
Her project "The Bureau of Care" received the Solidarity Grant of the European Cultural Foundation.
Teaching
Fokianaki is a lecturer at the Dutch Art Institute (DAI) of the ArtEZ University of Arts in the Netherlands,Profile iLiana Fokianaki, Website Dutch Art Institute and was a guest lecturer at HISK in Ghent, Belgium HISK website and a resident curator at the NTU Center for Contemporary Art in Singapore.Residency · iLiana Fokianaki She has guest lectured at HISK in Ghent, Belgium HISK website at Columbia University, and The Willem de Kooning Academy, the art school of the Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences among others.
She has lectured in various institutions on issues that explore how institutional and curatorial practices respond to the current economic and socio-political shifts in the West
She writes for various international art journals and publications iLiana Fokianaki, "Ethics After Defeat," Kaiera, No.2, 2017 such as a joint opinion piece on art, economy and documenta's arrival in Athens, written with former Greek Minister of Finance Yanis VaroufakisiLiana Fokianaki, Yanis Varoufakis, "We Come Bearing Gifts," Art Agenda, June 7, 2017 and an opinion piece around the discussion of looted artefacts and specifically the Parthenon Marbles for frieze (magazine).Frieze magazine, Opinion, “How I lost My Marbles”
External links Official website State of Concept
References