After the quarantine, new venues and promising contemporary art platforms draw the spotlight outside Athens, retrospective exhibitions, heavy names and contemporary works are presented, giving extra motivation to our excursions.
Thessaloniki: Programme with identity, leadership and firsts for Ivan Klioun
A stop at the Thessaloniki the summer's artistic map, as the MOMus museum family coordinates a diverse programme with six visiting exhibitions, four of which are all fresh. First and foremost, we have the first international presentation (on such a large scale) of Ivan Klioun, with 383 works and unique archival material dive into the legacy and transcendental spirit of the Russian iconic avant-garde artist.
At the same time, the «When the present is history», a group show born in 2019 in Istanbul, was reconstituted and is presented again, with seventeen contemporary visual artists working with archival material (from Giota Ioannidou to Banu Cennetoglu) reconstructing yesterday by expressing more clearly today. The two-channel video installation «In Vitro, 2019» by the Palestinian artist Larissa Sansour, with which she represented Denmark at the 58th Venice Biennale, while the new film production by the Palestinian artist «The Camp, 2020» by Maria Zervos, who recommends the walking philosophy as a way of life. All exhibitions end in mid-September.
In addition, in the framework of the institution «All Greece is one Culture», the archaeological site of the Galerian complex becomes an experiential healing ground for the wounds of the pandemic. Can we find redemption in our cultural past? Starting from the medical writings of Galen and the ancient Greeks' concepts of health, the action «On the Breathing Path» is a «commentary and aesthetic rupture in the city of confinement», as the accompanying note states.
Three new facilities, Between a pendulum performance by Skourtis and a dance performance, presented in the ruins archives until 9 September: the symbolic «Thresholds» by Mary Roussiotis that move from the air, the painted ’Devotions« by Nandia Skordopoulou and the »Iasi Columns« by Vivetta Christoulis - a simulation of mediated communication with Plexiglas columns that function as elevated soil containers.
Chios: «Fragments of images, fragments of stories»
First appearance for the contemporary art platform IHO -an independent project born in quarantine by a small group of people with curator Akis Kokkinos as its main founder-, first appearance for the Brazilian artist Paulo Nimer Pyota in the country. After two months of field research in collaboration with guides, archaeologists and historians who know the place well, the artist proceeded to an extensive installation in the Old Slaughterhouses, entitled «Fragments of images, fragments of stories».
In the Brazilian's works -mainly large mixed-media canvases and sculptures- the dominant (Western) narratives are being overturned. Creatures, symbols and patterns lead the viewer in a game between «high» and «superficial», as hierarchies are deconstructed and the «glorious» past is stripped bare. «The exhibition uses the diverse histories, ecosystems and textures of Chios as a starting point in order to alleviate symptoms of institutionalization, nationalism and patriarchy that have been engraved in us,» the curatorial text states. Until August 10.
Lesvos: «Go on until you find the sea»
Lesvos draws lines of connection with the international art scene every summer, due to its extroverted and targeted action of today. K-Gold Temporary Gallery. In this year's edition, the platform collaborates with the Mediterranea 19 Young Artists Biennale, selecting six contemporary artists from abroad - Elena Aya Bundurakis, Arunà Canevascini, Andi Gáldi Vinkó, Martine Gutierrez, Lucie Khahoutian and Samira Saidi - to trace Sappho's fingerprints in their own way.
The fragments of her lyrics that survive and especially the myth that Sappho left behind, indelibly influencing Western culture, have been the inspiration for the group's new productions. Central concepts of the lyric poet, such as love, beauty and mystery run through «Go on until you find the sea», but with an alternative perspective that ultimately reveals the Mediterranean as a diverse place of fluidity and coexistence. After the extension, the exhibition will conclude on August 10, with Nicolas Vambouklis guiding the audience through the works of the six photographers, passing the baton to the International Music Festival of Molyvos.
Tinos: «Tinos-avant-garde» and «Touch of Inspiration»
After the completion of the works, the Moschouleios School in the port of Tinos was transformed into a modern exhibition space, adding yet another beehive of culture to the artistically restless island of the Cyclades. Η Roof of Culture and Education starts with «Tinos-avant-garde» (until the end of August), a revisiting the 60s avant-garde with all the prominent people of the time, who connected our country with international trends.
These are, of course, names that have spread their wings to Paris, Rome, London and elsewhere, taking their spirit beyond representation and the boundaries of academia. Thus opened the the multifaceted bag of Greek modernité: the transcendental sculpture of Zongolopoulos, the imaginative naïveté of Fassianos, the abstract expressionism of Stamos, the «fog» of Nikos Kessanlis and the arte povera of Pavlos, among others, which are condensed in the exhibition tribute, including works of historical, large-scale works. Until the end of August.
On the same island the Paul Samios. A year before the sad news of his death arrived, Samios was eagerly planning his solo exhibition at the Alma gallery. The pandemic and the unexpected event postponed the event for this summer, in memory of the now renowned painter for his representational intensity.
Characteristic works from his entire artistic career are included, while the tribute is held in a space of particular beauty, a country house (A touch of new-Aspalatos) in the traditional settlement of Triantaros. Until August 23.
