REY AKDOGAN & BIA DAVOU

RECORDS presents rare works from the 1970s by pioneering Greek artist Bia Davou (1932–1996) alongside new works made especially for Paris by New York-based artist Rey Akdogan (*1974, Germany).

Drawn from Davou’s series Circuits and Flowcharts, completed between 1973 and 1975, and from Akdogan’s ongoing Clip on series, this mini-show is the result of associative thinking—inviting temporal switchbacks and reflections on visual classifications.

Several of Bia Davou’s works on paper from that period depict circuit boards, though without any intention of creating an applicable model. Primarily interested in a poetics of communication, she created precise, freehand designs imbued with expressive qualities, often echoing musical notations. Her “translations” suggest technologies both ancient (weaving and writing), and recent (coding).

Rey Akdogan works often attend to the materiality of atmospheres that surround objects of consumption. Starting from materials used for display, she alters them through operations such as peeling, folding and subtracting, revealing their substrata and their inherent structure. She lays hold of the unseen experience as opposed to a standardized way of viewing things. The residues—pigments, hooks, metal clips, remains of foam and velvet—that survive her precise, almost archaeological removals transform the display supports into unexpectedly painterly forms that reveal the tensions between structure and chance, visibility and invisibility, surface polish and manual labor.

The work of Bia Davou was recently included in Radical Software, curated by Michelle Cotton at MUDAM, Luxembourg, and Kunsthalle Wien (2024); The Lips of History, curated by Isabelle Sully at Tale of A Tub, Rotterdam (2024); Frequencies (and atmospheres), curated by Helena Papadopoulos and Andreas Melas at Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Zurich (2023); Siren (some poetics), curated by Quinn Latimer at Amant Foundation, New York (2022–23); Frequencies I at Radio Athènes & Melas Martinos (2022); Bia Davou: Works on Paper from the 1970s at Radio Athènes (2020); Fate of a Cell at Melas Martinos (2020); and Documenta 14, Athens and Kassel (2017). In 2009, EMST – The National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens – presented the first major survey of her work, curated by Tina Pandi and Stamatis Schizakis. Her work is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens, as well as in major private collections.

Rey Akdogan completed the Whitney Independent Study Program in 2004, after receiving her MA from Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, London, in 2001. Recent solo exhibitions include terre, Galerie Anke Schmidt, Cologne (2025); Subtraction, Miguel Abreu Gallery (2023); Lost Record, Commercial Street, Los Angeles (2022); Subtractions, Galerie Anke Schmidt, Cologne (2021); Rey Akdogan, Hannah Hoffman, Los Angeles (2017); Faction, Miguel Abreu Gallery, New York (2017); and Rey Akdogan, Radio Athènes, Athens (2016). Akdogan was included in the 15th Baltic Triennial at CAC Vilnius, Lithuania (2024); the XIV Bienal de Cuenca (2018). Plant Light Curtain, a limited-edition artist book, was published by Minerva Projects in 2023, and #46, a book of the artist’s work, was published by PPP Editions in 2012. Forthcoming in 2026 are solo exhibitions at Haus am Waldsee, Berlin, opening in February 2026, and Kunsteverein Gartenhaus, Vienna, opening in March 2026.

Bia Davou, Contemporary Art Library

Bia Davou, Documenta 14

Rey Akdogan, Contemporary Art Library

Rey Akdogan, Openings - ARTFORUM