The Minimal Effort project began to take shape, both conceptually and aesthetically, in the summer of 2024, initiated by curator Elli Leventaki and visual artist Dimitris Kontodimos, with the aim of organizing a group exhibition centered on artworks-gestures as alternative methods of artistic production and expression. Starting from Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain, but also taking into account more recent examples, such as Maurizio Cattelan’s Comedian, the exhibition draws on the logic of ready-mades and conceptual interventions, not as artworks that are “easy” to create, conceive, or select, but rather as pieces that can convey a wide range of meanings in a concise manner.
This endeavor aims to take a critical stance toward practices such as intensification, flexibilization, and overwork, which are often promoted as healthy in contemporary Western societies. By contrast, concepts such as “pause” or “standstill” tend to carry negative connotations or are even perceived as a kind of luxury today. This social condition significantly influences artistic production at all levels, because there is no art without so-called “laziness”, as creative people always need time to reflect, experiment, fail, and start over from the beginning…
This endeavor aims to take a critical stance toward practices such as intensification, flexibilization, and overwork, which are often promoted as healthy in contemporary Western societies. By contrast, concepts such as “pause” or “standstill” tend to carry negative connotations or are even perceived as a kind of luxury today. This social condition significantly influences artistic production at all levels, because there is no art without so-called “laziness”, as creative people always need time to reflect, experiment, fail, and start over from the beginning…