Tuesday 9 June 2015
19:00
Athens School of Fine Arts
design hall of ASFA, 256 Peiraios st. (Γυμνό νυκτός)

Vason
I see my practice as a constant battle against the impossibility of reaching ‘presence’.
For years I have been trying hard to bridge photography and performance, and everyday I live the illusion of having fulfilled my ambition.
In the core of my practice lies an exchange; between myself and another artist, between the work and the viewer.
I see myself reflected in all the artists I have met, collaborated and fallen in love with…Can art be a relationship?
Working with different minds and bodies allows me to discover every day something new about my own mind and body.
I’ve always wanted to be a sculptor although I’ve been using photography as my main medium.
Surface is my material.
Surface is my biggest enemy.
Maybe curiosity is eating me up inside, but so far it tastes pretty good.

Manuel Vason’s artistic practice explores the relationship between photography and performance, presence and representation. The collaborative nature of his practice shapes a unique hybrid art form and generates new vocabularies. His collaborations to date have become some of the most iconic images of performance and his work has been published and presented internationally.

He was born in Padua, Italy in 1974 and after assisting some of the most celebrated fashion photographers of his generation in Milan, New York, Paris, London and Los Angeles, gained an MFA at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts, London. In 2002 he completed and presented two books: Exposures, a publication on the body in live art (Black Dog Publishing, 2002) and Oh Lover Boy, a two-year collaboration with Franko B (Black Dog Publishing, 2002). In 2007 Vason presented Encounters, his first solo exhibition at Arnolfini, Bristol which was accompanied by a 230 page catalogue (Arnolfini/Cornerhouse). In 2012 he presented Still Movil, an exhibition of co-creations with forty-five choreographers in South America. And most recently he completed Double Exposures a new collaboration and publication between Manuel and forty-four of the most visually provocative artists working with performance across the UK (published by Intellect Books and Live Art Development Agency, 2015).
www.ManuelVason.com