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Blooming Field, Alekos Kyrarinis’ new solo exhibition at NLG

Blooming Field, Alekos Kyrarinis’ new solo exhibition at NLG
17.03.2025

The National Library of Greece presents Alekos Kyrarinis' solo exhibition "Blooming Field", from March 18th to June 20th, 2025.

The exhibition includes sixty-one works created in the last four years, which are being showcased to public audience for the first time, while some of them were especially made for the presentation at the National Library.

The large-scale work which gives the exhibition its title, depicts a vibrant blooming field in Kyrarinis' characteristic visual "language", while viewers will encounter the characteristic symbols he has established in his iconography.

The exhibition is accompanied by a detailed catalogue, edited by Stavros Zoumboulakis, the Board President of the NLG.

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Exhibition poster view

The Silent Language of Plants at the Hellenic American Union with works by Christina Mitrentse, Nikos Podias

The Silent Language of Plants at the Hellenic American Union with works by Christina Mitrentse, Nikos Podias
15.03.2025

The Hellenic American Union presents the visual arts group exhibition entitled "The Silent Language of Plants", curated by Nina Fragopoulou, which opens on March 17, 2025, at the Hellenic American Union Galleries and will last till April 14, 2025.

Thirty acclaimed visual artists present works inspired by the beauty and magic of the natural world, opening a creative dialogue between art and the public science of plants. Through paintings, sculptures, photography, video, and installations, the participating artists seek to highlight the unparalleled role of plants and their ongoing contribution to the balance of nature, while reinforcing the sense of responsibility for the protection of our natural world. This exhibition showcases both the beauty and biological significance of plants, as well as their responses to an environment that is constantly deteriorating under the impact of the climate crisis.

As the exhibition's curator and Marine Biology PhD, Nina Fragopoulou notes: "Overall, the contribution of plants to art has a long and rich history and continues to be a significant part of contemporary artistic creation. Artists design plants to serve as a field of study for botanists, ecologists, physiologists, and doctors in the development of medicines. Whether for their symbolic and aesthetic value or their role in everyday life and the creation of a specific emotional atmosphere, plants are an integral part of many artworks, while many artists draw inspiration from contemporary ecological issues related to plants.

The silence of plants is not merely the absence of sound, but a form of existence that invites the viewer to attune to the invisible signs and quiet messages that plants send us, offering a new dimension to our perception of nature and the world around us. With their silent strength, plants remind us of the interdependence of all forms of life and convey a message of solidarity and respect for the Earth and our future.”

Participating artists: Io Angeli, Tzeni Antonopoulou, Annita Argiroiliopoulou, Panagiotis Daramaras, Martha Dimitropoulou, Thalassini Douma, Efi Fouriki, , Marios Fournaris, Marina Genadieva, Nikos Giavropoulos, Miltos Golemas, Marion Inglessi, Marigo Kassi, Rob Kesseler, Panagiotis Koulouras, Vassiliki Lefkaditi, Aggeliki Loi, Alexandros Maganiotis, Michalis Manousakis, Kyriaki Mavrogeorgi, Christina Mitrentse, Antonia Papatzanaki, Konstantinos Patsios, Nikos Podias, Ifigenia Sdoukou, Nadia Skordopoulou, George Stamatakis, Maro Theodorou, Chrysa Vergi, Andreas Vousouras

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Exhibition poster view

Dimitris Anastasiou designs the posters for the 27th TiDF

Dimitris Anastasiou designs the posters for the 27th TiDF
14.02.2025

The visual identity of the 27th Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival, set to begin on March 6, has been unveiled with the presentation of posters designed by Dimitris Anastasiou.

The figures portrayed in the three paintings that make up the posters of the 27th Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival embark on a journey across the Greek landscape, but also to the cities of the future. Without us ever taking a glance on their faces, the people in the Festival’s posters look ahead, towards what is coming up next. The three paintings converse with the tributes and the thematics of this year’s Festival. In the artist’s words: “The three paintings compose a three-fold narrative. If placed aligned, each serves as a continuation of the previous one. The two first (that depict a field of land and a provincial Greek town of the 1960s) allude to the Greek landscape. The third one (that portrays an absurd and imaginary city, whether utopian or dystopian) nods to Artificial Intelligence. Viewers, like time travelers, move within these landscapes.”

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Dimitris Anastasiou's posters view

A Cabinet of Curiosities at MOMus: Works by Christina Mitrentse, Pantelis Chandris, Panos Charalambous

A Cabinet of Curiosities at MOMus: Works by Christina Mitrentse, Pantelis Chandris, Panos Charalambous
12.02.2025

A Cabinet of Curiosities: The first 2025 production of MOMus - Museum Alex Mylona, curated by Yannis Bolis, featuring 78 artists, including Christina Mitrentse, Pantelis Chandris, Panos Charalambous.

The unexpected, the ambiguous and the enigmatic, the imaginary and the grotesque act as a conceptual and spatial grid for the exhibition entitled "a Cabinet of Curiosities" presented at MOMus - Museum Alex Mylona, from 13 February to 31 August 2025. The periodical exhibitions’ space of the Museum in Thissio, Athens, is “conquered” by paintings, prints, sculptures, constructions and videos ‒works remarkably diverse in style, materials, qualities, sensitivities, visual values and aesthetic preferences‒ created by 78 artists.

