BIOS

Stefanos Tsivopoulos lives and works between Amsterdam, Athens and New York. He studied at the Athens Fine Arts Academy (BA) and the Sandberg Institute Amsterdam (MA). In 2005-6 he was a Fine Art Researcher at the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten Amsterdam. Tsivopoulos has been invited to participate by some of the most prominent international art residencies, such as: Platform Garanti Istanbul (2009), IASPIS Stockholm (2010), and ISCP New York (2011). He received the Golden Cube Award at the 25th edition of the Kasseller Documentary Film Festival in Kassel Germany for his film Untitled (The Remake).
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TEXTS & IMAGES

PRESS

ABOUT

Stefanos Tsivopoulos • History Zero
Commissioner: Hellenic Ministry of Education and Religious Affairs, Culture and Sports
Curator: Syrago Tsiara
55th International Art Exhibition–la Biennale di Venezia
Pavilion of Greece

History Zero comprises a film of three episodes, alongside an archive of texts and images. The film questions the value of money and the role money plays in the formation of human relationships by depicting the experiences of three very different individuals; an African immigrant who wanders the streets of Athens pushing a supermarket trolley and collecting scrap metal to sell; an artist who observes and records street scenes at random with his i-Pad, searching for inspiration in the confusing landscape of the city; an art collector suffering from dementia, who, living alone in a museum-like house, is consumed with creating origami flowers using euro banknotes.
At the centre of the installation there is an archive of texts and images containing examples of thirty two alternative, non-monetary exchange systems. Focusing on historical and contemporary applications of alternative social experiments, such as a system of cash transfer using pre-paid mobile phone minutes that is evolving as a form of alter- native currency in parts of Africa, the archive stands as a clear political statement which questions the homogenizing power of a single currency.
History Zero is filmed with an ARRI Alexa on 2K, image 239:1, audio 5:1, the duration of each film is 11 min.
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DOWNLOADS

Poster - Low Res
Poster - Medium Res
Poster - High Res
Video Stills
On the Surplus Value of a Dream
Stefanos Tsivopoulos and the Fiscal Unconscious
Stefanos Tsivopoulos in conversation with Katerina Gregos