Stefanos Tsivopoulos (b. 1973)
About the artist
Stefanos Tsivopoulos is a visual artist, filmmaker, writer, and educator who lives and works between Athens and Amsterdam. Known for his research-based work on archives and experimental film, Tsivopoulos’ practice is driven by a sense of urgency to examine the anthropological dimension of current global crises: ecological, economic, and political. His oeuvre is marked by an investigation of how personal and collective histories impact social discourse. Tsivopoulos’ films and video installations have been showcased in several periodical exhibitions and biennials, including the 55th Venice Biennale; Documenta 14, Kassel; 2nd CAFAM Biennial, Beijing; 6th Industrial Biennale, Istria; 6th Thessaloniki Biennial; 6th Fotobiennale, Mannheim; EVA Biennial, Limerick; 2nd Xinjiang Biennale; 5th Bucharest Biennial; 4th Riga Quadrennial; 1st Athens Biennial. In 2013, he represented Greece at the 55th Venice Biennial with History Zero, an architectural video installation that comprised a three-part film and an archive of alternative economies. Additional group exhibitions in contemporary art institutions include the Centre for Contemporary Art, Lagos (2023); Hong-Gah Museum, Taipei (2022); High Line Art, New York (2020); MAXXI, Museum of Contemporary Art, Rome (2020); The 8th Floor, New York (2019); MUKHA, Museum of Contemporary Art, Antwerp (2017); Bundeskunsthalle Contemporary Art Museum, Bonn (2016); LEEUM, Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul (2016); BAK Basis voor Aktuelle Kunst, Utrecht (2016); MACBA, Museum of Contemporary Art Barcelona (2015); Kunsthaus Zurich, National Museum of Art, Zurich (2015); Tate Modern, London (2014). Tsivopoulos has participated in international artist residencies, including the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten Amsterdam; Platform Garanti, Istanbul; IASPIS, Stockholm; ISCP, New York.
He won the Golden Cube Award for the best video installation at the 25th Documentary Festival in Kassel. He was shortlisted for the 7th edition of the Future of Europe Award, Leipzig, and shortlisted for the DESTE Foundation Award, Athens. Tsivopoulos is a core faculty member at the Lens Based Art (MFA) program of the Piet Zwart Institute Rotterdam and adjunct faculty at the BFA and MFA programs of The New School—Parsons, New York. He is the founder and co-director of Artists for Artists, an online pedagogical non-profit organization that works with leading international artists and early-career artists from the Global South.
Work being shown at ATM
Name: Object Reconnaissance (2025)
Location: Modal Gallery
Media: Film (29’43”)
Description: The film Object Reconnaissance presents a layered narrative that disseminates a discordant ensemble of conflicting value perspectives. Central to this fictive story is the search for a missing family gift, a seashell from Papua New Guinea, originally intended as a ritual dowry to compensate for the unproductive labor arising after a marriage, but which, as it eventually turned out, was monetized in the coloniser’s country through the capitalist value system and subsequently included in the collection of the Amsterdam Tropenmuseum. The film invites further reflection on urgent issues regarding values of equality, the colonial erasure of human values expressed through displacement of cultural objects, and the question of how to handle: not just simply repatriating but also working on postcolonial repair.