Chicago, IL
A woman crosses the road with a tire. A woman interviews people about their financial debts. A woman tries to stop the passage of time. These could be the first lines in a riddle, and in some sense they are, of the riddles that are the deceptively simple gestures and tools of Angeliki Chaido Tsoli. Tsoli repeatedly seeks what has become so tragically hard to achieve in our dystopian times: some kind of balance. In her attempts, she is sincere, generous, friendly, and also a little bit absurd. At dfbrL8r gallery recently, as the opening event of the venerable performance space’s 10 year anniversary celebrations, Tsoli flew from her native Greece to Chicago, trekked across the cold city with a suitcase, greeted everyone in the gallery personally, gave them each a commemorative sticker, unpacked and built and hung a flag, and hung also a Polaroid that documented the final moments of a past performance project. How do we keep a moment alive, she asked? And she answered: by documenting it, sure, but also by sharing it with others.
—Lori Waxman 2/15/20 5:21 PM