Welcome to the online edition of the exhibition “Human Exception”, the 2025 annual exhibition of the visual artists’ collective ARC – Art Revisited Collective. The exhibition was held with physical presence at the Alma Mater art space from 28 November to 7 December 2025. The online edition will run until 20 January 2026.

In the curatorial statement, Mr Kapralos notes: “The term ‘human exception’ refers to concepts used in legal, political and philosophical discourse, mainly through the thinking of the Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben. In his work Homo Sacer, Agamben describes the state of exception as a regime in which the law is suspended in the name of protecting the law. Within this framework, a person may be excluded from the rights to which they are entitled, without losing their status as a ‘living being’. This gives rise to the concept of ‘bare life’ — a life that exists but is not protected.

The ‘human exception’ is therefore not so much an official legal term as a critical concept that describes the individual who is excluded from the system of law and political rights, while still remaining subject to power. It is the undocumented migrant, the prisoner without trial, the person who exists but does not ‘count’.

Today, this concept takes on a new, less visible yet massive dimension. The individual is no longer excluded through explicit prohibition or a particular legal framework, but through technological overreach. The images of perfection and standardized success, happiness and existence imposed by social media, together with the increasing power of artificial intelligence systems, are shaping a new, silent regime of exception.

Contemporary individuals are expected to always be efficient, aligned, attractive and fast, and those who deviate, who do not ‘keep up’, who fail to conform to technological or social normality, are not punished. They simply cease to be visible. In this way, the modern individual experiences their existence as Homo Sacer — living in a world that demands perfection without including them in the decision of what defines ‘perfect’. They feel like followers of things, not creators of them. The speed of information, the automation of judgement and the repetition of the idealized self push them into a state of existence without role.”

Participating artists include: Foti Kllogjeri, Anna Gkioti, Maria Genitsariou, Michalis Devanakis, Eleni Tsotsorou, Dimitris Galanakis, Pinelopi Volterra, Kostas Michos, Konstantina Maliarou, Iosif Terzopoulos.