FESTIVITY – Kostis Velonis
Known for his sculptural language that blends theatricality with philosophical inquiry, Kostis Velonis explores the tension between formality and absurdity. In his work, celebration is never straightforward, it is staged, unsteady and often collapsing in on itself. Through the word festivity, the artist examines joy as both spectacle and vulnerability.
When was the last time you used the word “festivity”?
While creating this body of work, festivity emerged not through direct reference, but as a sensibility, a tension between intention and accident. It reminded me of setting a table for a celebration no one might attend or staging a ceremony where everything feels just slightly off. That word came to mind as I watched the imagery teeter between theatricality and collapse.
What kind of feeling does this word evoke in you?
Festivity evokes a feeling of heightened experience; color, gesture, decoration but also the awkwardness of trying to hold all of that together. It’s joy but also a kind of breakdown. There’s a clumsiness baked into it, like the choreography of a ritual that no longer remembers its purpose. I associate it with slapstick: not the comic violence, but the vulnerability of the body when it loses control, a misstep that becomes meaningful. That moment where something fails, beautifully.
How is this word related to you and your work?
My work plays with the staged and the accidental, the formal and the absurd. In this project, festivity appears as an echo. Flattened objects like balloons in a situation of possible collapse, gestures that suggest celebration but fall into ambiguity. Slapstick — as a physical, emotional form — is crucial here. It’s the poetry of falling down and getting back up. Clumsiness is used not just as aesthetic but as emotional texture. These images perform celebration but also question it; allowing disorder, humor and unease to co-exist in a carefully constructed frame. I’m interested in the cracks.
What are the three words you’d like to pass on to our next guest?
Displacement, Slapstick, Mirage
Born in Athens in 1968, Kostis Velonis is known for his installations and sculptures that combine philosophy, political history and humor. His work often revolves around narratives of failure, theatrical gestures and makeshift structures drawing attention to the vulnerability hidden beneath constructed ideals. Velonis studied at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris and holds a PhD in architecture from the National Technical University of Athens. His work has been exhibited in institutions such as the Palais de Tokyo, Kunsthalle Osnabrück and the Benaki Museum.
This summer, Velonis will take part in Folding The Sea Into Dresses That Dissolve Like Salt, a group exhibition organized by Perasma on the Greek island of Leros. Running from June 29 to August 23, 2025, the exhibition explores themes of transformation, rhythm and the fluid relationship between land and sea. Celebrating its third year, the Leros Project brings together international artists for performances, talks, and site-responsive installations across the island, establishing it as an evolving cultural dialogue between nature, memory and artistic practice.
