In Real Time
Artemis Kotioni
Knust/ Kunz Gallery
Theresienstrasse 48,
Munich November 6 - December 12, 2025
Press Release
In the exhibition, In Real Time, Kotioni positions the materiality of bones, rocks and earthly matter against
an imaginary architecture of machines. A fascination with spacecraft initiated this body of work, drawing
from imagery where these machine-actors appear to have anthropomorphic qualities as they spend their
days drilling holes and counting stones and minerals on the Moon and Mars. In turn they send -along with
data- selfies and messages back to Earth. The work then extends to the notions of artificial intelligence
and visually investigates the physical and material forms and manifestations of AI, such as data centers.
A central aspect of the artist’s process while making the paintings, as well as the intention for the
audience viewing the work, is to hover in a space of ambiguity with regards to what the depicted object is.
This is achieved by working between abstraction and representation, hence allowing for a dialectic
between different objects such as bird, airplane, human spine or spider leg, wire, drilling rig etc. In turn
the question morphs into whether what we are looking at is human or machine, alive or not so alive. Has
the human become a machine of consumption -zombie- or has the machine become human-like -AI-?
From the visual deconstruction of the materiality that makes up a body, be that the human body or the
imaginary machine body (spacecraft, building etc), the imagery that emerges in this work is suggestive of
the Body Without Organs theory by Deleuze and Guttari. Exploring how form can exist before identity-
how matter, whether mechanical or biological, might reorganize it self before function. The paintings of
bony, bird-like structures and floating organ-forms visualize this liminal state: bodies without hierarchy,
systems without center; a call to break tradition.
Aiming to position itself in an art historical context the work makes conscious references to the following
artists and their work. Beginning with the symbolic dimensions of Louise Bourgeois’s spiders, the material
versus immaterial found in Vija Celmins’s paintings and sculptures, the surreal bones floating in a
landscape by Georgia O’Keefe and the abstract spaces that are meticulously blended with
representational sculptures, of Camille Henrot. At the same time the work has deep roots in geometric
abstraction and suggests that perhaps, not only is it still alive but that there is room to push the
conversation further.
Art critic Harmon Seigel recently discussed the term ecoformalism while examining Celmin’s and Henrot’s
work. Stripping it to the very basic foundations, this term bridges the ecological aspects that consider the
natural world and environment, with the formalist aspect of the artwork itself such as the treatment of line,
color, composition, surface. Although in the early stages of her career, it is perhaps appropriate to say that
Kotioni’s work belongs under the umbrella of ecoformalism.
Ultimately, In Real Time, invites the viewer to linger in a space between recognition and uncertainty,
perhaps identifying an atmosphere that mirrors the current moment.To the extent that we may conclude
that there is an uncanny feeling of aliveness in this work- then one question we could be left with is: what
does it mean to be alive in a moment that is calling us to ask profound questions of morality with regards
to human and multi-species life?
