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Take a seat! This artwork is also here for our visitors to use.

Together, the modules comprise the installation Demos by the Greek artist Andreas Angelidakis. His work is supposed to encourage people to sit on the modules – or even stand on them. In ancient Greek, demos means the people – and when orators spoke to the demos, they often stood a couple of steps higher so their audience could hear them better – as Hilke Wagner, Director of the Albertinum, explains:

“This allows forums to be created with large groups gathering for debate and discussion. Each module is simultaneously a pedestal you could stand on to speak, or you could just use as a place to sit and listen. So this work addresses the relationship between the stage and auditorium, facilitating a dialogue on eye level – and in that sense, its subject is actually democracy.”

Looking at these modules, you might be reminded of fragments of a demolished building or the ruins of a Greek temple. The digitally printed surfaces also play with the idea of modern ruins – the ruins of the investments in Greece and across Europe, the ruins of shells of buildings, standing half-finished in the landscape.

Of course, for the artist ruins stand metaphorically for social conditions and the state of society – and perhaps also for the state of democracy. After all, Andreas Angelidakis comes from Greece, the cradle of democracy. But at the same time, these are also a reminder of the ruins which have come to us from Athens – a place where democracy – and possibly even Europe – is now in a state of crisis. So this is a work encouraging us, in many different ways, to think about these processes.”