Book presentation & exhibition: Aikaterini Gegisian, Handbook of the Spontaneous Other

We are pleased to invite you to a special evening with artist Aikaterini Gegisian for the presentation of her book Handbook of the Spontaneous Other, published by Mack Books. Ms. Gegisian will also show some original works features in the book and will be in conversation with Anna Mykoniati, curator at EMST. Friday, September 22, after 7:30pm. In this work, part of which was recently included in the ICP exhibition Love Songs, the Greek-Armenian artist brings together a diverse range of found photographic material produced in Europe and the US during the 60s and 70s. Composed of a series of 59 collages, the book playfully recontextualizes images from popular culture that Gegisian has sourced – from pornographic magazines, tourist catalogues, and National Geographic- in order to subvert the way that the body, nature and pleasure have been represented in Western capitalist fantasies. Divided into nine chapters that follow a metaphysical narrative of color and sensation, the book ultimately seeks to locate a “spontaneous other”; a notion of the self and of pleasure that exists beyond the confines of popular culture and its dominant modes of representation.