The urgency to address the concepts of racial capitalism and calculable identity stems from the rising tensions between feelings of anger, anxiety, freedom, and abandonment creating conditions for aesthetic and conceptual innovation and hybridity, especially amongst young artists taking more significant revolutionary roles.


NODES
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The urgency to address the concepts of racial capitalism and calculable identity stems from the rising tensions between feelings of anger, anxiety, freedom, and abandonment creating conditions for aesthetic and conceptual innovation and hybridity, especially amongst young artists taking more significant revolutionary roles.


NODES
︎ Email
︎ Instagram
Paradoxluxe is a collective that critically engages the reductive perceptions of Greece and Puerto Rico by infusing ideas of cyclical futility and ephemerality with humor and double meaning. We explore the repercussions of being in financial debt to political entities that already control their economies through colonial puppeteering. How did two countries with disparate histories and cultures end up in similar socioeconomic situations, that of colonial debt, if not that in the midst of the pursuit of a bedazzling neoliberal global takeover there is an exploitation and exoticization of history and culture, as well as a conscious rejection of contemporary identities that are more in flux than are credited?






























Harvesting for the winter, 2019–20 
Multi-channel video, 00:20:05


Harvesting for the Winter is a multimedia video that proposes the idea of “masked war” by using objects of celebration that resemble weapons. These props execute futile gestures to express the flaccid struggle against corruption in both the Greek and Puerto Rican governments, as well as against the larger colonial entities (the EU and the US) that economically occupy the land through privatization and capitalist interests. The artists reveal their own privileged position living in New York City, looking back at their home countries as spectators attempting to participate in finding sociopolitical solutions through art-making. The video juxtaposes reactions to hopeful rebellion and defeat, an incongruence that overwhelms the younger population in both countries. These various actions suggestive of revolution and high alert are intended, metaphors performed with indifference and humor.





Harvesting for the winter .... ..... (click me) . .. .. . .


I’ll do it to you, if you do it to me (2018)
video duration 00:12:05


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Caught in a loop of self-imposed manipulation we are shaped into domestic objects that we then utilize, symbolizing our predetermined societal roles within the scripted switches of power dynamics. Teaching each other to conform, we go along with it as if we have no choice.
HERE       HERE   HERE        HERE       HERE       HERE      HERE      HERE HERE HERE HERE HERE           HERE HERE HERE      HERE      HERE      HERE      HERE      HERE

WE ARE HERE TO SERVE YOU



We are here to serve,
to be observed, to listen,
and to entertain.

We are here to be of use,
to be grateful, to bow down
and follow rules.

See the circus? It’s a failed experiment.

Let’s end the circus.

Here, drink.

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Since 2018, Paradoxluxe has been actively aiming to conceptually bridge these two cases, that of Puerto Rico and Greece, by bringing cultural symbols and specificity to activism. WE ARE HERE TO SERVE YOU was the first exhibition, with a panel and public programming component, opening in New York City in February 2020. WE ARE HERE TO SERVE YOU focuses on connecting artistic practices from both places that are confronting similar intangible realities. In 2021, the project is continuing in San Juan
and Athens. ︎

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photo reference︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎








Participating artists︎︎︎







                                         



Eleana Antonaki
She doesn’t wear earrings till this day, 2020

Performance and installation (white plastic chairs, barricade, rugs)

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Stefanos Tsivopoulos
Lost Monument, 2009

Multimedia video installation. Single-channel film, HD cam transferred to Blu-ray, 16:9 Color, 00:27:00
Vinyl, dimensions: 176 x 156 in.
Series of 5 framed photographs, 11 x 9 in. each.
Archival sources: Megalooikonomou Archive.

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Yiyo Tirado
Castillo de Arena (Normandie), 2019

Sand, dimensions variable

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Yiyo Tirado
Depresión Tropical, 2017

Neon sign powered by an electric generator, 48 x 6 in.

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María del Mar Hernández Gil de Lamadrid
Wall Collision, 2018-19

Three-channel video documentation performance
Wall Collision (Pingyao, China), 00:00:25
Wall Collision (San Juan, Puerto Rico), 00:03:23
Wall Collision (The Great Wall of China), 00:00:13

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Miguel Luciano
Vulture Brand Yams, 2017

Acrylic on canvas over panel, 72 x 72 in.

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Adonis Volanakis
Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 2018

Multimedia video installation, 00:04:02

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Adonis Volanakis
ephemeral habitus, 2014

Digital video, 00:03:02

Documentation of a four-hour-long public performance commissioned from the State Acting School of Patras.

Blind Date Series, 2013 - 18

36 photographs, 11.69 x 16.53 in. each

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Elsa María Melendez
El Regreso: un presagio cíclico, 2015

Polyptych (wood, textile, foam, silkscreen on textile in wooden frames)

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Natalia Almonte & Nicole Economides (Paradoxluxe)
Harvesting for the winter, 2019-20

Multi-channel video projection, 00:20:05

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