Nothing Really Matters

Sculpture unveiling by Pablo Leon de la Barra at Karaiskaki Square followed by performance by Los Super Elegantes at the Roof Garden of Athens Imperial Karaiskaki Square, Athens, Greece

Los Super Elegantes and Pablo León de la Barra have been invited to present their work for the first time in Athens, Greece, in the exhibition, “Nothing Really Matters - When You Wear A Big Moustache!”. Their projects work both as investigations into as well as projections of cultural fantasies onto Athens, a modern city full of contemporary complexity as well as ancient myths and history.

Los Super Elegantes will perform and sing their songs on the roof garden of the Athens Imperial hotel with the Parthenon as their backdrop. The exhibition will also feature the video clip of their latest single, “Nothing Really Matters” which they will have produced in Athens. The video clip will bring together a synopsis of Greek history as interpreted through films, music and the media with Onassis era clothing, ancient ruins, an infamous Acropolis nightclub as well as many a toga clad backup dancer.

Meanwhile, Pablo León de la Barra, inspired by the Greek War of Independence Hero, Karaiskakis (on whose namesake square the exhibition is taking place) and his eminent moustache, will produce a monument in his honor. Through research into the social and urban fabric of the surrounding area of the square León de la Barra will investigate the construction of myth, identity and masculinity in contemporary Greece through the aesthetic politics of the moustache.

The exhibition that will follow the performances will take place in the artists’ bedrooms in the hotel and will last for a month. The video clip of “Nothing Really Matters” will be exhibited alongside props from the making of the videoclip as well as a temple-installation in homage to great Greek male and female moustaches.

Milena Muzquiz (Tijuana, 1974) and Martiniano Lopez-Crozet (Argentina, 1968) formed Los Super Elegantes in San Francisco in 1995; they live and work in Los Angeles. Their first musical album Channelizing Paradise was released in 2002. Los Super Elegantes were featured in the 2004 Whitney Biennial, in the same year they created the highly successful Slow Dance Club as part of the Frieze Art Fair 2004 Art Project Commissions. Los Super Elegantes work has been reviewed in numerous publications including ArtForum, Index, Purple, Interview and many others.

Pablo León de la Barra is both an artist and a curator from Mexico (1972). He is also editor of Pablo Internacional Magazine, curator of White Cubicle Toilet Gallery and co-director of Blow de la Barra gallery in London where he lives. He has curated exhibitions such as To Be Political it Has to Look Nice, 2003 at Apexart in New York and exhibited amongst other places at Localismos, 2004 Mexico City; Going Public ’05 Communities and Territories, 2005, Larissa Contemporary Art Center; Tropical Abstraction, 2005, Stedelijk Museum; BMW- 9th Baltic Triennial, 2005, CAC-Lithuania and ICA-London and Globos Sonda/Trial Balloons, 2006, MUSAC, Spain.

locus Athens is a non-profit organization based in Athens, Greece directed by Maria-Thalia Carras and Sophia Tournikiotis. locus Athens has no exhibition space, instead it organizes exhibitions, talks and other projects within the city of Athens. Some of the exhibitions it has organized over the last two years since its inception are anti-maimuisme, 2004, 7 Performances & A Conversation, 2005; Dan Perjovschi at Moraitis School, 2005; Ayakkabisiz Video Sanati, 2006; locus Athens just published its first publication on performance art in Greece, called 7 Performances & A Conversation.

Nothing Really Matters - When You Wear A Big Moustache!
Pablo Leon de la Barra, Los Super Elegantes