VASKOS [they, their] are a multidisciplinary artistic duo by Vassilis Noulas and Kostas Tzimoulis created in Athens in 2014. In a playful and hybrid manner they explore the notion of artistic, sexual and national identity. VASKOS deal with ephemeral and everyday material, converse with various cultural references, claim Greekness and international avant-garde at the same time, use free association with words, texts, objects and materials, opt for open homoeroticism, camp weird identities, anticipate eco-queerness. Performance has a pivotal role in VASKOS practice. Performativity is a tool or artistic methodology that can be expressed : through staged or manipulated photography, where one poses for the other ; through video performances, where performative gestures take place in specific locations ; through staged performances, where VASKOS act both as makers and performers ; finally through multiform theatre productions, initiated by VASKOS and realized with the collaboration of artists coming from different fields (actors, dancers, singers).
At the core of their work is the joy of artistic coexistence and sharing creativity, a celebratory and cherishing feeling of the everyday experience. The sense of care and responsibility for one another is important, and by extension the demand for equity and fairness in the community. VASKOS try looking upon the “artistic duo” as a contemporary artistic practice, a conscious choice which offers an alternative model of artistic symbiosis and complicity, which tests the limits of the traditional identity and the common singularity/oneness of the subject. They create hybrid environments somewhere between reality and fiction. Reclaiming modernism under the conditions of queer aesthetics lies at the core of the poetics of VASKOS, who often use the techniques of collage and assemblage to execute unexpected reconstructions of bodies, inspired by the Dadaist freedom.
Important part of their practice has been the initiation of self-organized spaces as well as the participation in the organization of collective events (Green Park-Athens cultural occupation, DIY-performance biennial “No Future”, EIGHT critical institute for arts and politics). VASKOS often curate group events, or exhibitions, as a mode of extended research. VASKOS believe in the cooperative and public nature of art because they feel that thus its inherent social and political role gets empowered.
Vassilis Noulas is a visual artist and a theatre director based in Athens. He is a founding member and the director of the theatre collective Nova Melancholía. In his work, he attempts to re-approach elements of the Greek and the European traditions of “melancholy”, hence gradually constructing his personal spiritual genealogy. He studied Drama at the University of Athens, Visual Arts at the ASFA and pursued postgraduate studies at Université Sorbonne Nouvelle – Paris 3. His work has been presented at the Athens Festival, the Onassis Stegi, the Santarcangelo Festival, the Greek National Opera, the Athens Biennale, as well as in squats, apartments and self-managed spaces. For the performance “SEBASTIAN” he has won the Performance Art Award 2023 by the Hellenic Association of Theatre and Performing Art Critics. “The Lair”, first feature film, premiered at the Thessaloniki Festival 2019. He is the author of five books of poetry and short prose. In recent years he has taken part in several bottom-up city movements: Mavili Collective, Theatre Embros Occupancy, Green Park Occupancy.
www.novamelancholia.gr
https://biblionet.gr/
Kostas Tzimoulis is a visual artist based in Athens. He studied at the Athens School of Fine Arts and pursued postgraduate studies at the Westminster University, London and the Dutch Art Institute, Arnhem, in the Netherlands. He has presented six solo exhibitions: Recycled Spaces (2007) at the PCC, Belgrade ; Useless Passages (2008) at the Artis Causa Gallery, Thessaloniki ; Yucca (2015) at the Green Park occupation, Athens ; No Armature (2018) at Asklipiou 99, Athens ; Predela (2020) at the EIGHT – a critical institute for arts and Politics, Athens. Since 2014 he has been collaborating closely with the performance group Nova Melancholia. In 2016 together with Vassilis Noulas and Gigi Argyropoulou co-initiated and co-organized the DIY Performance Biennial: No Future, and in 2019 the EIGHT – a critical institute for arts and Politics. He is currently an academic scholar at the Department of Culture, Creative Media and Industries at the University of Thessaly.
www.kostastzimoulis.wordpress.com
https://8athens.wordpress.com/about/
VASKOS 