Hydra: «Greek Gift» and «Dancing in chains»
The collection of Dakis Ioannou was the basis of this year's exhibition of the DESTE Foundation in the old slaughterhouses of Hydra: various artists and close collaborators of the Foundation were invited to select new and older works or objects from the collection's depo, forming the exhibition «Greek Gift».
Great names ranging from Marcel Duchamp to George Condo and from Christiana Soulou to Jeff Koons are present, forming a heterogeneous ensemble with new allusions and chain reactions. Exhibition coordination: Massimiliano Gioni. Duration: until the end of October.
At the same time, the explosive temperament of the island enriches the the HYam - the organization born in 2014 to give space to emerging artists from the Mediterranean countries. Two important domestic voices distinguished for the political penetration of their works, Evi Kalogiropoulou and Malvina Panagiotidi, along with two French women, Maude Maris and Eva Nielsen, were selected this year to structure a symbolic dialogue on the echo of the bicentenary since the Revolution. «Dancing in Shackles» continues until August 15.
Andros: «The nobility of the unpretentious»
One of the first to distinguish the talented hand of George Rorri was the collector Vassilis Goulandris, who gave the young painter space and impetus to exhibit, study and develop. The couple's deep relationship with Rorris was sealed by the commission before the opening of the museum in Athens for the portrait painting exhibited on the floor of the Modern Greek painting great retrospective presentation which finally, due to the difficulties of the pandemic, opened this summer at the headquarters of the organization, in Andros.
Collectors and cultural organizations responded to the Foundation's call, resulting in the gathering ofn nearly sixty paintings and drawings from throughout his career Rorri. «The nobility of the unpretentious» is structured in three sections: the relationship between the artist and his studio, the influences and the dialogue between the artist and his teachers, and his -uninterrupted- study of the body. It continues until the beginning of October.
Naxos: «Animated connotations»
«If in contemporary painting there is a return to representation at the expense of both abstract and conceptual art, we owe it to artists like Nikos Moschos, who shapes his perception of art through a new figurative idiom - unpredictable, full of dramatic and mature symbolism», says art historian Francesco Piazza on the occasion of the new solo exhibition presented at Bazaios Tower in Naxos.
His canvases, rich in colours, shapes and figures, provide food for thought, as disparate things and concepts become intertwined in an interesting visual game. Moschos' vocabulary alludes to the flamboyant, pop aesthetic, the immediacy of comics and the logic of collage, while the titles of his works are long, investing in the narrative of the (theatrical) scene he has created. Eighteen paintings by Nikos Moschos, both new and older, some from private collections and others from the Zoumboulakis Gallery, along with two sculptures by the artist, are the inhabitants of the great architectural monument in the island's hinterland, for which there is always a reason to sail. Until the end of September.
Mykonos: a smart hit from the Two Villages
Full of energy and appetite, the gallery Dio Choria returns to its headquarters in Mykonos after its quarantine, since two exhibitions are organized this summer, confirming its international, «fancy» air. In collaboration with Skip Gallery - a collective founded by two London-based visual artists, Catherine Borowski and Lee Baker, to work with «mischievous and witty artists», as they say - a group exhibition is dedicated to a major chapter in art history: the buttocks. Play, eroticism, issues of identity, cultural management and political critique start from the most important member of the human body («Bums», until 15/8).
At the same time, after 29 July, the Two Villages will welcome the new solo exhibition of Emily Ludwig Shaffer («An Island Refrain,» through 8/28.) «Statues,» Shaffer observes, «are those remnants of cultures that embody to a large extent the way a society views its people.» In the Brooklyn-based artist's paintings, statuesque figures round gracefully, in contrast to architectural elements that keep their angles unchanged in a cubist manner, while the setting evokes the style of De Chirico.
Larissa: «Weaving the Future Part II»
«My meeting with the internationally renowned artist Janine Antoni, in January 1996, was the starting point for this exhibition, since I lived next to her for three months, during the time she was weaving the blanket of her dreams: at night she was connected to a device for mapping the electrical activity of the brain, which recorded her dreams, and in the morning she was weaving the blanket with which she covered herself on her own post-modern loom», says art critic Efi Michalaru for the impressive work of the American artist that you can now see at the EMST and for the exhibition she is curating at the Municipal Gallery of Larissa - G.I. Katsigra Museum (until 31/10).
Twenty-nine artists who either deal with traditional techniques, such as embroidery, loom, knitting and sewing, or comment through their work on the importance and symbolism of these techniques, were selected for the group exhibition. Tradition, customs and traditions filtered through topical questions and thoughts, conveying issues of identity, cultural management and the collective past.
Tripoli: «Depictions & Representations of the Greek-speaking world»
The «achos heavy» of the Revolution could not be missing from the summer. The collection of the couple George Gaitanaris & Ios Dolka, by eminent scientists of Tripoli origin living in the USA, is presented - in collaboration with the Michael Cacoyannis Foundation - at the Apostolopoulio Cultural Centre of the Municipality of Tripoli, until early October.
18th century copperplate paintings by J. Stuart and N. Revett - two of the most emblematic views of the travellers of the Greek area -, philhellenic works that ideally bring to life the moments of the struggle, made by famous European painters (Delacroix, Krauss, Lipparini, Vernet etc.) and the entire series of hand-painted lithographs commissioned by General Makriyannis by Panagiotis Zographos, await the visitor.
