To Xasapaki, The Butcher Boy, participation in the group exhibition To Rembetiko, curated by Christoforos Marinos.
February-May 2022, OPANDA, Athens City Gallery.
Αudiovisual installation with sound archive, photographs and embroidered apron.
Photos by Phoebe Giannisi.
Audio file. Recording and editing: Nikos Vamvakas, EPEOT Laboratory, University of Thessaly.
Voices: George Giannisis, Theoklis Kanarelis, Phoebe Giannisi.
Songs: Markos Vamvakaris.
Texts: Autobiography of Markos Vamvakaris, Elias Petropoulos, Phoebe Giannisi.
The work The Butcher Boy is based on Marko Vamvakaris and takes its title from the homonymous "Hashapaki" erotic masterpiece written by Marko and sung by Stella Haskil, a Jewish singer from Thessaloniki.
Vamvakaris practiced the profession of an animal skinner inside the slaughterhouse before he became famous and could live from his music. The profession introduces us to the Agora and to the social, anthropological and musical issues of the hashapiko, one of the two main dances along with the zebekiko of the rebetiko song, said to have originated from the hashapos of Istanbul. The butcher's profession was also practiced by Markos' brother, and there are photographs that attest to the multi-ethnicity of the profession, just as the basis of the early rebetiko songs with mixed Asia Minor melody and instruments of Ottoman origin is multi-ethnic, lyrics from popular chants, and singers and performers from the Greek, Hebrew, Armenian, island and Asia Minor communities inhabiting Piraeus and Athens in the early 20th century. This first panspermia parallels the multi-ethnicity of today's Athens market where the butchers are again bringing their own music of the fringe that we do not know, as was the case with the rebetika back then.
But Hashapaki is a highly erotic and melancholic song, and the love it carries also reminds us how Marcos decided to quit the profession when he was forced to accompany a heartbreakingly crying piglet to the slaughterhouse.
Overcoming the necessity of life with love for other beings, human and non-human, and translating it into song with the vehicle of words, Markos's so simple and staccato, nail-biting words, rhythm and dance is a component of the practice of art for both the creator and the listener and the enthusiastic listener that I am. Markos is a great poet and a handsome man.
The embroidered apron contains Mark's words as an act of my own adoration and care for him, the Hashapaki who moves the knife and wears his apron. I thus enter into the words of the woman in love who is the one who gives her voice to Stella Haskell through Markos's soul.