ATHENS / PETRONELLA OORTMAN’S DOLLHOUSE / BENAKI MUSEUM
Monday, February 20, 2017
Petronella Oortmann's DollHouse by Katerina Zacharopoulou
Benaki Museum | Pireos 138


Petronella Oortmann's DollHouse by Katerina Zacharopoulou / Benaki Museum | Pireos 138 / photos by Christina Cuko
Katerina Zacharopoulou’s work “Petronella Oortman’s Dollhouse” is a modular visual narrative of scenes from the life of a woman into the constructed world of a doll-house. Inspired by the original Dollhouse belonging to Petronella Oortman created between 1686-1710 and exhibited today at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, Katerina Zacharopoulou’s domestic scenes consist of an assortment of personal Mementos, photographs and decorative objects.
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Petronella Oortmann's DollHouse by Katerina Zacharopoulou / Benaki Museum | Pireos 138 / Looking in the Mirror |
Cut from their initial frame of reference, they become the components of a claustrophobic scenery that hovers between reality and fairy tale, dream and nightmare.
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Petronella Oortmann's DollHouse by Katerina Zacharopoulou / Benaki Museum | Pireos 138 / photos by Christina Cuko |
Several different mental and emotional processes happen inside there: reading, walking, cleaning, waiting, contemplation, nail cutting, writing. The woman’s behaviour is sometimes distinguished by a calm mood of introspection and sometimes moving in the boundaries of obsession and mental disorder.
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Petronella Oortmann's DollHouse by Katerina Zacharopoulou / Benaki Museum | Pireos 138 / photos by Christina Cuko |
The project is a production of the Thessaloniki Center of Contemporary Art-State Museum of Contemporary Art. It was designed as an in situ video-installation, and was initially presented at Paradisos Baths -Bey Hamam in Thessaloniki in 2011.
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Katerina Zacharopoulou |
The exhibition of the work in the Benaki Museum consists of the video-performances that take place in the rooms of the Dollhouse. They set a path, with no logical sequence between acts, gestures, attitudes and behaviors that define gender identity. The work uses structural elements of the domestic environment in the process of subjectivity formation: the House “creates” its occupant the same way the occupant constructs her House.
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Petronella Oortmann's DollHouse by Katerina Zacharopoulou / Benaki Museum | Pireos 138 / photos by Christina Cuko |
DETAILS
PETRONELLA OORTMAN’S DOLLHOUSE
09/02/2017 - 12/03/2017
Benaki Museum | Pireos 138
Tickets
€7, €3,5
Working Hours
Thursday & Sunday: 10:00 - 18:00
Friday & Saturday: 10:00 - 22:00
Closed on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday
Thursday & Sunday: 10:00 - 18:00
Friday & Saturday: 10:00 - 22:00
Closed on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday
Cafe-Bar is open Wednesday to Sunday, from 10:00 a.m. until late in the evening.
Wi-Fi throughout the building, kindly sponsored by Forthnet
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