Although the gallery so far has mainly presented an international program, it has decided to make a Greek oriented selection for ARCO'04. The circumstances allow for such a choice and the gallery increasingly wants to underline the potential of the young Greek art scene, both within and outside the country's boundaries. Starting out from the work by Despina Isaia who works in a very tactile manner that approaches the concerns of some of the Latin American artists, two artists with an international outlook and similar drawing styles were added to complement Isaia's installation. Despina Isaia uses her immediate family and home to analyse society at large, while in her recent works, she has been using the debris of the human body - in this case her own - to create very delicate, personal pieces. For ARCO'04 she will make an installation using part of her own skin that has been surgically removed. Nayia Frangouli and Nina Papaconstantinou make intense drawings that equally require a very detailed and laborious method of working. Frangouli has always been interested in urban spaces and architectural dwellings and in her drawings she goes back to all the structures and networks that are hidden within the metropolis such as water supply lines and street plans. Her drawings form part of a bigger oeuvre that also includes sculptural installations, video, photography, and socially interactive projects. Nina Papaconstantiou on the other hand has made it a mission to research drawing as a medium in all its facets, often starting off from texts and book illustrations.

Despina Isaia
For ARCO'04, Despina Isaia will show a completely new work, a sculptural installation made up of a 3 meter long woollen crochet. It encloses a poem written on the artist's own skin and plays around the notion of the disposability of human assets including hair, nails, and skin.

Nayia Frangouli
Nayia Frangouli will present a new series of drawings entitled Congregational Cluster (2003).
The artist comments: 'The obvious way to look at the drawings is by comparing them to minimalist works of the 60's although I would argue that I am trying to work in contrast to the ideology of minimalist art, which has been about the achievement of formulae that would facilitate the infinite reproducible amount of the same work. Congregational cluster are works that invest in the unique production principle that wouldn't leave space for 'mischief'. At the same time, the works' obsessive nature is in disguise, as the sharp ends of the drawings don't allow the viewer to peek into its production value.
The continuous pattern of the square is in reference to my video works and their sculptural elements, as well as to my interest in the tectonic structural world we live in. The title is emphasising the gathering from 2 different terrains:
a. the socio-political semiotics of the word Congregation,
b. the tectonic semiotics of the word Cluster.'
Nayia Frangouli will also present two new video's: 'Plasma' and "Successive change of place'.
'Plasma' shows us a close-up of high wired, high voltage cables that dangle above the landscape. Every time current is passed through these cables, there is a very discernible trembling movement. In the background there is a base sound while the intensity stands in contrast to the birds that freely fly around.
About 'Plasma', the artist writes:
'Plasma', 2003, 5'30",
Extraction of technocratic elements for the purpose of anticipation; Technocracy as a historic reference to Capitalism; Elements such as the birds become a reference point to what was important before the extraction.'
'Successive change of place' intensifies the sound and light effects of speeding through a tunnel into a hallucinant experience.

Nina Papaconstantinou
Nina Papaconstantinou's work makes reference to the relationship between marks and text and texture, using enlarged photocopies of text or drawing that are thoroughly traced. Tracing is seen as a process of manual reproduction of enlarged copies, an attempt to literally trace back to the origins of marks and the uncanny background or depth behind visible marks.
The drawings on tracing paper are a combination of semi-transparent abstract landscapes of marks, grays, empty spaces and blurred typeface borderlines, or dense layers of handwritten text and overlaid marks that resemble a process similar to tapestry or weaving, which in its turn is connected to the act of storytelling. Text is not meant to be read but to be seen as an image, and to make visible what language itself generates: a deceptive imagery.