BERLIN.- The Julia Stoschek Foundation is presenting the third Double Feature in Düsseldorf and Berlin with works by Cypriot artist Theodoulos Polyviou. Spanning video, sculpture, archival objects, photography, and prints, the solo presentations introduce the third chapter of Polyvious ongoing series Transmundane Economies (2022 ongoing) to Germany. In this series, the artist deploys digital technologies like virtual reality and CGI filmmaking to study, reconstruct, and fill in historical gaps of Cypriot cultural heritage. His speculative approach circumvents nationalist agendas by offering alternative ways to revisit the historical complexities of the island and its founding as a nation state.
The central site-responsive video installation A Palace in Exile (2024), which premiered at the Fondazione Elpis in Milan, will here be adapted to simulate the JSF galleries in Düsseldorf and Berlin. Each exhibition features a differing selection of sculptures and archival materials to generate two distinct experiences of one body of work.
Double Feature, a series of solo presentations that takes place across JSF Berlin and Dusseldorf simultaneously, is curated by Line Ajan & Lisa Long and supported by Team Global.
Theodoulos Polyviou (b. 1989, Cyprus) is a Berlin-based artist who works with expanded and immersive media as a means through which to consider the place of queer bodies within institutional spaces, cultural and political narratives, and the digital realm. His ongoing project Transmundane Economies uses virtual reality to create site-responsive works that foreground a speculative approach to history and archaeology, and reflect on the material and ideological value of historical artifacts and the politics of ownership. In Polyvious practice, digital technologies such as extended reality and artificial intelligence open up new ways to revisit history.
In 2020, Polyviou co-curated Mediterranea 19: School of Waters in San Marino. He has presented solo shows at the Bode Museum, Berlin; Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin; and ZKM | Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe, among others. He has participated in various group shows, including the Cyprus Pavilion at the 17th Venice Architecture Biennale (2021).