
In the video for Stevie Nicks' "I Can't Wait," the singer descends a backlit, crystalline staircase. Then the Blow-Dried One pines in an ivory tower for a mysterious moonwalker. It's a video that's doubtless inspired many a Long Island salon-goer; it's a classic clip, and thus fitting muse for Community Approved, a temporary story amongst the Classical architecture of Athens. Store organizer Aaron Bondaroff and architect Rafael de Cardenas re-interpreted the video's set in the A-M-P Gallery, popping up in Athens on the occasion of a series of art exhibitions called ReMap2. They've installed steps such that visitors can climb up and down the stairs like Stevie, testing the gentle breeze at various vantage points in their pleated skirts—or a new artist-designed T-shirt.
Was Athens, the store's locale, influential to architects' choice of muse? Only coincidentally, says de Cardenas, although, "Maybe [the store] suggests Classicism in that it's a stairway going nowhere—very Olympian." Then there's Athens' notorious drug culture: The zig-zag stripes are for psychedelic effect, he explains, "I like how buzzy it is and [the design] distorts the space and your perception of it." Of equal inspiration, for the store's stock at least, was Bondaroff's project with Al Moran, O.H.W.O.W., a decidedly independent publishing business that's put out books for artists Aurel Schmidt and Leo Fitzpatrick. Curator Elizabeth Lovero chose the boutique's rotating stock: books and zines by O.H.W.O.W. and a variety of other art publishers, including a unique zine by Harmony Korine; fashion by Comme Des Garcons; and T-shirts by artists including Tauba Auerbach and Dan Colen. There's also copies of Printed Matter's anthology of queer independent publishing, Queer Zines (full disclosure: it was written by yours truly) for those looking to truly channel the Greek spirit.
Comunity Approved is part of Athens art fair ReMap, and is open through July 26. It's located at Epikourou 26 and Korinis 4.
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