Why Look At Animals? Agrimiká.

Editors: Maria Papadimitriou, Theophilos Trampoulis.
Designer: Vassiliki-Maria Plavou.
Co-ordination: Theophilos Trampoulis.
Translators: Memi Katsoni, Andreas Bloom, Tony Moser.
Copywriters: Efi Yannopoulou, Andrea Gilbert.
Printing: ALTA GRAFICO SA.
Publishers: postmedia books.

The artist’s book Why Look At Animals? Agrimika. is the official edition of Maria Papadimitriou’s same titled artwork, representing Greece at the 56th International Art Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia. The work revisits the relationship of man and animal in a contemporary non-anthropocentric context examining matters of the present, wilderness, the culture of the ruins, fear and political allegories. The artist focused on the displacement of an espace trouvé; in this occasion a store-laboratory of fur and leather. The publication cites back to old typography and the aesthetics of an analog typographic craftsmanship, when the aforementioned activity was blossoming. Printed material of that era has been “dressing up” the whole interior of the espace trouvé, and in some peculiar way they are met again within the main body of the catalogue. Against the clarity and sleek essence of digital media, a contemporary naive typography is reinvented. In the misprints of former technologies, a narrational intonation is reprogrammed suggesting a new position of reading for the reader. The reader navigates through the text, within a constellation of images, on a pace of discovery and exploration. An embodiment of materiality is a true anxiety for the catalogue, as one can see the narrative imprinted within a material context, with the surface, the decay of time, the traces of use. Findings, archival material and fragments are included in the catalogue as scanned materialisms. Throughout the catalogue the reader can meet different visual chapters, re-staging one in a geographical and socio-economical frame, confronting a re-interpreted side of reality conveyed with essays about wilderness and articles along with the artist’s collages in an act of disturbance. The cover of the catalogue is a three-fold spread, missing the forth fold as an analogy for one of the artist’s photograph, depicting the hanging skin of an animal. The title of the catalogue is imprinted on the cover like a dictionary reference. The strikethrough is a violent gesture as a form of resistance.