Emerging in Europe during the Renaissance, cabinets of curiosities came to be identified with a collecting frenzy, aesthetic pleasure and amazement through their wondrous and rare exhibits: these ranged from works of art andrelics to strange and “exotic” artifacts from distant cultures, alongside scientific tools and instruments, objects from the natural world, and items related to medicine, zoology, botany, gemology, mineralogy, and astrology, as well as to the realms of the occult, alchemy, and magic. These cabinets, which can be considered precursors to modern museums, played a pivotal role in shaping Western perceptions of the "other", while also offering an aesthetic, social, anthropological and political space wirh numerous benefits of research.

In the modern, extended Cabinet of Curiosities at MOMus-Museum Alex Mylona, in a multiple connection of images and realities, the exhibits cover a broad thematic spectrum, opening portals to different worlds, times, and regions. The stories they tell, inventive and original, explore concepts such as life and death, nature and technology, vanity and paradox, violence and threat, myth and dream, erotic desire and libido.

The exhibition "a Cabinet of Curiosities" functions as a proposal-challenge for a modern, new "cabinet" which, although apparently creates the fear of emptiness (horror vacui), can nevertheless function as a starting point for a new consideration of the present we live in.

Curated by: Yannis Bolis, Art historian, Head of Department of Contemporary Sculpture, MOMus - Museum Alex Mylona

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Opening: 13.02.2025, 17:00-21:00 - Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday: 10:00-18:00, Thursday: 10:00-21:00 - MOMus - Museum Alex Mylona, Agion Asomaton Sq 5, 105 54 Athens

Steve Gianakos in the 7-day group exhibition Ephemeral Party

Steve Gianakos in the 7-day group exhibition Ephemeral Party
07.02.2025

Curated by Philippos Tsagkridis Panagopoulos and Katerina Chatzi, Steve Gianakos' work will be showcased for seven days (February 11 - February 17, 2025) alongside works by artists from different fields and generations at the newly inaugurated Carco Parking.

Carco Parking, just before commencing its operation, is hosting the group art exhibition Ephemeral Party - the first and last exhibition ever to be held in this space. The Ephemeral Party exhibition redefines an everyday public space into an active hub for encounters. Showcasing 19 artists across various media and materials (painting, sculpture, video, installations, performance art), it explores the fleeting nature of life through the lens of dreams, time, and memories. Emblematic works by Giorgos Bouzianis and Yannis Tsarouchis, alongside a poem by Constantine P. Cavafy are brought into dialogue with modern and contemporary artists from both the local and international art scenes.

The exhibition Ephemeral Party originated as an exploration of fundamental questions about art’s potential to integrate into daily life. Set within a parking, it reinterprets a non-traditional venue as an artistic context, reinforcing the idea that art belongs everywhere: it is unrestricted, inclusive, and accessible to all. Spanning three subterranean levels, the space itself becomes an essential part of the exhibition, amplifying its impact. Visitors are invited to wander through the site and discover works that are "hidden" in unexpected corners.

Concept: Philippos Tsangrides Panagopoulos
Curated by: Philippos Tsangrides Panagopoulos & Katerina Hadji

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Steve Giannakos, My Place is Real Tiny, 1985, acrylics on canvas,162.6x137.2 cm, Irene Panagopoulos Collection.

Christina Mitrentse at the First and Last and Always Psiloritis Biennale

Christina Mitrentse at the First and Last and Always Psiloritis Biennale
02.12.2024

For this year’s First and Last and Always Psiloritis Biennale, curated by Stamatis Schizakis, Christina Mitrentse draws parallels between books and mushrooms both for their morphology and for their rhizomatic developement.

For the work ISBN: 97861880590 with Shiitake (Lentinus- edodes), Mitrentse, like Bradbury’s book- people, recites the entire Erri De Luca's book The Weight of the Butterfly . She then implants Shiitake mushroom mycelium into its pages, covering the surface of the book with mushrooms after consuming the paper and its words. The work was temporarily left on the edges of the Pardi forest, on the southern side of Psiloritis, at the last large hollow tree that gives the area its name: Toumptotos Prinos.** Inside its hollow trunk, the Kermes Oak is full of mushrooms, connected in turn with the mushrooms and roots of the Kermes Oak trees in the forest. Did Erri De Luca’s story pass from the mycelium of the book to the mycelium of Psiloritis?

The First and Last and Always Psiloritis Biennale, curated by Stamatis Schizakis, aspires to become a platform of contemporary outdoor culture. By not aiming at an audience, The First and Last and Always Psiloritis Biennale allows for an exhibiting condition which is unhindered by financial or political interests, but also by the unwritten rules of exhibition viewing interconnected with the current social conventions and morals.

The site of the biennale, Psiloritis mountain, is delineated symbolically as a space of cultural expression through a gesture of conquest, as one conquers a peak and not an inhabited territory that is nationally or culturally determined. The time of the biennale, “always”, results from the acknowledgment of the impossibility of regular event planning in such a untamed place. Its aim is to provide the temporal and spatial framework for the conception, design and potential realisation of artworks that bring the human psyche face to face with nature.

Curation: Stamatis Schizakis

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Christina Mitrentse, ISBN:97861880590 with Shiitake (Lentinus-edodes), Shiitake Fungus, 20x14x10 cm. Photo: Stamatis Schizakis.