Open Hours: Wed-Sun: 16:00 - 20:00

A walk-in art installation where you can also sit down, drink coffee, and chat.

ESPRESSOBAR is a participatory artwork created by Egill Sæbjörnsson and Theo Triantafyllidis, in collaboration with Polina Miliou, exploring world-building, gaming, and performativity, creating a hybrid space where conversation and artistic gestures mix with the commercial format of an espresso bar. ESPRESSOBAR also highlights the cultural exchange between Greece and Iceland, bridging traditions of social gathering and experimental artistic approaches. Guests can sip coffee (by donation) while enjoying the space, engaging in conversation with other guests and the baristas; the work blurs the lines between an art exhibition and commercial spaces, mixing real life with gaming and performance.

Step inside and you’ll think you are in a rather normal cafe. Then, after a while, you will notice that the two baristas are not quite normal—one a jittery prophet of espresso chaos, the other a mellow ritualist of the bean/coffee plant promoting balance. At ESPRESSOBAR, sometimes everything is quiet and normal, but sometimes the coffee is hot, the energy strange, and nothing quite what it seems: orders become incantations, conversation is part of the choreography, and the espresso flows like lava from an ancient machine god. Visitors are both customers and co-conspirators in an unfolding drama of what it means to be a person in society. The work explores our relationship with the non-human species of caffeine, a community built around food and drink, and the collective imagination of humans - and possibly, the coffee plant itself. 

The opening of ESPRESSOBAR has been scheduled to coincide with The DESTE Foundation and the New Museum’s collaborative exhibition In a Bright Green Field at the Benaki Museum, Athens (in which Triantafyllidis and Miliou are featured). Following the debut installation at Ithakis 28 Studio, conversations are underway to bring ESPRESSOBAR to Art Athina, and the ESPRESSOBAR artists are exploring the possibility of permanent installation locations as an operational cafe, signaling a bold new fusion of the art and hospitality worlds.

ESPRESSOBAR is the third in a series of collaborations between Egill Sæbjörnsson and other human and non-human artists and forces. The first espresso bar was created with the imaginative trolls Ugh & Boogar for the Icelandic Pavilion at the 57th Biennale Arte in Venice in 2017. The second espresso bar was created jointly with Icelandic artist Ívar Glói Gunnarsson in Reykjavík 2017. 

Credits

Artists: Egill Sæbjörnsson, Theo Triantafyllidis, Polina Miliou

Design Lead: Fabien Neisius

Production Team:
Nathan Carey, Konstantinos Chatzakis, Katerina Dania, Christos Fousekis, Fabien Neisius

Production Manager: Evelyn Zempou 

Press and Communication: Megan Wray Schertler

Performers:
Fruit Gillette, Konstantinos Chatzakis, Elpida Orfanidou, Anastasis Panagis Meletis, Efthimios Moschopoulos, Tanya Varveri, Ariadne Strofylla, Charis Vlachos 

Barista Bootcamp Instructors: Rachel Ho, Kelly Lagou

Costumes: Vinyl Face and Corset Incident

Acero X Espressobar collection by Virginia Francia

Closing Performative Intervention by Queer Museum Vienna

Photos by Nysos Vasilopoulos

Espressobar ceramics produced in collaboration with Sealed Earth Ceramic Studio.

Coffee & Expertise generously provided by Samba Coffee Roasters.

Paper Pulp generously provided by Heracles Packaging Co. SA.