Andreas, tell us about the important steps in your journey that brought you to where you are today.
The first such step I remember is also my very first memory. I’m on the kitchen balcony with a small basin of water, washing and combing dolls—clearly girls’ toys. The step had already been taken, and I remember the satisfaction I felt that I, too, could play with dolls even if I was a boy, four years old.
The next step came 15 years later, when I was studying Architecture in Thessaloniki. My parents had convinced me that I shouldn’t leave the polytechnic school for an unknown architecture program in California. It was Friday night, and the next day I was supposed to take an English exam that I had already cancelled. At that moment I realized I was missing a huge future opportunity, so I went out into the streets at midnight to find a photo studio, having decided to take the English exam without having studied at all. But it was a step I took against the version of Andreas that others wanted.
How did the story of discovering your creative perspective in life begin and how did it evolve over time?
That’s also a very clear memory. I must have been 5 or 6 years old. I had taken my father’s rulers—he was a civil engineer—and using the curves I drew the face of a clown. Seeing my parents’ reaction, I understood that with this ability I could receive love. As you can imagine, many years of psychotherapy followed for me to understand that I don’t need to do anything in order to ask for love.
With your background in architecture and your work in creating environments in which the viewer gains an experience by entering them, in what way do you feel your aesthetic is evolving?
Evolution is always the result of growth; when you grow and make use of all your abilities, then you move on to the next stage.
Art exhibitions in their conventional form require knowledge from the viewer, and very often they impose opinions. Visitors today are well trained, and to capture their attention you need to interrupt the script of their visit. You need to confuse them—and that’s usually what I do.
You love creating environments that tell stories. What led you to this form of expression, and what is the process of shaping such a work?
All environments tell stories—you just need to know how to read them. To capture the reader’s attention, I create environments of Typological Complexity. An archaeological excavation inside a communist party building that is also a nightclub, a playground, a discussion space, and a sex club. The stories told by such a space don’t focus on an official narrative, but on the countless micro-narratives that are usually omitted by historians and archaeologists.
The Parthenon interests me the way archaeologists first discovered it: one part was a church, another a mosque, but also a munitions depot, a national symbol and a national ruin. The version we see now is the work of archaeologists and part of a scientific process through which they show us how the Acropolis looked in its prime, in the fifth century.
The way such opposing interpretations coexist is what we call art.
Tell us about Escape Room, the work that will represent Greece at the Venice Art Biennale. What exactly does it narrate, what is the story behind it, and what should we expect to see?
Escape Room is a collaboration with Giorgos Bekirakis, the curator of the project and also its primary supporter.
In Venice, I will attempt to illustrate Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, using the pavilion itself and its history as a character within a narrative that forms this escape room. Escape rooms are puzzle games, so for every visitor the narrative will be different, shaped by their individual experience.
The narrative is inspired by the book The Crisis of Narration by the Korean philosopher Byung-Chul Han. The narration takes the form of a children’s story—a story with a stable structure, in which the protagonist faces problems, overcomes them, and reaches a happy ending. It’s somewhat like a children’s tale trying to reconcile the deep divisions of the nation.
In a Greek-style pavilion like that of Greece, how do you imagine your work will be integrated?
I would say “Greek-mad,” because it was designed in 1934 according to the political directives of the king and the rising fascist elements in Greece. But in this case the integration works differently: the pavilion itself is incorporated into the work.
How much Greece is in this work, and what would you like the ideal viewer to take away from it?
We’ve reached 100 percent Greece. Of course, other countries also appear—Germany, Italy, and Turkey—but always in relation to Greece. As for the viewer, I don’t have a specific expectation; I mostly scatter seeds and wait to see what will grow in each person’s mind.
Andreas Angelidakis will present the proposal Escape Room, curated by Giorgos Bekirakis, at the 61st International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale, which will take place from May 9 to November 22, 2026. The implementing body for Greece’s national participation will be the Metropolitan Organization of Museums of Visual Arts of Thessaloniki – MOMus.
Cover photo © Vasilis Karydis
