MONTH IN REVIEW: April 2024
A roundup of this month’s art and design news about the makers and creators from Greece and Cyprus
Mary Katrantzou by Matteo Carassale
Bulgari announced that Greek fashion designer Mary Katrantzou will become the jewelry house's first creative director of leather goods and accessories. In this role, Katrantzou will across the portfolio of leather and silk day bags and one-of-a-kind high jewelry bags, to name a few. About this announcement, Katrantzou asks: “When does something change from being considered adornment to being functional and what can we do in that in-between space? That’s where the mind-blowing Bulgari archive comes in. Studying the originals and seeing how they can be transformed and seeing this category as a creative lab to do it—that to me is incredible.”
Katranzou first started working with the Rome-based brand with Greek roots in 2019 when it loaned her necklaces, bracelets, and earrings for her fashion show at the Temple of Poseidon in Athens.
Bonhams auctioned a collection of works by great Greek artists
The international auction house Bonhams auctioned over 150 works by Greek artists at its Cornette de Saint Cyr house in Paris. This grouping of paintings included pieces by Alecos Fassianos, Lucas Samaras, Nickos Engonopoulos, Theofilos Hadjimichael, and Marina Papatheodorou. Yiannis Moralis’ “Eroticon” painting sold for the highest price at 559,200 Euro.
The Greek Sale was a collaboration between Bonhams in London and Art Expertise, its associates in Athens. "Amassing such a great collection and discovering hidden gems and missing links in the history of Greek Art was a challenging and fascinating experience. We keep responding to the demands and expectations of Greek collectors in Greece and abroad,” said Art Expertise Director, Terpsichore Angelopoulou in response to the organization of the show.
Greek artist Konstantin Kakanias debuted a furniture line with Stefanidou Tsoukala gallery
Konstantin Kakanias first met Veta Stefanidou Tsoukalas, founder of the Stefanidou Tsoukalas Gallery, when she reached out to him to collaborate on a mural on the island of Ios a few years ago. This connection ultimately led to Kakanias’ new home collection with the gallery which features five pieces: a cabinet, mirror, rug, lounge, and side table. The furniture collection is designed in the artist's signature whimsical and colorful style. Illustrations of Greek gods, ancient plants, and nods to the olympics are strewn across the pieces. Mrs. Tependris, the dramatic and eccentric character that Kakanias developed and has experimented with for years also makes an appearance. The collection debuted at the Paris Design & Art Week this year.
The Greek pavilion and Cypriot pavilion at the Venice Biennial opened
The 60th international art festival under the theme “Foreigner Everywhere” opened this month and features pavilions by Greece and Cyprus.
The Greek pavilion “investigates the experience of a village festival by following its course from village square all the way to its outskirts, and to the surrounding land,” said the Onassis Stegi cultural center. It consists of pieces of agricultural irrigation equipment which synchronizes the sound, video, and lighting environments that make up the installation in real time. It was conceived by Thanasis Deligiannis and Yannis Michalopoulos, Elia Kalogianni, Yorgos Kyvernitis, Kostas Chaikalis and Fotis Sagonas. It was curated by Panos Giannikopoulos.
The Cypriot Pavilion is entitled On a wildflower-lined gravel track off a quiet thoroughfare…, which is pulled from the opening sentence of a 2019 Forbes article about a covert spyware operation in Larnaca. With this entry point into the histories of transmission and interference that render the island a "quiet thoroughfare" for clandestine operations and intelligence interception on a global scale, the pavilion assumes the parafictional front of an agency named "Forever Informed," both as physical address and as virtual presence. There are four interconnected spaces in this exhibition and each dive into the histories, narratives, and myths that linger in the new modes of communication, computational logistics, and platform economies. The project proposes ghosting as a paradoxical act of withdrawal and persistence. Curators include FOREVER INFORMED: LLC, Endrosia, Lower Levant Company, Niki Charalambous, Doris Mari Demetriadou, Irini Khenkin, Rafailia Tsiridou, Alexandros Xenophontos, and Haig Aivazian.
Objects of Common Interest was awarded “Designer of the Year” by Elle Decor
Elle Decor named the New York– and Athens–based design studio Objects of Common Interest (OoCI) as the Designer of the Year. This year’s honorees were announced at Salone del Mobile in Milan. The editors in chief of each of the global Elle Decor publications selected the nominees and winners.
Last year, OoCI published a book entitled Noguchi and Greece, Greece and Noguchi about the artist's relationship with the Mediterranean country that he regularly visited for decades. They also completed the design of the restaurant Gallina in Athens, and installed an intricate light sculpture in a derelict plaza in Bergamo, Italy. At Salone del Mobile MIlano this year, the firm debuted a monochromatic dining collection entitled Purple Nebula ar Nilufar and designed a maze-like installation at Villa Borsani for Alvoca.
Founders of OoCI, Eleni Petaloti and Leonidas Trampoukis explain “We like to experiment with the properties of the materials when it comes to our furniture and our site-specific installations.”
Maria Antelman’s show at the Consulate General of Greece in New York opened
Visual artist Maria Antelman was selected as the third artist to exhibit their work at the Consulate General of Greece in New York for the Carte Blanche project which is hosted with support from The Hellenic Chamber of Commerce. Antelman works with 35mm film, photography, sculpture, sound, and animation. Her pieces are an attempt to find a sense of wholeness and purpose in the constantly changing world. She is continuously fascinated by misconceptions about the past and the future as well as new and old technologies.
At the opening of this exhibition, Antelman’s “The Seer (Deep)” took center stage. This piece is an animated photomontage of a face without eyes. The repeated vision on the screen is abstracted and the eyes on the form and not there. It is like a Seer – someone who does not need eyes to see. For this figure, looking deeply into infinite sets of data is enough.
“Moonlight Serenade” is another piece on display. It is a video comprised of archival lunar images from the 1960s. The moonscapes are blended with a stream of random transmissions of shortwave radio recordings. These sounds have been attributed to military espionage and hold encrypted messages about the enemy.
Antelman’s show at the consulate is on view until June 4, 2024.
